Lesson Opening Designer Agent Skill

Design a lesson opening that activates prior knowledge and connects previous learning to today's content.

Context cost
4k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
1 file · 16.2 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
not declarednone named by its author
Last change
—v1.0
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

Design a lesson opening that activates prior knowledge and connects previous learning to today's content. Use when planning lesson starters, retrieval openers, or advance organisers.

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

advance-organiserdocumentationlesson-openinglesson-planningprior-knowledgeretrieval

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md16.2 kB · preview
--- # AGENT SKILLS STANDARD FIELDS (v2) name: lesson-opening-designer disable-model-invocation: false user-invocable: true effort: medium # EXISTING FIELDS skill_id: "explicit-instruction/lesson-opening-designer" skill_name: "Lesson Opening Designer" domain: "explicit-instruction" version: "1.0" evidence_strength: "strong" evidence_sources: - "Rosenshine (2012) — Principles of Instruction, Principle 1: begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning" - "Ausubel (1960) — The use of advance organizers in the learning and retention of meaningful verbal material" - "Marzano (2007) — The Art and Science of Teaching: activating prior knowledge and setting purpose" - "Agarwal et al. (2012) — Classroom-based retrieval practice improves learning with minimal lesson time" - "Hattie (2009) — Visible Learning: prior knowledge activation as foundational to new learning" input_schema: required: - field: "todays_topic" type: "string" - field: "previous_learning" type: "string" - field: "student_level" type: "string" optional: - field: "opening_time" type: "string" - field: "student_profiles" type: "array" - field: "lesson_objectives" type: "string" - field: "assessment_data" type: "string" output_schema: type: "object" fields: - field: "retrieval_starter" type: "object" - field: "prior_knowledge_bridge" type: "string" - field: "learning_intention" type: "string" - field: "opening_script" type: "string" chains_well_with: - "retrieval-practice-generator" - "explicit-instruction-sequence-builder" - "spaced-practice-scheduler" - "checking-for-understanding-protocol-designer" teacher_time: "3 minutes" tags: ["lesson-opening", "retrieval", "prior-knowledge", "advance-organiser", "lesson-planning"] ---
70# Lesson Opening Designer
71
72## What This Skill Does
73
74Generates an evidence-based lesson opening comprising three components: a retrieval practice starter that reviews previous learning, a prior-knowledge bridge that connects what students already know to today's new content, and a learning intention framing that sets purpose without revealing all answers. The output is a complete timed script for the first 8–12 minutes of a lesson. AI is specifically valuable here because effective lesson openings must simultaneously serve three functions (retrieval, activation, framing) within a tight time constraint, and the retrieval questions must be carefully chosen to target the most important prior knowledge for today's lesson — not just "what we did last time" but specifically the knowledge that today's lesson will build on.
75
76## Evidence Foundation
77
78Rosenshine (2012) places daily review as Principle 1 of effective instruction: "The most effective teachers began their lessons with a five-to-eight-minute review of previously covered material." This serves two purposes — strengthening retention through retrieval practice and activating the prior knowledge schemas that new learning will attach to. Ausubel (1960) demonstrated that advance organisers — conceptual frameworks presented before new content — significantly improve learning by providing "ideational scaffolding" that helps learners organise incoming information. Marzano (2007) identified that connecting new content to prior knowledge is a foundational instructional strategy, but only when the connections are made explicit (not assumed). Agarwal et al. (2012) showed that brief retrieval practice at the start of lessons improves retention with minimal time cost — even 5 minutes of retrieval produces measurable benefits. Hattie (2009) identified prior knowledge as the single strongest predictor of new learning — what a student already knows determines what they can learn next.
79
80## Input Schema
81
82The teacher must provide:
83- **Today's topic:** What will be taught today. *e.g. "Adding fractions with unlike denominators" / "The causes of World War I: the alliance system" / "Writing a balanced argument paragraph"*
84- **Previous learning:** What was recently taught that connects. *e.g. "Last lesson: equivalent fractions. Last week: adding fractions with like denominators" / "Last lesson: the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand"*
85- **Student level:** Year group. *e.g. "Year 8"*
86
87Optional (injected by context engine if available):
88- **Opening time:** Minutes available (default 10)
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md2,354 words
Files1
Licencenot declared
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈710
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
3,340
on trigger
The instruction body, read only when the skill fires.
2.0%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 20% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

4k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

Its SKILL.md does not declare which tools it asks the agent for, so what it touches is whatever the instructions themselves ask for — read them before you install it.

What it asks for
Writes filesnot declared
Network accessnot declared

This SKILL.md carries no allowed-tools line, so neither is declared. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

1 file, 16.2 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md16.2 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 1 file you can review in full before installing.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Lesson Opening Designer · 4k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/lesson-opening-designer/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/lesson-opening-designer" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer ] || { mv .claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/lesson-opening-designer" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add garethmanning/lesson-opening-designer

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/lesson-opening-designer/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/lesson-opening-designer" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/lesson-opening-designer" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/lesson-opening-designer/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Version1.0
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencegarethmanning/lesson-opening-designer

Versions

v1.0 is what is on the shelf; no release here carries a date. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

v1.0
  • No earlier releases have been published to the marketplace.
Pinning

The install command always fetches the release that is current the day you run it — v1.0 today — and cannot ask for an earlier one. The copy on your disk does not change until you run it again.

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