How to use NotebookLM for teaching

NotebookLM is a practical tool for educators building course content:

Lesson planning — Add your source materials (textbook chapters, research papers, articles) and ask: "Generate a lesson plan outline for this topic" or "What are the 5 most important concepts students need to understand?"

Discussion questions — "Give me 8 discussion questions that would work well for a seminar on this material."

Student-facing summaries — Create simplified explanations: "Explain this paper as if for a student encountering it for the first time."

Audio Overview for students — Generate a podcast-style Audio Overview of the reading list before class. Students can listen as a primer before engaging with primary texts.

Differentiated content — Ask for explanations at different levels: "Explain this for a beginner" vs. "Explain this for an advanced student."