Switch course ▾
Session 5. Putting It Together: Plan, Peer-Review, Improve
Objective. Write a complete one-page lesson plan for a 45-minute lesson, review a colleague's plan with a checklist, and revise your own plan using the feedback.
A plan is only useful if you can read it in a minute and trust it when the lesson goes sideways. This last session puts sessions 1 to 4 on one page and asks a colleague to read it. Fresh eyes find gaps you cannot see in your own work, such as minutes that do not add up or an objective with no evidence. You leave with a plan you can teach and a habit of sharing plans.
Key ideas
The one-page plan
- One page is enough: topic and textbook page, objective, evidence, five timed stages, key questions, materials.
- Write the objective and the evidence first, then fill the stages (backward design).
- The minutes must add up to 45, with a few minutes of slack.
- A plan you can read in one minute is a plan you will actually use.
Peer review with a checklist
- Review the plan, not the person: read it silently for three minutes, then tick the checklist.
- Could I see the objective being met? Do the minutes add up? Is there a check for understanding?
- Give two strengths and one change, each pointing to a line of the plan.
Revise and plan for the unexpected
- Change the one or two things that matter most; do not rewrite everything.
- Add a Plan B line: what you cut if you lose 10 minutes (fire drill, late start, power cut).
- Add a Plan C line for early finishers or a second group that is behind.
Keep plans reusable
- After teaching, write two lines on the plan: what worked, what to change.
- Keep plans in one folder or notebook, named by class and topic, so next year starts from a draft.
- Share a plan with a colleague who teaches the same grade; two heads halve the work.
Plan, review, teach, improve
Why a second reader sees more
When you write a plan, your head fills the gaps: you know what you mean by a good example, so you do not write it down. A colleague cannot do that. If your partner cannot tell what students will be doing at minute 22, a substitute teacher could not either. This is why the checklist asks about lines of the plan, not about you.
Keep feedback small and specific: two strengths and one change. Strengths matter because the author needs to know what to keep. One change matters because a long list gets ignored. The author listens without defending, and decides afterwards what to take.
Plan B and Plan C: being ready for a bad day
School days rarely run to the minute. A short assembly, a late bell, a power cut or a class that is slow with the starter can remove 10 minutes. Decide in advance what goes: usually part of independent practice, never the check for understanding at the end, because without it you do not know whether the objective was met.
Plan C is for the opposite problem: some students finish early. A single extension question that uses the same idea, written on the plan, saves you from improvising. Both lines take two minutes to write and make the plan reusable next year.
Examples from the classroom
A partner finds the missing evidence
Scene. Dilnoza teaches Grade 7 geography in Fergana, 30 students. Her objective is 'understand the Fergana Valley climate'. Her partner Aziz ticks 'not yet' on evidence and asks: how will you see understanding? Dilnoza rewrites it as 'students label three climate facts on a blank map and explain one in a sentence', and adds an exit ticket with that task in the last five minutes.
Insight. A vague objective becomes teachable when the evidence is written down; a second reader spots this fast.
Minutes that do not add up
Scene. Malika plans a Grade 4 Uzbek reading lesson in Tashkent: 8 + 12 + 15 + 15 + 5 minutes. Her colleague adds them and gets 55. They agree to shorten the input to 8 minutes and independent reading to 10, leaving 3 minutes of slack. Malika also writes a Plan B: if the lesson starts late, skip the second reading task.
Insight. Budgeting minutes on paper prevents rushing the closure; a Plan B line decides in advance what to cut.
Sharing a plan across schools
Scene. Aziz teaches Grade 9 chemistry in a Russian-medium school in Samarkand. After teaching his one-page plan on acids, he adds two lines: the exit ticket showed 12 of 28 students confused the formulas; add a sorting task next time. He sends the page to a colleague in a nearby Uzbek-medium school, who translates the key questions and uses it the same week.
Insight. A plan with notes after teaching is a reusable asset, not a one-time document.
Common pitfalls
- Writing a plan so long that you never reread it during the lesson.
- Treating peer review as a judgement of the teacher instead of a check of the plan.
- Giving ten comments at once, so the author does not know where to start.
- Never writing down what worked, so the same problems return next year.
Write, Swap and Improve a One-Page Plan
- Choose one real lesson you will teach soon (one textbook page). Fill in the one-page template in the kit: objective, evidence, five timed stages, key questions, Plan B (about 15 minutes).
- Swap plans with a partner. Read silently for 3 minutes and tick the peer-review checklist.
- Give feedback in 4 minutes: two strengths and one change, each pointing to a line. The author listens and takes notes, without defending.
- Revise your plan (about 8 minutes): make the one or two most important changes and write your Plan B line.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- What did your partner notice in your plan that you had missed?
- Which part of the plan was hardest to write, and why?
- When will you teach this lesson, and who will you ask to look at your next plan?
Reflect
- Which colleague could review your plans regularly?
- What is the first lesson of next week that deserves a one-page plan?
- What will you cut first when a lesson loses 10 minutes?
Try it tomorrow
- Use the one-page template for the next lesson you teach, and keep the page on your desk during the lesson.
- Ask one colleague to review a plan with the checklist, and review theirs in return.
- After the lesson, write two lines on the plan: what worked and what you will change.
Further reading and links
A good plan is short, starts from the objective, fits in 45 minutes, and gets better when a colleague reads it.