Plan lesson materials

Prepare next week’s lesson materials for Wednesday’s 90-minute session. Gather the primary reading, create a one-page facilitator guide with timing for each activity, produce a student-facing one-page summary, and attach three printable handouts. Ensure the guide flags which slides need annotation and which handouts require pre-class printing; have everything ready by Tuesday noon.

Before I finalize the lesson, make it easy for a substitute to run if I get called away. Surface the learning objective at the top, add exact timings for every activity, list expected student outputs and a short troubleshooting note for the two activities that usually fail. Highlight any materials that must be printed or prepared more than 24 hours ahead.

During last week’s session a group activity ran 30 minutes over and we never hit the reflection. Sam the TA told me groups got stuck on instructions. I don’t have a clear way to diagnose whether the instructions are unclear or the activity is too ambitious. Should I simplify the activity, add step-by-step instructions, or shorten it with a built-in cutoff? What is the least risky fix for tomorrow’s class and how do I test which problem it actually was?

Across multiple classes I keep losing 20–30 minutes to activities that either require too much setup or produce outputs students can’t complete in the allotted time. It wastes class momentum and harms credibility. Which habit should I change — writing clearer instructions, prototyping activities, or tightening timing — and propose a concrete weekly routine and one template change that prevents this from happening again.