Split the Planning: Keep One Shared Plan

In my first group co-teaching partnerships, we didn’t sit down and do the division of labor. We flew by the seat of our pants instead. Writing that down later, along with the central agreements we came to, made our partnership dynamic much more impactful and effective.

Splitting the work can go too far, though. Say two co-teachers divide a unit by days. One plans Monday and Tuesday, the other plans Wednesday through Friday, and each builds a separate plan. The workload gets lighter. Students, meanwhile, get two different classes that happen to share a room.

The fix is to split the planning jobs and keep one plan. The free Planning Role Breakdown (Chapter 5) is written for exactly that: divide planning responsibilities between co-teachers without separating the partnership. Pair it with the before-lesson decisions on For Teachers, including a shared objective and a clear answer to what each teacher will do before, during, and after the lesson.

Give every planning job an owner and a due day

Planning job	Owner	Due
Shared lesson objective and success criteria	Shared	Before materials draft
Core content and examples	Teacher A or B	Mid-week
Scaffolds, accommodations, and materials	Teacher A or B	Mid-week
Exit check / evidence of learning	Shared	Before the lesson
Family or specialist communication tied to the lesson	Named owner	As needed

Change the owners to fit your team. Keep it to one shared plan file.

The two Shared rows matter most. When both names sit on the objective and the exit check, either teacher can step to the board, check for understanding, or change the next move without rewriting the lesson. Students don’t have to guess which adult owns the objective.

If you’re short on time, split the drafting. Keep the objective and the exit check shared.

If your team already uses weekly backward planning, keep that rhythm. The earlier post Weekly Backward Planning and the free Weekly Backward Planner give you the calendar for the week. This table is about who owns which planning job inside it.

Co-Teaching Evolved, by Matthew Rhoads and Dr. Belinda Dunnick Karge, starts with clear roles, shared expectations, and essential agreements, then the strategies (The Book).

Try it this week

1. Pick one upcoming lesson.
2. Write a single shared objective in one shared plan.
3. Assign who drafts materials, who prepares scaffolds, and who owns the exit check.
4. Open the plan together for ten minutes before the lesson and make sure both of you could teach from it.

All 30 reproducibles are free in the resource library, no email gate. The full framework is in Co-Teaching Evolved by Matthew Rhoads and Dr. Belinda Dunnick Karge (Solution Tree).

Bring the framework to your school or district. Professional learning connects the book, the tools, and your team’s real implementation priorities. Explore Consulting.