Enter the start time of the lesson and the expected duration of each section of the lesson (activity or teaching) into this spreadsheet and it will calculate what time each section will finish. This enables you to experiment with different combinations of tasks to see what you can fit in your lesson. It also gives you a time to aim for to complete each section, so you know whether to speed up or slow down when delivering it- I like to write this in the PowerPoint notes section for each slide. Both a blank template and a populated example are provided.

This Powerpoint timer automatically shows the students how long they need to think individually and how long they have to discuss in pairs before you end the task.