The Tikkun Project
Lesson
8
Guest Consultation & Action Launch
Concept
A practicing community change-maker can meaningfully improve a plan that's already been tested and refined - students bring a genuinely finished plan to this consultation, not a rough idea, so the guest's feedback has something specific to respond to and can make the plan measurably better.
Focus Question
What essential lessons can we learn from a practicing difference maker to make our project launch successful?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Language, Comprehension Strand C, Grade 3: Formulate purposeful inquiry questions for a guest speaker and synthesize oral advice into actionable written revisions.
Language, Writing Strand D, Grade 3: Revise a written plan based on external feedback, tracking specific changes.
Thinking & Learning Skills
Communication Skills (Purposeful Questioning): Posing high-level inquiry questions rather than surface-level ones.
Self-Management Skills: Completing a structured pre-action checklist before committing to execution.
Context
Armed with their peer-reviewed and criteria-tested plans from Lessons 6-7, students consult a live guest change-maker (or curated digital case studies) to troubleshoot remaining obstacles, complete their pre-action audit, and launch their projects.
Lesson Outline
PREPARING FOR THE CONSULTATION
Review reflection notes and finalized plans from Lesson 7. Introduce the guest Difference Maker (a local environmental officer, school caretaker, principal, or youth volunteer). If a live guest is unavailable, screen two 3-minute video profiles of youth change-makers, or run a Role-Play Panel (student pairs representing "Team Caretaker," "Team Principal," "Team Eco-Lead"). Prepare targeted inquiry questions: What was the single biggest obstacle you faced, and how did you keep going? Which middah was most important when your plan ran into trouble? How can we ensure our projects create lasting change rather than a temporary fix?
GUEST KEYNOTE
The guest shares a real action they took to solve a community challenge, including their planning process and obstacles (10 min).
GETTING FEEDBACK ON EVERY PLAN
Rather than only 2-3 students pitching live, organize the class into small groups of 4-5 with the guest rotating between them for 5-6 minutes each (or, if only a short visit is possible, groups exchange written one-page plans with the guest for brief written comments while the guest circulates). Every student delivers their Lesson 7 one-minute pitch to their group and the guest, and receives at least one specific piece of feedback on their actual plan - not general advice, but a response to what that student specifically proposed. Students annotate their Lesson 7 plan directly, in a different colour, so the change is visible: crossing out, adding, or circling anything the guest's feedback affects.
OPEN Q&A
With any remaining time, the whole class asks prepared inquiry questions of the guest together, recording notes under "Expert Advice for My Launch."
COMPLETING THE PRE-ACTION AUDIT
Students complete a Pre-Action Audit Checklist: selected Impact Tracker; materials and permissions secured; obstacle contingency plan prepared; integrated one peer idea (Lesson 6); integrated the guest's specific feedback from this lesson (visible in the annotated plan). Once all five are checked, the teacher signs off, officially authorizing the 5-day launch.
BEGINNING THE TRACKING LOG
Over the next 5-7 school days, students execute their projects and maintain a daily 2-minute entry in their Difference Maker Tracking Log.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Rotating the guest through small groups is what makes this lesson deliver on the promise that every student's plan gets better through expert input, not just the plans of a few confident volunteers - the same principle used for guest feedback in the Accessibility and Sustainability units.
Requiring visible, different-coloured annotation on the plan keeps the evidence of revision attached directly to the artifact it changed.
Providing a Role-Play Panel fallback if a live guest is unavailable means the lesson's core value - testing a plan against outside expertise - survives even without external scheduling cooperation.