What We Want Most
January 1, 1970
“Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst.” ~William Penn
Do you catch yourself staring out the window? Are you forgetful? Restless? Suffering from more than a touch of spring fever? If you feel this way, just imagine how your students feel!
The end of the school year is a time when teachers and students tend to squander the brief class time they have left in a variety of ways. Teachers may decide to forgo a tough unit of study for one less challenging or assign less work because their hearts are just not in fighting an uphill motivational battle. Students are also guilty of wasting significant amounts of class time with numerous distractions.
Are you beginning to notice some of these signs that your students are so distracted as the end of the school year approaches that they are really not learning much no matter what you do to hold their attention?
• Increased talking and other off-task behavior
• Lack of serious preparation
• Poor quality of work
• Incomplete class work assignments
• Increased small misbehaviors
• Increased questioning of authority
• Heads down and sleepiness
Between your students’ lack of instructional achievement and your personal distraction lies the potential for a great deal of trouble. As a professional, it is up to you to set the tone for a successful class. The choice is completely yours. School days can seem endless this time of year or you can find ways to keep yourself and your students energized, productive, and on track.
One sure way to accomplish this is to consider how well you use the instructional time allotted to you and your students. Ask yourself these questions.
• Do you approach each school day with the same eager intensity that you did earlier in the year?
• Do you still plan engaging lessons that are designed to help students succeed?
• Do you encourage students to work with purpose? To accomplish the great things you know they are capable of?
If you could not answer “yes” to each of these questions, then you may need to reexamine how you are using your school time.
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” Robert Schuller
Some Thought-Provoking Help in Adjusting Your Attitude
Here is a very quick and certain way to make an attitude check: set aside some time to download and watch the free video on time management by Professor Randy Pausch, a virtual reality pioneer and cancer patient. Millions of people were inspired last fall when his now famous “The Last Lecture” presentation was an Internet sensation. To download his moving lecture on time management, just search with “Randy Pausch” and “time management” as key terms. You will find it difficult to waste time after viewing this video.
”Lost time is never found again" ~Benjamin Franklin
Quick Tips on Using Time Well in Your Classroom
Here is a quick list of some ways to make every minute count in your classroom (adapted from Discipline Survival Kit for the Secondary Teacher).
1. Even though it is May, you still need to plan and teach lessons that are focused around a clearly-stated objective. Make sure that your students know what this objective is each day so that they know the purpose of their work.
2. Don’t waste your students’ time by assigning an inappropriate amount of work. Asking them to solve 50 problems is a waste of time if only 10 or 20 is a sufficient amount of drill or practice for mastery.
3. Always stack or sequence assignments so that once a student completes a task, another one awaits. Don’t expect students to quietly waste time waiting for others to finish. Bored and frustrated students are seldom quiet.
4. Have set procedures at the start and end of class to that students know what to do and can accomplish it independently. The routines at the end of the year should not vary much from the routines you established at the beginning of the term.
5. Never give in to student requests for free time, not matter how often they beg. Your contract does not stipulate that you have been hired to allow students to sit around doing. Use your class time purposefully. Teach!
6. Make sure that the assignments you assign are relevant, based on real life needs, and well-paced.
7. Resist the temptation to be distracted during a lesson by students who want to chat or otherwise stray from the topic. There is a strong probability that they are not asking you personal questions because they really, really want to hear your opinions.
8. When a disruption occurs, work to minimize it. Your attitude and actions determine the significance of class room disruptions.
9. Be flexible. Many teachers like to stick with a lesson plan even if it is not working. Always have a backup plan in case the first approach does not work well. Switch when you see that students are not learning.
10. The sooner students know how they did on an assignment, the better. Give prompt and constructive feedback.
11. Even though you may be distracted and restless, you do not have the right to waste your students’ time because you are not ready for class.
12. Make a point of interacting positively every day with every student. If you want to encourage on-task behavior, you must let your students know that you care about them.
13. Arrange activities so that your students can interact positively. Students who collaborate well almost always tend to be more successful than those students who struggle alone.
14. Don’t stop assessing their prior knowledge. Many teachers waste precious time because they incorrectly assume that all students have the same background knowledge. Even at the end of the year, students will have varying degrees and types of background knowledge.
15. Keep small misbehaviors that way.
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” ~ Carl Sandburg
It’s Not Too Late to Solve Some Problems
Another way to spend time at school wisely is to brainstorm possible solutions to the problems your students may be experiencing due to poor time management. Try this example of a brainstorm response to a classroom problem involving time management.
Problem: Your students begin working on a lesson, but their interest soon flags because it seems to them that it will take too long to accomplish. They become bored and restless. Some students stop working while still others work slowly and carelessly. After a few futile reprimands, you realize that you must take action. What can you do to turn this problem around?
Possible Solutions:
• Break the assignment into smaller blocks of work and encourage students to complete a block at a time.
• Pair students to work together to accomplish the task.
• Set a time limit and ask students to work hard for that time (15 minutes is a reasonable time). At the end of the time, encourage students to share what they learned. After this break, go back to work.
• Offer more models and demonstrations or ask students to create graphic organizers so that they know exactly what to do.
• Give students a checklist to follow so that they can keep track of their own progress on the steps of an assignment.
• Be specific about the time limits for an assignment. You could even time them as they work. This will encourage students to work toward a goal.
• Whenever possible, allow students a choice of activities. For example, if you allow them to choose which activity they would like to complete first, students may work with more focus.
• Create and display a graph of how well they work on assignments: how many minutes were spent, the success rate of a particular question, or the rate of completion.
• Reward students who successfully complete their work on schedule.
“The bad news is that time flies. The good news is that you’re the pilot.” ~Michael Althsuler