5 Powerful Strategies to Maximize Instruction Time and Learning

August 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As a teacher, you are perpetually pressed for time. You have a syllabus to cover under a tight schedule. Many school events and activities can affect instruction time. There are even weather disturbances that threaten the instruction time you have planned really well for.

With a few tweaks in your routine and teaching strategy, you can maximize instruction time and learning in your classes.

Manage Learning Time

1. Master Classroom Management

One of the purposes of classroom management is to maximize instruction time and learning. The more you can get your students to focus on the material at hand, the more learning will happen in the classroom.

A lot of instruction time can be stolen when the class is not under a proper system. Students going off to toilet at any time, getting kids to settle down before lesson, or silly talking and playing can take precious minutes every lesson time and these adds up to hours throughout the school year.

Get a solid plan in place so that there are minimal distractions during your class.

2. Promote a Positive Learning Environment

Brain Based Science tells us that students learn better in a happy and positive environment. Know your students well. Develop a positive relationship with them. Praise them. Catch them doing good. Give positive and public recognition for deserving behavior and achievements. By doing so, they will be motivated to learn and behave well under your leadership.

Happy Children

3.  Set a time limit for each task.

As time is your most critical resource for instruction time, always give them a time limit for a task to keep their focus on it.

In relation to this, when planning your lesson, consider the time limits of your tasks so you do not cram in your lesson plan too many tasks and expect them to finish them all.

4. Get your students to participate.

Avoid Teacher-Centered Instruction. Remember that the student brain is a muscle rather than an empty vessel waiting for knowledge to pour in.

Incorporate paired activities and group activities. Get them talking and discussing with their classmates. Have them teach each other each tiny part of your lesson.  We learn much more when we try to teach the material to others.

5. Plan in advance!

What should you plan in advance? For one, you should plan in advance the key points you want your students to take away from your class. Have that list during your class time and use it to track your progress within the allocated class period.

Many times, we feel confident about our material that we overlook some major points we want to cover.

The other thing you should plan in advance is the homework. Make sure the homework will reinforce the major points you want your students to learn and master. The homework should serve as extension learning and not because you gave homework out of punishment or you ran out of time covering your material.

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What are your other strategies in maximizing instruction time? Share them in the comments below :)

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Argee Abadines

Argee Abadines is the founder and chief content engineer of this website. He is a brain based educator and his educational interests are higher order thinking, creativity, and educational technology. He reads up regularly about trends in education and online media. You can visit his personal blog at pinoyminimalist.com

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3 Simple and Interesting Classroom Management Tools To Try Out in your Classroom

July 29, 2012 By 1 Comment

For the past couple of weeks, I have been reading up on classroom management and clearly it is among the top 3 things every teacher should master.

Kids will be kids and they will misbehave. That’s just how they are.

Classroom management will not eliminate misbehavior but it can reduce it drastically that effective learning will occur.

Research shows that effective classroom management leads to higher engagement which ultimately leads to higher achievement scores, which is often the most critical measure of learning.

Good Classroom Managers are teachers who understand and use specific techniques. Awareness and training in these techniques can change teacher behavior, which in turn changes student behavior and ultimately affects student achievement positively. ~Robert Manzano, 2003

I came across an awesome book by David Adamson, Classroom Management: 24 strategies Every Teacher Needs To Know.  

It’s an excellent read and I found I have been doing some of the strategies already but there are still plenty of strategies I can adopt to create a better learning climate in the classroom.

I’d like to share 3 interesting strategies from the book that I’m trying to integrate in my classes. You can also try it to see if it works in your classrooms.

1. Social Cues

The author notes that a misbehavior is your cue to use social cues.

For example, if Ted starts to chat with his seatmate, it’s time to use social cues by praising two or three kids near Ted who are meeting your expectations, particularly on being quiet while doing individual work instead of chatting with seatmate.

Social Cues to state Expectations

It’s important that when you praise the kids meeting your desired behavior, the whole class can hear it. This sets the tone subconsciously to the whole class of your expectations and in reality, most kids would want to meet the expectations of the teacher, unless you’re totally evil or something :)

The critical question for this strategy is: “What should their behavior look or sound like?” 

2. Self Starters

The idea is simple: Have a task for students to begin working on immediately when your class with them begins. Once this routine is integrated, your students should be working on the self starter even before you have entered the classroom.

Self Starters

Self starters teach students to work independently and it sets the tone for the rest of your class period.

Many times, classes waste time because the students are not ready for learning. You can easily waste 10 minutes of learning time getting your students to settle down for the lesson.

So the self starter you put on the board for your class should be simple and it should be designed to be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. It should not be difficult so that majority of the students can handle it.

The goal of this strategy is not really grading the work they do for the self-starter, it’s just to set the tone early for your class that it is serious in learning.

3. Clipboard Technique

Here you will use the power of the clipboard. When a student misbehaves, you move closer to the student and in an obvious manner, place a mark on your clipboard.

Clipboard Technique

Your clipboard will have your class list and will be used to monitor the behavior of students. If you have a class contract with your students, you can use it to monitor individual behavior contracts. It can also serve as feedback when you meet with their parents.

The Clipboard Technique is not used only for marking misbehavior. It is also to track positive behavior and you can have a class-wide incentive for accumulation of positive marks in your clipboard.

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So there, 3 Interesting Classroom Management Strategies to try out.

Share in the comments below what you think about it. Better still, try it out and share the results of these strategies :)

What are your other favorite classroom management techniques?

 

Argee Abadines

Argee Abadines is the founder and chief content engineer of this website. He is a brain based educator and his educational interests are higher order thinking, creativity, and educational technology. He reads up regularly about trends in education and online media. You can visit his personal blog at pinoyminimalist.com

More Posts - Website

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