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STRATEGY
Principles of Effective Classroom Time Management
Learning to use class time wisely is a skill that will take time, patience, and practice to acquire; however, the rewards are well worth the effort. You and your students will benefit every day from classes that run smoothly. You will eventually get many tips from your colleagues and learn much from your own classroom experiences; until then, you can start with these general principles for using class time wisely:
- Reduce distractions. The old image of restless students staring dreamily out of the window has much truth in it. Students of all ages are always able to entertain themselves by paying attention to distractions in the classroom rather than focusing on the teacher. Look around your classroom for things that might distract your students. Some obvious sources of distractions might be windows, desks too close together, doorways, pencil sharpeners, trash cans, screen savers, too many posters or banners, graffiti, or—the most enticing one of all—other students.
- Raise student awareness. Your students need to learn that time is important in your class. This doesn't mean that you should rush them through their tasks, but you should discuss the importance of using class time wisely, making sure that your students understand that you expect them to work productively while they are in your class.
- Establish routines. If you have routines for daily activities in your class, your students will save minutes each day and hours each week instead of wasting time because they don't know what to do.
- Monitor constantly. Monitoring your students is of primary importance for the smooth running of your class for a variety of reasons, not just for efficient time use. Staying on your feet instead of sitting at your desk will allow you to help students while their problems are still manageable.
- Be very organized. If your students have to wait while you find your textbook or a
handout, that is a poor use of their time. Make it a point to be so organized that you
will be able to keep yourself and your students on task.
- Have a backup plan. If a lesson isn't working, if a guest speaker cancels, or if the equipment you need to use isn’t working, you will need an alternative way to teach the material you planned to cover. Have a backup plan in place so that you can quickly shift gears if your first plan doesn't work out.
- Take a door-to-door approach. Engage students in learning from the time they enter your classroom until the time they leave. Many teachers make the mistake of
thinking that students need a few minutes of free time at the start of class and at the end of class to relax. Although students do need time at both ends of class to make effective transitions, they do not need free time to do this. Instead, give them interesting activities that relate to the day's lesson.
- Use small blocks of time. Just as you can accomplish many of your own tasks with brief bits of concentrated effort, so can your students. If you only have five minutes until dismissal, don't allow students to do nothing because it will take too long to
get them working on a new assignment. Instead, use this time and other snippets of time in a class to review or to teach a new fact.
- Teach to an objective. If you teach a subject that you enjoy personally, it is tempting to spend more time on it than the curriculum dictates. Stick to your plan so that your students won't be shortchanged on other topics. In addition, keep the purpose of the work that you are asking your students to do clearly in mind and communicate the purpose to them. If you are unclear about why your work together is important, your students will also be unclear, and you will have trouble keeping them on task.
- Give enough work. If students finish a task, there should be another waiting for them. For example, students who sit around after a test waiting for others to finish before going on to the next activity are obviously wasting time. Always make sure that your students know what they are supposed to do after they finish their current assignment.
Excerpted from Section Twelve, "Make the Most of Your Instructional Time," of The First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide, by Julia G. Thompson. Copyright © 2007 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. This material is used by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Thank you, Julia G. Thompson and Jossey Bass, for contributing this month's strategies!
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