TPE 10: Instructional Time

Fifty minutes may not seem like a long time, but heading into a classroom period without a good plan in mind regarding what one, as a teacher, plans on accomplishing would be an exercise in frustration. To that end, I make it a priority to maximize student achievement by teaching lessons that are interesting, creative, and adhere to the state standards.

One way in which I accomplish this goal is by having a classroom schedule. The students in my class last year (my first year of teaching) quickly learned that every day there would be a quote on the board and that, upon the ringing of the tardy bell, they were to begin writing a response to the quote in their journal. I used this time - the first five to seven minutes of class - to take attendance and deal with any ultra-pressing issues that students had for me. It did not take long for this to become a procedure in my classroom; the majority of the students began to write without my telling them to do so.

Another procedure that I established quickly involved the passing in of homework. The students learned that I expected them to do this after the journaling had wrapped up. Papers were to be passed forward and to the right, until all assignments were together on the desk of a student nearest my desk. This procedure not only helped me collect homework in an expeditious manner, but it prevented students from working on their homework during my lesson.

These became routines, as did the final minute or so of class, when students initially tended to congregate around the doorway, waiting for the dismissal bell to ring. I enforced a procedure, however, wherein nobody was allowed to leave the classroom until every individual was in his or her correct seat. This prevented students from wandering aimlessly as the bell drew ever nearer and helped keep everyone on task for as much as possible.

As for the state standards, I hung posters on the wall listing the writing and reading requirements. This is an area in which I need to improve, however: sometimes I'd make little posters with more detailed standards on 12x17 pieces of colored construction paper and hang them on the whiteboard in front of the class, but sometimes I'd forget to do this. Next year, I'm moving into a new classroom with a more reliable/dependable large screen TV/computer connection, so I'll be able to put the lesson's appropriate standards up on the TV screen like the lion's share of the rest of the teachers do.

All of these standards are great and all, but they don't really help with when the students ask "why are we doing this?" I try to give answers beyond "because state standard W1.2 says that blah blah blah," attempting instead to find real-world reasons for the lessons. This is easy for activities like writing a business letter, which will obviously be of great help in the future, but a little more abstract and difficult when it comes to questions like "why are we reading these slave narratives?" When questions like that are posed, I answer something along the lines of that we must know where we've been to know who we are and where we're going, or that everyone can benefit from reading about the lives of others. If they don't buy this, I just tell them that state standard W1.2 says blah blah blah.

While students are working on assignments in class, say completing a worksheet after I've discussed the instructions and objectives, I wander through the class, checking progress, offering help, etc. This enables me to individualize instruction for those who need it while allowing those who can fly to go about it at their own faster pace. In this way, I adjust my time usage in order to optimize learning opportunities for all students. Next year I'm thinking of requiring that students have a free reading book with them every day that they can read if they finish their assignment early.

In conclusion, I feel that I did a fairly competent job of regulating and maximizing my instructional time in my first year on the job. There are changes that can be made and procedures that can be tweaked, but I am confident that very few of my students would say that my classes were poorly-run or a waste of time.