EVERY MINUTE COUNTS!
Pacing is a challenge for all teachers. Pacing a lesson requires planning and predicting your students’ needs, and taking students’ prior knowledge in to consideration. Always remember that it is better to over plan than to not plan enough.
Here are some tips from Julia Thompson from her book First-Year Teacher’s Survival Kit.
• Be as flexible with your schedule as you can. Many times the problem with pacing is that the work takes much longer than expected. Focus on what needs to be taught and add enrichment materials later. Know your district and state guidelines to guide you in your planning.
• Over plan! Always have one more activity that you can offer to keep your students learning. Make sure that the work is purposeful and not just busy work.
• Homework assignments should be carefully planned and should enrich the learning. Having students complete an assignment that was started in class is not homework.
Vary the activities throughout your lesson and include “brain breaks” (see Teachable Tips September 3). Break up your lesson into ten-minute blocks to check for understanding.
Above all, remember to teach “bell-to-bell”. If you are finished with a lesson and have a few extra minutes, ask students to “name one thing you learned today”, or “what would you like to learn more about?” Have them review key points in the lesson, or reflect in their journal.
Five minutes may not seem like much, but five minutes here and five minutes there add up. Five minutes each day equals twenty five minutes in a week. Five minutes a day of wasted time adds up to an hour and 40 minutes of lost opportunity.
Be mindful of every minute and make it count!
