Online Reflection #1: Using instructional time effectively...and some other tidbits!

I wanted to go back and recount my first day before I jump into this week’s blog post, so without further ado, story time!

6:30 A.M. is a very early wakeup call. But I’m used to it. I did after all attend school between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. for twelve years of my life. However, I will admit that during my college years, I deliberately avoided the 8:00 A.M. classes wherever I could (there was just something about driving on Kellogg at 7:00 in the morning that I didn’t appreciate). But my alarm blared, and I was off to a good start.

I figured that if I was on the road by 7:00 A.M., I was making a good start. The journey was not bad; I had my music going and I was engaged and ready to go. I will admit that I was a bundle of nerves, but isn’t every teacher? I realized I was making good time…the school was within distance and I was super proud of getting their early, and then BAM! Cue the backed up traffic.

“Surely this won’t take too long!” I thought to myself. Wrong. And because I love the new disney movie, Inside Out, I just had to include my brief reaction to this traffic chaos:

It was probably 7:20 or 7:25 when I hit this mess, and it literally took (and no I’m not joking) fifteen to twenty minutes of just waiting for people to go before I could finally get up to the street I needed to turn on. However, then I had to loop back around and it was just a terrible experience and I got to the classroom at about 7:50 (even though I was hoping to be there around 7:35) and it was not off to a great start.

But being in the classroom made up for it. One thing that I am truly thankful for is that I had the opportunity to engage with students on the first day of school. We played a name game in which every teacher in the room and every student had to introduce themselves and then state what they would take with them while backpacking. It had to be an alliteration (this is English class after all), so for example mine was, “My name is Mr. Naylor and I’m going to bring a napkin with me”. After that, I had to recite the name of each student that had come before me. So this was a great opportunity to learn about fifteen or so names. By the end of the game, I felt that I had a pretty good hold on student’s names.

After that, it was mainly generics (syllabus, agenda, policies, etc.) but I wanted to give an overview of my first day! J

Last time, I specifically discussed my concerns with engaging with students. I wanted to add some positive experience since then. I had the opportunity to grade the student’s assignments. Basically the students were assigned two short stories from their textbook, and they were to answer the corresponding questions that followed. The class that I am in is an advanced placement, so the questions do require a bit more thought in their answers. I took the time to comment on all of their papers. Specifically, I would usually leave a question that they could go back and respond to if they wanted. If they did not hit the nail on the correct answer, I would leave some feedback (usually in the form of a question) to veer them on the path to the correct answer. I felt this gave me the opportunity to really get a gauge on each of the students writing styles and their opinions. Hopefully this will help me as I work on engaging with them and getting to know them this semester.

One question that I brought up in class last week in regards to teacher research was: should teachers use up the whole class period (especially if it is block scheduling) for the sole purpose of instruction? Should their be student work time filtered in there? I wanted to touch on this question today, because it is honestly something that is always going off in the back of my head. I thought that I would touch on some findings of my previous practicums as well as my current practicum, as well as integrate some outside research to kind of touch base on this particular question.

I have worked at two different schools in all three of my practicums. One school uses block scheduling while the other has students attending the same classes (usually for a fifty minute period, if I remember correctly) everyday for five days a week. I’m not here to debate whether block scheduling is more effective than having students attend the same amount of classes each day for shorter periods, but I do think that it is effective for those teachers who simply have a difficult time taking up a full ninety minutes of block scheduling.

In my first practicum, the students were on block scheduling, but what I noticed was that there was a lot of time for students to work independently. They were working on senior projects, but I think it may have hurt them to spend so much time without instruction from the teacher. It felt like there was not as much direct instruction as there should have been in this particular classroom.

On the other hand, the practicum with the students going to the same class every day, it seemed like direct instruction took up the entire hour, which is fine. Whenever I did a lesson for that particular class, I usually took up the entire time. The time seemed to disappear out of nowhere.

Thus far, I think the most effective use of instruction versus independent work is in place in my practicum this semester. My mentor teacher does an amazing job of balancing the time given. The class period is usually divided into three sections (one section where the students work on voice lessons, another section for notes, and then usually one more for another activity). Within each section, the students are given independent work time (sometimes for a span of two to five minutes, sometimes for ten minutes). I feel that this is the most effective use of instruction I have seen as it allows the students to work independently, but not for an extended period of time so that they do not lose focus.

According to the Florida Education Association, students who spend the majority of their classroom time completing assignments by themselves will not learn the information that is being taught. The FEA has done extensive studies by visiting classrooms to see how instruction time is being used and how effectively students are grasping the material. According to the research they gathered from classrooms where students spent the majority of their time doing seatwork, the students did not grasp the material they were learning nor retain it.

The FEA suggested the use of a four-step plan that was developed by Robert Marzano (author of The Art and Science of Teaching) to successfully using up classroom instruction time.  The first step is explanation in which the teacher explains what they are learning and uses this time to lecture. It is suggested that actual lecturing be kept at twenty minutes (potentially broken into chunks as well). The next step would be modeling, where the students are shown by the teacher what they are learning. The last two steps would be guided practice and independent practice.

As I stated previously, in my current placement, the period is normally divided into three sections. I think that I can definitely see this four step plan in place in my current classroom. My mentor teacher does not spend the entire time simply lecturing. The classroom is broken up into groups and there is time allotted for group discussion as well as group work. When the time calls for it, there is time for independent work as well. One thing that my mentor teacher is really good at doing is not spending more time than necessary on any given activity. She uses the time that she has effectively to accomplish all the tasks for the day.

I think the four-step plan could be used per activity. For example, in my placement one activity that we did for the day was reviewing the story that was to be read out of the textbook. We began by using the explanation step (where my mentor teacher went over the text and answered questions from students), followed by the modeling step (she modeled Cornell notes on the board and the students wrote down notes as she did), and then we did the guided practice and independent work. The students had an opportunity to work in their groups on discussing the story as well as taking Cornell notes, followed by some independent time to answer the questions that followed the text.

Using instructional time effectively is something that I think a majority of teachers struggle with. In high school, I can distinctly remember being given ample time to work independently on something and I usually would be distracted by something or not very focused during this time. I feel if some of my teachers had simply devoted more time to instruction (and not just lecturing but group activities, literacy strategies, etc.), then I may have had a better time retaining some of the material. Instructional time is something that I plan to take seriously and use every minute of. Time is precious after all.

References

Time-on-Task: A Teaching Strategy that Accelerates Learning. (2015). Retrieved September 3, 2015, from https://feaweb.org/time-on-task-a-teaching-strategy-that-accelerates-learning