how does spending more time on planning help reduce time spent on executing coursework

Plus, when you know you have time set aside later for checking email or replying to Slack messages you’re less likely to give into the FOMO these tools create. Classroom procedures are an essential part of the learning environment. Those teachers who operate their classroom like a well-oiled machine maximize student learning time. No more burnout – a simple guide to successful and time-efficient lesson planning Assume you have one year and $100,000 to spend. This might sound like you’re turning your calendar into a chaotic mess. Think back to the last lesson when you start planning the next. Or to reduce your time spent on emails or in meetings? Whether it’s endless meetings, constant emails, or coworkers popping in for a “quick chat,” your productivity rarely makes it through the day. So it’s been great to ask ourselves, ‘how can I maximize my workday so that I can play with my kid?’”. Otherwise, we fall into what’s known as Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. or why not? Another important—and often overlooked—component of planning and preparation is practice. In this case, students must be taught to bring the correct materials to class, use the bathroom or get a drink, and be in their seats ready to learn when the next class period starts. This includes routine activities such as sharpening pencils, turning in assignments, or getting into groups. And the more you can block out your best time for productive and meaningful work, the better. You can find lots of lesson plans like this (complete with downloadable materials) on the Teachingenglish website. It is easy to do when we may not be feeling the best or we under-plan. With your personal priorities taken care of, it’s time to take the same approach with your workday. I’ll add that now. Having a backup plan ready can ensure that learning time for that class period will not be lost. “[My day] rarely goes exactly how I planned, but it does… keep me on task, and a lot less likely to go down the Facebook rabbit hole, or get distracted by something else because I know that if I take too much time on this task, it pushes the rest of my schedule back.”. This is perhaps the most limiting factor in maximizing learning time. Jory MacKay is a writer, content marketer, and editor of the RescueTime blog. Time blocking is the practice of planning out every moment of your day in advance and dedicating specific time “blocks” for certain tasks and responsibilities. Too many teachers under-plan and find themselves with nothing to do for the last few minutes of class. One of the great things about time blocking is that it can be dead simple to start. Teachers who take the time within the first few days to drill these procedures will save valuable instructional time as they move throughout the year. Here’s how you can use time blocking to make the most of the time you have each day. To maximize student learning time, teachers must maintain control of the pace and flow of the environment. Teachers must develop and maintain effective classroom management skills where learning is valued, the teacher is respected, and expectations and procedures are set and met beginning on day one. Single-tasking—focusing on one task at a time—can make you up to 80% more productive than splitting your attention across multiple tasks. Teachers should get in the habit of over-planning— too much is always better than not enough. If the plan doesn’t fit, then I’m being over ambitious, I’ll fail and feel bad. Many teachers skip this essential element, but they shouldn't. Now it’s time to actually start creating your “blocks.” Instead of jumping straight into your workday, however, start with guardrails for your time outside of work. Too many teachers under-plan and find themselves with nothing to do for the last few minutes of class. I write my lesson plans on a post-it. Here are 5 reasons you might want to rethink your daily habits, Why you should be making your New Year’s resolutions in November, What to change your life? At the other end of the day, your schedule might look something like this example from Atomic Design author Brad Frost. Yet, it’s one of the most popular for a reason. You can probably count on your fingers the number of times you’ve completed 8 hours of work in an 8-hour workday. Therefore, every second a teacher has with their students should be a meaningful and productive second. 2. Independent practice of lessons and activities allows teachers to work out the kinks beforehand, ensuring that minimum instructional time will be lost. Even the best intentions fall by the wayside if students do not truly understand what is being asked of them. and make a cup of tea. The problem is that when you design your to-do list for an 8-hour workday but end up with just 1-2 hours of productive time, you’re going to be in trouble. An activity I use again and again - Rachael Roberts, An ESL lesson that always delivers for me, Ask Answer Add - A Speaking Activity to Help Learners Maintain a Natural Conversation, David Dodgson: Pronunciation - no big deal, Education exchange: Schools reopening - pupil well-being, Take a survey on teaching speaking in online environments. And the plan should be simple and always follow the same format so that it becomes second nature and end up almost writing itself. What does research suggest as a best practice for how much time should be spent in. If you can, try to find a few times a day where you can commit a chunk of time to email, calls, or even meetings. There are some students who, frankly, are masters at making this happen. Transitions occur every time you switch from one component of a lesson or activity into another. Do you think that estimate is realistic? During execution and monitoring and controlling the project, most of the time is spent communicating with a portion of the time spent on gathering information /status updates from project management software. However, you can’t spend all day on Maker Time. Time management strategies and advice to help you rebuild your focus and optimize your time. This makes having a backup plan critical. Poor or confusing directions can stymie a lesson and quickly turn the learning environment into total chaos. You should need only a fraction of the total planning time for actual documentation. Many teachers select a handful of students to summarize the directions before turning them lose to get started on the activity. Instead, it’s all about finding a balance. But to-do lists aren’t the only way you can organize your daily schedule. Save your energy for the classroom - that’s where you’ll need it most. Teachers should get in the habit of over-planning— too much is always better than not enough. Transitions when poorly executed can slow a lesson down tremendously. Here’s the link: https://blog.rescuetime.com/google-calendar-focus-guide/, on Time blocking 101: A step-by-step guide to getting the most from your daily schedule, What to do on a day off from work to recharge your energy, focus, and motivation, Technostress: Why that new productivity tool could be doing your team more harm than good. He even sets aside an hour for email, Slack, twitter, and mail. If you want to make the most out of time blocking, follow these tips. However, if you want to use Google Calendar, we’ve put together this list of power features and best practices to make the most of it. They will spend hours preparing a 45-minute lesson. Derrick Meador, M.Ed., is the superintendent for Jennings Public Schools in Oklahoma. We’re all beholden to our calendars. However, it can actually have the opposite effect. That extra time would likely make a significant difference for every student, but particularly those who are struggling learners. What does research suggest as a best practice for how much time should be spent in ... Research can help with the national planning process to ... at the time of planning . There is no way to eliminate every single distraction, but some are more easily controlled than others. This is what Y Combinator founder Paul Graham calls “Maker Time”—sessions where you’re working on deep focus work like writing, designing, or coding. Distractions run rampant during school hours. Here’s a glimpse into what designer Jessica Hische calls her “Ultraschedule.”. In other words, directions should be easy to understand and as simple and straightforward as possible. (To recycle at the beginning of the next lesson). If you use Google Calendar at your company, you can even create “Appointment slots” where you’re available for meetings during the day. Remember, this is a framework and not necessarily set in stone. Check out our guide to setting up a work scheduled designed for sustained attention. Looks like you’re missing the link in this part here? Having your remaining time visible can be a huge motivator and also help you estimate in the future. Save your energy for the classroom - that’s where you’ll need it most. However, the power of time blocking comes in choosing when you do these tasks instead of letting them infiltrate every moment of your day. These tasks are just as, if not more important than what you do during the day. However, carving out time any amount of time in the day to focus on true strategy or long term planning is critical. A major component in teaching is providing your students with clear and concise directions. This ‘coherence will be appreciated by the students - even though some might not notice. Again, how Brad blocked out his time was based on his priority of spending time with his family. A few minutes should be enough. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Lesson_plan_template.pdf. Each morning, Kevin has a recurring 2-hour block set aside for writing. Now that you have a template of how you’d like your day to look like it’s time to see how/if it works. First, designer Dan Mall (clearly an early riser) starts each day with an hour of meaningful work, followed by some simple tasks before time with his family and getting caught up with work. Maintain Control of the Classroom Environment, 7 Ways to Take Control of Your Classroom to Reduce Student Misbehavior, School Issues That Negatively Impact Student Learning, Strategies for Teachers: The Power of Preparation and Planning, Classroom-Management Tips for Substitute Teachers, 4 Tips for Effective Classroom Management, Strategies for Teachers to Develop Positive Relationships With Students, Classroom Layout and Desk Arrangement Methods, Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Equity and Engagement, What Teachers Do Beyond the Classroom When No One Is Looking, 4 Principles of Classroom Management and Social Emotional Learning, The Importance of Organization for Teachers, Strategies to Handle a Disruptive Student, M.Ed., Educational Administration, Northeastern State University, B.Ed., Elementary Education, Oklahoma State University. The human brain needs guardrails at work. Look at things like: Did they learn any new vocabulary? There are too many distractions just waiting to ruin your perfectly planned schedule. Students should discuss the purpose of the document, find the corresponding template on the companion Web site, and develop a list of questions they have about the document. These teachers are continuously having to redirect students and often spend more time correcting students than teaching them. Finally, here’s an example of one of my lesson plans – and YES! Especially when you see it as a framework for thinking about your day rather than a set of laws you can’t break. You can travel without a list of course but you will avoid a few problems if you spend a bit of time planning – not a whole week though. An announcement comes over the loudspeaker, an unexpected guest knocks on the classroom door, an argument breaks out between students during class time. Successful teachers establish procedures and expectations that minimize wasteful downtime and maximize engaging learning opportunities. “Free time” runs directly counter to that mission. Start with changing your default behaviors, She knows there’s dedicated time for email on her schedule and doesn’t need to keep her inbox constantly open (a major distraction). Time blocking is all about focus. “Sometimes people ask why I bother with such a detailed level of planning. While a standard to-do list tells you what you need to do, time blocking tells you when you’re going to do it. You can see how she sets an hour each day for responding to reactive things like email. At the end of this period, teachers can better determine which distractions can be limited and formulate a plan to minimize them. At CMOE, we’ve been researching strategy – and teaching leaders on how to be strategic thinkers for over 35 years and we have found that if you spend 15 minutes or more in a single day in this area, it will allow you to capitalize on strategic opportunities that others miss. Do you have enough slots for both your deep and shallow work tasks? initiating and planning activities for projects? You still have emails to answer, calls to take, and meetings to attend. Transitions are a major opportunity for teachers to gain back some of that valuable time. While no teacher wants to miss out on a teachable moment, you don't want to chase rabbits either. By using a tool like RescueTime, you can quickly see where you’re most distracted, what time of day you’re most productive, and even set goals around time spent on email, social media, or entertainment during the workday. Teachers can utilize the following strategies to maximize student learning time and minimize downtime. A 45-minute lesson should warrant around 5 to 10 minutes planning time. Teachers can evaluate distractions by keeping a journal over the course of a two-week period. As we’ve written in the past, we all do better when we communicate and collaborate in “bursts” rather than all the time. This takes away valuable instruction time and disrupts the learning process. When you fill your calendar with the tasks and things you want to do, it’s harder for others to steal your time. Teachers should develop efficient procedures for every aspect of the classroom. Look at the pages in the course book that you are going to be using. This problem can be easily taken care of with a little practice and repetition. Get our latest blog posts in your inbox every week. As behavioral designer, Nir Eyal told us: “In this day and age you cannot call something distracting unless you know what it’s distracting you from.”. We all follow what’s called a Productivity Cycle throughout the day. Teachers should develop a set of backup plans to fall back on should things fall apart at any point. When done right, they are practiced procedures that are quick and seamless. executing? Here’s an example: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/mingling-terry%E2%80%99s-trip. More experienced teachers tend to spend less time on lesson planning. Good directions are given in multiple formats (i.e. Want to see some real-world examples of schedules designed for focus? Of course, that isn’t healthy on a number of different levels. This is the time to practice your expected procedures and expectations over and over. Why. Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter. You can find lesson plan templates on the Internet too – that you can fill out yourself for your own classes. The first question you need to answer is: Why do you want to use time blocking? I’ve managed to reduce my prep time by around 90% since I started teaching - granted that’s quite a long period of time - but there really is no need to be a slave to lesson planning. Let’s walk through a simple step-by-step process for setting up your own time blocking system. He previously served as a school principal and middle school science teacher. A 40-hour time-blocked work week, I estimate, produces the same amount of output as a 60+ hour work week pursued without structure.”. Strategies for Teachers to Maximize Student Learning Time. Time blocking will never work if you’re overly optimistic about your time. It will take some time to find a schedule that works for you. Many teachers lose valuable instructional time because they have poor classroom management skills. Why this works so well is that Dan’s scheduled his most meaningful work for when his attention and energy naturally peak and email/Twitter for when he’ll naturally hit a dip. Give examples of how this has worked on real projects. As a teacher, you make adjustments to lessons on the fly all the time. As teachers, our mission is to educate. An experienced materials writer has done the job for YOU. Some of the world’s most productive people, from Elon Musk to Bill Gates to Deep Work author Cal Newport have sworn off to-do lists in favor of something else: Time blocking. They know what they have to do in the lesson. All you really need is a piece of paper and a pen. To stay on task during each block, I like to use a simple Pomodoro timer (Right now I use Be Focused). Occasionally, there will be situations where more than a simple adjustment is needed. That would be silly. Writing a lesson plan before a class is a bit like writing a list before packing for a trip. But what the wise teachers have in common - whether they are new or more experienced - is that they understand the importance of lesson planning but are 100% practical in their approach. The more discovery you must do based on the answers to these questions, the more time you need for planning. In addition, teachers should always have their materials laid out and ready to go before students arrive. No amount of planning can account for everything that could go wrong in a lesson. In fact, there are a lot of reasons why you wouldn’t want to block out your daily schedule: Potential issues aside, time-blocking is still a powerful time management strategy. Veteran teachers will tell you that the tone for the year is often set within the first few days. If possible, do the planning immediately after the previous lesson. Here are a few examples of what this might look like. Here’s a typical one in a word document that you can change to suit your needs. “However, if you want to use Google Calendar, we’ve put together this list of power features and best practices to make the most of it.”, Good catch Dan! However, there are a few simple and free tools you can use to make it that much easier. Gather everything you need (course book, teacher’s book, class register, timetable, etc.) During planning or requirements gathering, most of the time is spent planning. For most people, the appeal of time blocking is in setting aside long stretches of time for focused work. New teachers who have had training will have been evaluated and assessed on their lesson plans. She’s batching her email time into “bursts” so that it doesn’t taint the rest of her time. It is easy for teachers to get distracted and veer off topic from time to time. How does spending more time on planning help reduce time spent on. Most teachers would argue that they never have enough time to reach every student, particularly the ones that are below grade level. Transitions may also include changing from one class to another. Time blocking is only one of the many time management strategies out there. If you want to make time for meaningful work, you can try this method from founder and academic Kevin Taylor. They are able to engage a teacher in a conversation about a personal interest or tell a funny story that captivates the classes attention but keeps them from completing the lessons and activities scheduled for the day. Time is a precious commodity for teachers. Our students love “free time”, but it is not what is best for them. While a standard to-do list tells you what you need to do, time blocking tells you when you’re going to do it. How will you disconnect from work and make time for friends, family, and hobbies?

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