D.C. Everest Senior High School Staff Update
Weekly Happenings
Curriculum and Instruction
Online June 2020 | Volume 77
Time Well-Managed Pages 56-60
To avoid wasting learning time, the best teachers do three things differently.
How much time is spent in your classroom or school on instructions versus instruction? Let's do some math. If a middle or high school teacher spends 10 minutes every 50-minute period on instructions for 180 days, then 36 full class periods were spent on delivering directions. If an elementary teacher spends 5 minutes explaining what will happen during the day, 10 minutes explaining what students will do in their centers or stations, and then another 5 minutes reviewing various tasks during math, science, and social studies, this would result in about 45 minutes per day (or more) on instructions, which equates to 22 days each school year. Individually, these minutes don't seem like a lot, but when you add them up, providing instructions consumes valuable minutes dedicated to tasks other than learning.
Of course, students deserve to know what is expected of them and it is necessary to spend some time explaining tasks and expectations. If all the instructions were totally understood by students on the first go-around, then this might be a good investment of time. But how often do students ask clarifying questions right after the teacher has just finished explaining a task? And how many students need additional information about the instructions as they complete a task, activity, or assignment?
Doug once observed a 3rd grade class in which the teacher spent 13 minutes explaining what students would do at each of the learning stations. She didn't start these instructions until four minutes after the students returned from recess. These were all new tasks that the students had not completed before. When the teacher released them to start working, Marco asked which center he was supposed to go to, Jiovanni raised his hand because he did not understand the vocabulary task, and Karina wandered around the room looking for her journal. By the time the students started the tasks, 17 minutes had elapsed.
Yet in another class, the teacher immediately went into action when the students entered the classroom. She reminded them of their tasks, all of which were familiar. She asked them to move to their stations and begin work. She then called four students by name and had them meet her at her desk. The students were engaged in their learning task within two minutes of entering the room.
To maximize the amount of time students have for learning, highly accomplished teachers, like the one in the example just described, do three things differently. First, they start on time. Second, they use every minute allocated for instruction. And third, they rely on a set of instructional practices that students know and understand.
1. Start on Time
This seems easy enough in principle, but it can be hard to implement. In a study of high school teachers' use of time, Doug documented that students spent 17 percent of their instructional minutes waiting for something to happen (Fisher, 2009). Teachers spent valuable time taking attendance, organizing materials, or just waiting for the bell to ring after they'd finished teaching. Students had learned that it was OK to be late—"nothing happens for the first five minutes at least," more than one student told Doug.
Highly accomplished teachers know that every minute is valuable and thus start as soon as possible. These teachers demonstrate a sense of urgency for learning, and their students notice it. Based on our observations, there are a number of tasks that teachers can apply to ensure that minutes are used well, even if they have to take attendance. For example:
- In a 5th grade classroom, students start each learning block with a "do now" task or problem. The teacher circulates around the room looking over students' shoulders as they complete the task so she knows what to model when they come back together. She identifies errors, based on their work, to focus her instruction.
- In an algebra classroom, students start with a challenge task. They can work individually or collaboratively to solve the problem written on the board, which is based on previously learned content but applied in a way that is somewhat unfamiliar to them.
- Following lunch, a class of 2nd grade students know to always get out their writing journals and look to the image displayed on the whiteboard. Their teacher uses this time to develop students' descriptive writing.
2. Soak Up Every Minute
Sometimes lessons run short. It happens to all of us. But when it does and there aren't any plans, instructional time is squandered. Educator Madeline Hunter had a solution for this. She coined the term "sponge activity" to describe "learning activities that soak up precious time that would otherwise be lost" (Hunter, 2004, p. 117). She believed that sponge activities should (1) focus on review of previously learned material, and (2) provide distributed practice opportunities. Accomplished teachers have a collection of strategies at their disposal that they can use to "sponge up" any remaining minutes. For instance:
- In one kindergarten classroom, when there are a few minutes remaining in a lesson, a teacher leads students in familiar rhyming songs, letter games, and practice at blending sounds.
- In a 3rd grade class, students play "Stump the Teacher" by asking her questions about the content, which can include spelling certain words. The trick here is that the student must be able to furnish an answer. Because it is a familiar sponge routine, students have questions prepared in advance to use when there are a few extra minutes.
- In their biology class, a group of students plays "Survivor" at the end of each period. Some days, students write down three new vocabulary words they learned, other days they focus on three things they learned in general, and still other days they jot down questions they have related to the content. When they have their three items ready, each student stands up. The teacher calls on students at random, and they share one item and cross it off their list. There are no repeats, so students have to listen to know which of their items has already been shared. The last person to have an idea is the survivor for the day.
- In a middle school history class, students practice identifying states with the abbreviations used by the postal service. The teacher has laminated copies of a map of the United States at the ready and students use markers to write down the abbreviations. They've turned this into a competition and like to race each other to see who can identify the most states correctly in one minute. The mathematics teacher heard about this practice and liked it so much that she has her students complete as many math facts as possible in a game she calls "a minute of math madness."
3. Establish Routines and Use Them
There is no one right way to teach and there are no instructional strategies that guarantee all students will learn. Having said that, it is important to note that changing instructional routines too often is confusing for students. In addition, valuable minutes have to be spent letting students know what is expected of them. This is all too common in elementary classrooms when teachers introduce new centers or stations. In an effort to "keep it fresh," they change the tasks weekly or biweekly. As a result, students rarely get good at them.
Consider the time savings when a 2nd grade teacher introduced a listening station and then used it every day, changing the content but not the task. She set expectations for the listening station and invested time up-front so that students would understand how to use the equipment and the products expected of them. But then she never had to do that again. For weeks, her students engaged with content at the listening station without any additional time spent on the instructions for completing tasks.
Similarly, consider the high school teacher whose students needed practice with reading for information. He developed a routine that involved students logging into the learning management system, choosing an article, reading it, answering a few comprehension questions, and then responding in writing. He modeled each step in the process and demonstrated what success looked like. Then he had his students practice while he observed them. He noted and addressed some errors. The whole thing took about 25 minutes. Now every day, students know that they are expected to read for information and write from the source. The novelty is not in the task, but rather in the readings.
In some cases, routines are established schoolwide and thus, once taught, can be used by others. The teachers at an elementary school we are familiar with agreed on three collaborative learning routines per grade level. They agreed that every teacher at a given grade level would teach his or her students how to apply the three new routines and that students would have extensive practice with these routines. Teachers could teach other routines, but these three were nonnegotiable. For example, the kindergarten team agreed to use the following routines:
- Busy bees: Students mimic the buzzing sound and slow movement of bumblebees as they buzz around the room to find a partner. When the teacher says, "Busy bees, fly!" students move around the room and buzz until they hear, "Busy bees, land!" The "bee" they are standing next to becomes their partner for a brief learning activity such as giving an opinion, answering a question, or solving a math problem.
- Language experience: Students brainstorm words and phrases to describe a picture or a common experience—and the teacher writes the words on a chart. Partners create sentences using those words and then the teacher records them. Next, the teacher guides the group in organizing the sentences into a logical paragraph, and students practice pronunciation, reading aloud, and copying the co-constructed paragraph. Students can write the sentences on sentences strips and put the paragraph back together, or they can cut up the sentences into words and phrases before reassembling them or creating new paragraphs.
- Inside/outside circles: Two concentric circles of students stand or sit to face one another. The teacher poses a question to the class, and the partners (one inside and one outside the circle) respond briefly to one another. At the signal, the outer circle rotates one position to the left so each student faces a new partner. The conversation continues for several rounds. For each rotation, students may respond to the same prompt or to a different but related one on the same topic, depending on the goals of the teacher.
In another example, the teachers at Health Sciences High in San Diego agreed to five collaborative routines that all students would know. Of course, teachers could use other routines, but doing so would waste valuable time on instructions. They identified:
- Reciprocal teaching: Students work in groups of four with a common text. Each member has a role: summarizer, questioner, clarifier, and predictor (Palincsar & Brown, 1986). These roles closely mirror the kinds of reading comprehension strategies necessary for understanding expository text. The reading is chunked into shorter passages so that the group can stop to discuss periodically.
- Jigsaw: Each student in the class has two memberships: a home group and an expert group. Each home group of four members meets to discuss the text and divide the selection according to the teacher's directions. After each home group member has their task, they move to expert groups made up of members with the same task. The expert groups meet to read and discuss their portion of the assignment and practice how they will teach it when they return to their home groups. Students then teach their expert portion to home group members and learn about the other sections of the reading. Finally, they return once more to their expert groups to discuss how their topic fits into the larger subject.
- Discussion roundtable: Students assemble into groups of four, then fold a piece of paper into quadrants and record their thinking in the upper left quadrant. This could be reflections on a reading or video. They then take notes in the other three quadrants as their peers share their thinking. The final product is a record of the viewpoints of each member of the group.
- Text rendering: Students read a piece of text, focusing on key points. When their group members have finished reading, each student shares a sentence they found to be valuable for understanding the text. On the second round, each student shares a significant phrase, which does not need to be within the sentence they chose (and they record these). During the third round, each student shares a word from the reading that resonated with them (and they record these words). The group then discusses the ideas generated.
- Five-word summary: Students read a piece of text and choose five words that summarize the reading. They then talk with a partner to reach consensus on five words before joining another partnership. Now the four students reach agreements on the five words that best represent the text. From there, they create their own summary of the text, using the five words agreed upon by the group.
Deceptively Simple
We recognize that there are lots of bright and shiny ideas for improving student learning outcomes. The ideas in this article may seem simple, but they are invaluable. Skilled teachers understand that time is precious and that decisions about how to use time reflect their values and expectations. Spending too much time on instructions, or, worse, having students wait for something to happen, does not send the message that learning is important or that we value every allotted minute. Highly accomplished teachers understand that they can use time to their advantage and that their students will learn more as a result.
First Day - Sophomores Only
Please find the link to the first-day schedule and information below. If you are one of the teachers listed below, let's meet at 9:30 in the cafeteria on Monday. We'll walk through to make sure everyone is on the same page.
If you teach sophomores you will go through both your A and B cohort days. Each class is 20 minutes with the exception of the first hour during A cohort which will be 50 minutes long in order to provide an overview of the day before going into the 20-minute first-hour lesson.
Teachers who I need to meet with at 9:30 am on Monday in the cafeteria.
Nicole Anderson (Group 1)
Leslei Dickerson (Group 1)
Bryan Foster (Group 1)
CJ Hansen (Group 1)
Anne Jagodzinski (Group 1)
Ciera Levake (Group 2)
Yolanda Lloyd (Group 2)
Jenna Peplinski (Group 2)
Tony Pickar (Group 2)
Julie Rice (Group 2)
Bree Sandquist (Group 3)
Brad Seeley (Group 3)
Jeff Strick (Group 3)
Dawn Whitsett (Group 3)
Heather Winkelman (Group 3)
Week Ahead/Announcements
A lot to cover here and I am sure there will still be many questions - Please read through.
School is five days a week - I have been asked about student expectations when they are engaged in remote learning. Attendance will not be taken, and in most cases, we are encouraging asynchronous plans for students to continue to learn. I do believe that students should engage in learning all five days, however, what that looks like has been turned over to PLCs and teachers on an individual basis. Many teachers are looking at flipping their classrooms. Others are planning to use in-class instruction as a time for new learning and that at home time as practice. There is no one size fits all, but I do expect that we are asking our students to engage in learning when they are at home.
Safety Drills - We will not be conducting any live-action safety drills. Rather, for the immediate future, any safety drills will be a time for us to engage in tabletop exercises - talking about our response instead of practicing it. More information to come when we plan the dates of those drills.
Masks - This is an expectation for everyone in the building at all times. We need to model this behavior as educators in the building, so please always remember to wear your mask. The exception is of course when you are alone in your classroom. If a student is not wearing a mask please gently remind them to do so. If they continue to defy the request please let the administration know and we will address.
Handouts/collections - If you are handing items out, you must sanitize hands prior to distribution. If you are collecting items, please have students place them in a basket and leave them for 72 hours before handling them. All items that are checked out or used should have a 72 hour time period where they are not touched. For shared equipment in a lab setting, disinfectant before and after each use should be utilized.
Disinfecting - Students should always disinfect their desk space before each use. Additionally, we should be finishing up in time for students to disinfect after each use as well. You should be supplied with at least one and hopefully two bottles of disinfectant for the time being. More bottles will come, however they are still back-ordered.
Ipad Tripods - Everyone is going to be supplied with one - when they come in. Also back-ordered.
IC Rosters - They are available yet we do not know how to separate the A and B cohort students when you look at your class. We are working with Pauline on it. One of our teachers shared this procedure to help in determining groups:
I had two Infinite Campus screens open. One for the class with the student group page opened. One for the individual student information page opened (tells you which cohort they are assigned). Went through each student to find out which cohort they were in and then assigned groups within each class. I don't know if the different groups will show up on the attendance. To be determined. At least this allowed me to determine the number of students in each cohort and to make seating charts.
WIPPS StudyStay healthy checklist - This morning checklist was sent home to all families this past week across the district. Please utilize to conduct a self-check on yourself in the morning before coming to work.
Health room - I will be sharing health room procedures this week in an email. Please look for that early in the week.
New Campus Floor Maps - Updated maps with the new rooms and directional flow arrows are being worked on. They should be completed to hand out on Tuesday to sophomores. Teachers who teach sophomores will receive enough for their A Cohort students and teachers specified to take the B Cohort students will also receive them. They will be put in your mailboxes Monday afternoon. More will also be printed and put in the main office and teacher's lounge.
. 
. 
