The Principal Teacher

When was the last time you learned something without putting any effort in it? Has that ever happened? If you have had that experience, I need to know how you did it because it seems that I have always had to exert effort to learn something new.

I remember when I was learning to drive I had to spend time looking at the driver’s manual that talked about all of the traffic laws I needed to know. But my learning only started there; actually learning to drive involved a lot more work of a different kind. I had to participate in classroom instruction and then actually practice driving a car in traffic.

I think most of us can agree that the adage “the one who works is the one who learns” is actually true. If that is the case, why do so many classrooms not seem to require students to work? I think it comes down to one of three factors: teacher misunderstanding, poor design of instruction, or poor classroom management.

Teacher misunderstanding– I actually think this one might be the most prevalent one in high schools. Many well-meaning teachers genuinely believe that if they are lecturing the whole period and going through a slide deck that the students are working. The trouble is that students do not really have to work to copy information from a slide. This activity can be done with little engagement from the brain at all.

A separate group of well-meaning teachers frequently have students do projects that last a week or more. The trouble is that students don’t have to produce anything until the deadline. This leads to lots of downtime for students, goofing off, and general off-task behavior. Many of the projects themselves really do not promote learning either. Students are often spoon-fed information that they just need to fill in.

Poor design of instruction– This ties directly to the first one but goes further. Instruction with today’s student has to be fast-paced and should change frequently. Think of the last time you watched a kid look at their cell phone on social media. How long do they stay on one page or video? Not long at all, usually just a few seconds. In the same way, teachers have to flip what they are doing pretty frequently. This should be done at least every 10 minutes.

Additionally, teachers need to realize that just because they are using technology, it isn’t necessarily effective instruction. Technology, in and of itself, can be a major distraction and can detract from learning. When teachers choose technology, it needs to be done with a specific purpose in mind.

Poor classroom management– Classroom management is something most of us would prefer not to deal with, but it is still necessary. With the level of distractions for today’s students from phones alone, the teacher has to take steps to make sure students are focused. On the phone issue, unfortunately, I have personally witnessed many teachers simply giving up. They will allow students to use them at any time, even while they are teaching or when students should be working on an assignment.

In coming back to the classroom I realized very quickly that I needed a plan that would help today’s student to stay on track, stay focused, and stay busy with the right work. Here are the practical steps I have taken and do recommend.

Eliminate distractions at will

• Make a plan– How do you REALLY want to handle cell phones? Laptops? Headphones? Charging phones in your room? Make a specific plan and then communicate it to your students. What works for me may not work for you. The main point is that you find what you want to tolerate and do that!
• Communicate expectations ahead of time– Let’s use cell phones as an example here. Make it clear that use of them is not acceptable unless you say so. Tell students that they will get one warning, and after that you will have them park their phone on your desk. If you are not comfortable with that, have them put the phone in their backpack for the rest of the period and have a consequence in place if that is violated. I personally park the phones on my desk without many issues. I use specific icons on my slides each day that clearly state whether cell phone use is allowed or not. If you communicate your expectations ahead of time, it will head off 90% of the issues you might otherwise experience.
• Follow up and follow through– If you have a consequence you previously communicated to students, don’t ignore it when they do not meet your expectations. Go handle it. For repeat offenders who are struggling with cell phone use, I tell them that tomorrow when they enter the class, they will be expected to drop their phone at my desk when they walk in. They don’t like it when I say this, but the 24 hour warning really seems to help. I have yet to have an issue with a student refusing to do this when I remind them the next day.

Instructional shifts

• Keep them busy bell to bell-I’m not sure why this is the case, but I am a big over-planner. I consistently have more things for us to do than we are able to accomplish in class. The good outcome of this is that students have to work all period long, every single day.
• Teach in chunks-Yes, I’ll have a couple of slides that I talk through with students in my direct teaching. This generally is 10 minutes or less. I then follow that up immediately with assessment.
• Get them moving– since I teach science, this is relatively easy. I’ll often embed a short activity with some simple, cheap materials that they can manipulate. Other content areas can get them moving by using voting strategies that require students to move to different parts of the room to take a position on something.
• Use timers for everything– Students should know that when the timer goes off, we move on. This keeps the pressure on to finish their work, and makes your job of managing them simpler.
• Get them talking– There are more strategies for doing this than I can list here, but they are all worth trying! Have students speak in pairs or triads. Have someone report out to the class, or have them make a written response together. The purpose of talking about the content is to help them make meaning of it.
• Assess daily, sometimes multiple times– I use the Plicker system which requires all students to respond to multiple choice prompts. But even in using this, I have modified it to follow a Peer Instruction format. I ask students to answer my question and then show the poll results to the class without showing the correct answer. Then I ask them to talk to their neighbor about what they chose and why. I have found students will teach each other the content through this method and the combination of speaking and listening helps them to make connections. They then are allowed to reenter their answer if they choose. Then I show them the correct answer.

Harry Wong used to say that the students are the ones who should leave school every day exhausted, and he is right! They need to know that when they come to our classroom, it is go-time. We don’t have even a minute of downtime, and they will be expected to work constantly until they nearly drop from exhaustion! I believe many students secretly want this to be the case because it makes school go by much faster, and they feel like they did something important. So take a risk and push your students harder. It will make your job easier in the end, and your kids will thank you for it in the end.