Mastering Schedules: Tips for B&M, Virtual, and Homeschool Classrooms.
We are both horrible at keeping time in our classroom and thus running out of time when we have our students. How do we combat that? Daily agendas. In our lesson prep, we put estimated times next to everything. Some teachers will use timers in their classrooms to help let them (and students) know when it is time to transition to a new activity. This allows students to take some accountability over their own learning. One of the things that Anna used to do in her classroom was to section out a permanent space on the board that would list the daily agenda. Anna loved to use painters' tape because it wouldn’t damage the walls or whiteboards. The top right corner of her main whiteboard was sectioned off with painters' tape and always had the agenda. This not only helped keep track of what needed to be done each day, but it meant that Anna didn’t have to answer the question “What are we doing today?” ever again.
While Anna was in the habit of posting a daily agenda for students at the front of the room, Megan’s approach was not as obvious. She would keep a small piece of paper taped to her desk to remind herself of the daily schedule.
Bell ringer/ Warm up – 5 minutes
Introduction to Lesson – 10 minutes
Lesson – 15 minutes
Homework/ Exit Ticket – 10 minutes
When Megan was in a physical classroom, she focused on getting her students to really understand and explain their thinking process in solving multi- step real -world problems. Therefore, when students came into the classroom, they would take their “Word Problem of the Week” and spend the first 5 minutes reading it over or working on it. They could use this time to talk to their seatmate about the problem or try to write down their thoughts on how to solve it. It was during this time that the students were working that she would be doing the “housekeeping” (attendance, collecting homework etc.). Once the class started the topic of the day would always be introduced in a 5-to-10-minute conversation with the students trying to bring in prior knowledge. This would then lead to the bulk of the lesson in which Megan was at the board writing problems and showing steps. The hope would be then to leave the last 10 to 15 minutes of the class for the students to work on the problems they learned and complete an exit ticket (which would be collected on Fridays). Megan always thought it was important to keep lessons themselves short and give the students time to work through problems during class. The students loved it as they could sometimes get their homework done before leaving. However, she loved it as well because if a student was stuck, she could catch it before they got home and didn’t have a clue. Exit tickets always were slightly harder, make you think, questions from the day so that she could see where everyone was and how/ if they understood the lessons that week.
Moving away from the Brick and Mortar classroom, you might think that there is no room for a daily agenda in the virtual or homeschool world; however, that is not the case. Without an agenda (whether it be daily or weekly), a set schedule needs to exist to help both the child and the adult progress through the coursework. We encourage our non-traditional students to set weekly and daily goals across their entire curriculum instead of setting individual agendas for each different course. This could be as basic as what days and times each course/subject is being worked on, or as detailed as what topic/lesson is being covered that day. One huge advantage of this type of learning is having built-in makeup days. Most students will work 3 or 4 days a week rather than the traditional 5. This allows them to automatically have an extra day or two to work on material that may not have been done or was a little more difficult and needs an extra day or so to master. These extra built-in days are in addition to still having the weekend (or any two days) free for non-lesson days. If you are looking for a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule to help plan out your lessons and curriculum, please check out or TPT store for a free download!
The best thing to do if you are worried that you won’t be able to have a smoothly running classroom is to just try it out. Then give it time. Kids need time to understand the procedures in order to implement them. They will also try to push and get around all the policies you put in place, but the best thing will be to stay consistent. You will know if a part of your schedule is not working for your students; then you can adjust accordingly. One of the major perks of the daily routine, as witnessed by both Megan and Anna, is fewer distractions and disruptions, which leads to a better learning environment. Just remember, the daily schedule did not come without work. It was a constant reminder of what activity we were on during the period and what the student should be doing at any given time. However, with consistency and grace, the students knew what to do and when to do it after only a few weeks in school.
