After several weeks of school, my co-teachers and I felt that many students seemed unable to get their work done in the time allotted. We decided to address it proactively and do some direct instruction and application activities.
Unfortunately, I ran out of time today while teaching our first lesson about time management. How ironic! I also learned today how complex time management is - much more so than I originally thought. Therefore, I will be breaking our instruction down into chunks and writing several blog posts about how we addressed it.
Our first step was to provide a reference point for time. Each student in the group had an index card with a number from 1-12. They placed them on the floor to form a clock. Next, they had to think of an activity that they do regularly that takes an hour or less (brush teeth, get dressed, watch a tv show, eat a snack ,etc.), share it out loud and stand where the minute hand would show how long it takes. Some students were accurate in their estimates, while others were way off. This reinforced our theory that most of our students don't have a deep understanding of time.
We then created an anchor chart to post on the wall that shows approximate time frames for common activities. Our plan is to point this out to students whenever we give students a time frame for an assignment. For example, "You have 10 minutes to do this. That's about as long as it takes to shower."
If you are working with older students and are hesitant to put the circle on the floor, you could move directly to creating a chart.
Here is one you can download.
Stay tuned for my post about our next step.
Unfortunately, I ran out of time today while teaching our first lesson about time management. How ironic! I also learned today how complex time management is - much more so than I originally thought. Therefore, I will be breaking our instruction down into chunks and writing several blog posts about how we addressed it.
Our first step was to provide a reference point for time. Each student in the group had an index card with a number from 1-12. They placed them on the floor to form a clock. Next, they had to think of an activity that they do regularly that takes an hour or less (brush teeth, get dressed, watch a tv show, eat a snack ,etc.), share it out loud and stand where the minute hand would show how long it takes. Some students were accurate in their estimates, while others were way off. This reinforced our theory that most of our students don't have a deep understanding of time.
We then created an anchor chart to post on the wall that shows approximate time frames for common activities. Our plan is to point this out to students whenever we give students a time frame for an assignment. For example, "You have 10 minutes to do this. That's about as long as it takes to shower."
If you are working with older students and are hesitant to put the circle on the floor, you could move directly to creating a chart.
Here is one you can download.
Stay tuned for my post about our next step.
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