You’ve probably heard of effective time management tips throughout your life, but being a teacher makes a lot of them hard to implement. The very nature of your job seems to slap a lot of the advice in the face. How can you set aside time to narrowly focus on one task and limit distractions when you are teaching children? Many of which need extra help and attention. You obviously can’t avoid your students. So how can you make the school day more effective not only for you, but for your students as well?
1. Review your day at the end of each workday.
This may seem like an awkward step to list first (it being something you do at the end of the day) but it really is the key to the success you’ll have starting from the beginning of the upcoming day. It’s important to review what worked well and what didn’t during your reading instruction.
It’s easy to realize while teaching that students aren’t responding well to an aspect of your instruction, but if you don’t take the time to review and come up with a counterplan to try the next day – you may be tempted to implement the same ineffective strategy the next day, simply because you got too busy to come up with a different approach.
This step is also important because it helps you plan for step two (which may change day to day)…
2. Do the most important thing first each day.
Most people have the most energy and focus at the start of the day. This is the best time to get the most important thing done each day. For teachers, instruction is always going to be the most important thing… but what subject or concept takes the place as most important may be different from day to day.
Often teachers don’t have flexibility in what time they teach each subject, but if you do, you should spend the first 90 minutes of the school day to instruct your students on concepts that you have noticed are more difficult for them (this is a great time to have struggling readers work on their reading skills) while their minds are at their peak performance.
3. Refuel throughout the day.
Since the reason you are suppose to the most important thing at the beginning of the day is because that is when you are the most refreshed and focused, refueling throughout the day will help you create more opportunities to get both you and your students to focus and work effectively.
Simply being at school doesn’t create value. It’s a fresh mind that’s ready to teach and learn that adds value to the time spent in the classroom. Our bodies cycle between periods where they spend anergy and renew energy. If we never take the time to renew our energy… the effectiveness of our mind quickly decreases.
Elementary schools are good about giving students several breaks throughout the day – recess, lunch, games. But as students get older a lot of times these practices are cut. You might find that giving your students 10 minutes at the beginning of class to socialize or doodle or whatever their heart desires may leave them more focused during your reading instruction. And if you ever feel like your students are getting a bit restless, give them 15 minutes to do what they want. You may feel like you are losing time, but if they aren't focused and are losing brain power, instruction isn't going to benefit them at the moment anyways.
4. Schedule time for long term, creative, strategic thinking.
Everyone has goals and plans that they want to pursue: professional development, learning new curriculum or teaching strategies, getting a Master’s degree. Whatever it is, if you don’t schedule time to implement these plans – they are never going to get done.
You may not need to take time every single day to pursue long term plans, but at least once a week you should plan time to think about long term, strategic, and creative plans that will help you better reach your struggling readers.
5. Limit digital distractions.
As pointed at the beginning of this article, time management is hard when you have students that have legitimate needs. Often we spend time on things that don’t add much value to our day. Technology offers a lot of value, but it can also rob us of a lot of our precious time – often giving us little in return. It’s impossible to avoid technology, but we can limit the amount of attention we give it.
We would love to hear any tips you have for better managing time in the classroom!
Sources:
How to Accomplish More by Doing Less
"No" is the New "Yes": Four Practices to Reprioritize Your Life
Three Powerful Lessons I Learned When I Got Offline