Best Practices

Planning: Taking the Test in Advance of Your Students!

For all intents and purposes, it is during the planning process that pacing can be most overlooked in a subtle way. In planning a lesson pacing can generally determine how the class period goes in a major way. It is the planning process that sets up the foundation for a good class and a good learning environment in a big way. I would also point out that this applies to the cognitive load theory. It is understanding that yes you need to plan a packed schedule but the pacing is what keeps students from encountering cognitive overload, which leads to burnout. It is about ensuring that you’re going at a pace where you begin at a low intrinsic load and slowly move up to a high intrinsic load, which definitely is quite significant. This brings in pacing because you can not go from one to the other in a day. It can definitely take days and up to weeks to literally meet the desired goals. For example, a student can not go from writing sentences to writing a full essay, there needs to be pacing involved where they are being kept busy while doing activities that lead to learning but do not push or pressure them to do more than what they are ready to do. On the other hand, if the pacing is not included in lesson planning then there would be too much time left over leading to chaos in the classroom. Not only is planning an effective teaching strategy but it is also an effective classroom management tool.

A really great example of pacing and planning working hand-in-hand is when the teacher makes and then takes the test they are about to give to their students as if they themselves were a student. The teacher paces the class around the time it took them to do the test and plans accordingly based on all of her students needs and FOK.

Angie Garcia

Instruction: Using Timers!

When it comes to instruction, it is imperative to follow a style of pacing that works to ensure that students are maintaining engagement and are focusing on the lesson. When looking at the article "Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity" by Kimberly D. Tanner, she discusses the importance of time in almost every single strategy she lists. If we translate how time also corresponds to pacing of a lesson, we can see how this is an important skill teachers need to have to meet all of the students needs. Teachers need to pace the lessons in a way that the students can digest the information and can participate with the materials in multiple ways, whether that be through watching a video, reading a text, actively listening to peers while participating in think-pair-shares and discussions, it is important that we incorporate all of these aspects of learning into the pacing of the instruction.

If we look at timers, we see that these are really helpful tools in the classroom because they help set the pace and help students know the amount of time they have per activity so that they do not have any unwanted stress or uncertainty with the lesson and can engage with it as much as possible.

We can also look at timers with Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism and collaboration, and how we can set timers during peer/group/and classroom discussions to show that students need to be engaging with the topic for this amount of time and they can feel comfortable with saying everything they feel without being rushed or not knowing when they will be cut-off.

Delila Muñoz

Using Assessments To Inform Your Classroom Pacing:

Assessments are a very important part of instructional pacing. Teachers can use small formative assessments, such as comprehension checks, funds of knowledge surveys, etc., to assess what their students already know, or how much they already know about certain topics. By doing these check-in assessments a teacher is able to figure out the appropriate pacing for a lesson, not spending time over explaining, but also not jumping into something students know nothing about. These comprehension checks should be done every day if not every other day to make sure that the teacher is staying informed on how the students are understanding the material, and if the teacher needs to slow down and spend more time on something, or if they can speed up a little because the students are catching on quickly. These formative assessments will also help the teacher to make sure they are not giving major exams on material that students do not understand. There is no point in giving students a test that they have not been properly prepared for. Therefore, it is the teacher's job to (1) deliver the information the students need in an understandable and engaging way, and (2) make sure that they cover all the material that students need to know. This is where the benefits of instructional pacing come in!

Christi Seidman

Management:

Although a great mindset and approach are needed when addressing students, its not enough, students need structure. Because of this, it is imperative to utilize a core structure and tie back what is being taught and every activity we have back towards a central focus; "objectives are what students will be able to do as a result of this lesson. These objectives will directly support and align to the Central Focus. They should also align with standards, instructional activities, and assessments. Write objectives using clear, measurable terminology" (EdTPA Lesson Plan Annotation). In other words, both the right mindset and a core direction that students can grasp and thus make clear what our goals for them are will give them the structure and support they need in order to succeed. By using specific strategies for building academic language students are able to build a stronger foundation for future learning and reach their zone of proximal development. Additionally, the Academic Language Toolkit resource suggests that building students' fluency in academic language carries over to other subjects and has a positive influence on learning ability across subjects. This resource also connects and provides useful strategies and organizers for building gradual release and scaffolding. This approach asks educators to redefine what learning looks like. Instead of compliance, or silent listening, perhaps it can look differently, and be more tailored to what students need to actually master content. If we are using that pacing tracker as formative data and making instructional adjustments based on that data, then we don't have students all working on different activities.

Kay Anderson