Time Management and Planning

Time management is an important skill to teach our students. They are learning about multiple subjects in one day, some of them are participating in clubs or sports after the school day is finished, and some are even working jobs to help support their families. In order to organize every task they have to complete, we can teach them effective ways to manage their time so that everything gets done in an appropriate time frame.

Some tools that students can use for time management are timers, calendars, and planners. In our classrooms, we can use calendars to show students important dates for quizzes, tests, projects, and more. We can also use a visual planner to help students write down and organize the tasks they have to complete on that day, such as math homework, an English writing assignment, studying for their Latin quiz, soccer practice, and walking their dog. Finally, we can use timers in our classes to demonstrate their effective use. We can show students a visual representation of how much time is left for an activity, or we could use timers to break up independent work days and allow 5-minute breaks each time the timer goes off.

Checklists

Checklists are a helpful strategy for task completion. As a teacher, I make checklists for myself and even show my students my checklists so they can se how I use them to ensure I am doing my job. We can use checklists in our classroom for daily assignments as well as more long-term plans. For example, we can give students a checklist each day with their assigned tasks on an independent work day, and they can check them off as they go before bringing them to us as a final sign-off. We can also provide students with a checklist of tasks for a project so they know which steps to complete along the way to the final product. Finally, we can also give students a checklist of concepts/standards leading up to a unit assessment. Students can assess whether or not they have mastered each concept/standard, and then students who have them checked off before the exam can complete an independent study assignment while students with missing checks can have small group time with the teacher before the exam. Checklists are a great way to keep students' tasks organized and ensure that nothing is left out.

Accessing Prior Knowledge

Before a student can even begin to learn about a new concept, it is important for students to organize their thoughts and share what they already know about the concept. This allows for self-reflection because they are evaluating their knowledge of a past concept, and this allows students to access their working memory as they think about what they have already learned. For example, when we get a new grammar concept, such as something related to nouns, in Latin, I have students access their prior knowledge by writing down everything they know so far about nouns, and then I allow students to share before we move on to the new concept. Having students think-pair-share can also be helpful with accessing prior knowledge, because those students who may not be confident in their prior knowledge have another student to bounce ideas off of before sharing with the larger group.