Monitoring Progress
...while you continue to teach!
Doing one-on-one assessments and addressing individual student needs can be time consuming and stressful. What about all the other children in your class? This is a difficult reality of teaching but there are ways to effectively manage the group while you focus on what you need to accomplish.
~ set students up for success ~
Preparing Students to Work Independently
Train your students and spend some time practicing before you begin working with groups or individual students. The Daily 5 is a helpful resource that details just how to do this.
- Emphasize independence all day long!
- Explicitly share your expectations for student behaviors. (i.e. stay in one place, choose an activity and stick with it, don't talk to neighbors, stay focused on the work, etc.)
- Make a chart listing the expectations in child-friendly language.
- Build student work stamina.
- Decide what students should do if they need to use the restroom or have a question. Practice this!
~ keep them engaged ~
Independent Work for Students
So that you can focus on the student you are assessing or the small group you are working with, it is important to give students tasks that will engage their attention.
- Start with only a few choices and then add new options as students exhibit success.
- Consider including activities from all curricular areas to capitalize on varied student interests.
- Keep tasks simple and minimize directions.
- Include independent work that they enjoyed in the previous year.
- Think about upcoming standards. Are there skills they can review that will help them be more successful with those?
- Later in the school year, include sorts or partner games that they can play quietly.
- A mixture of individual tasks and partner work can help satisfy the need to interact for those who are more social.
- Block the time in manageable chunks. When a block is over, allow students to choose to continue their activity or move on to something else.
- Offer students opportunities to be creative. 15 minutes of drawing, building or making something can go a long way towards gaining buy in.
Work Menu
Easy way to include "must do" and "can do" options.
Choice List
Good option for a list that doesn't change often.
Now What?
Dedicate a space on the board for this easy-to-change list of options.
~ maintain control ~
Management Tips
Here are a few tips that might make it all a little easier on you...
- Empower students to help out! As work time winds down, have one of them take pictures of student work for you so that you can wrap up what you're doing and still see what they've been up to. (sorts, spelling practice with magnetic letters, etc.) You could also name students as "experts" who can help others with their questions.
- Commit to staying focused, even if someone is breaking the rules. Make eye contact and gesture to the student discretely but don't deal with problems until after you are finished.
- Collaborate with your team to create menus and come up with tasks. Share the work! Check out Pinterest for lots of great ideas.
- Get everyone settled with their first activity before you start your work.
- Play some wordless, quiet music to help cut down on distracting noises and create a sense of peace.
- Ask for parent volunteers to come in and help monitor students.
Erin Gannon
I currently teach third grade at Hilburn Academy in WCPSS. You can visit my classroom website or classroom Twitter page in addition to the professional sites listed below. Feel free to contact me if I can help support you in any way!
Email: egannon@wcpss.net
Website: http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/eringannon/
Location: Hilburn Drive Academy, Hilburn Drive, Raleigh, NC, United States
Phone: 919-571-6800
Twitter: @eringannon
This materials was presented during the NCSU BTI 2015. Visit the link below for more information about this annual summer event for new teachers.