"I need more time in the day to teach."
One option to deal with the situation is sit and grumble with other staff members who feel the same pain. While that might make you feel a little better to vent for a while, it doesn't really help to solve the problem at all. In fact, it instead focuses on the negativity of environment and in all honesty only makes the problem worse. So let's take a look at an alternative solution that doesn't involve grumbling under your breath or even out loud.
Get started with a FREE 8-page Assessment Flowchart Guide!
Use your time in school more effectively
While we can't alter time, we can alter how we spend that time and how we process the minutes. The solution is not to add more time in the day, (I mean, don't you already work long enough hours as it is and yet you are basically asking for more work time?) but rather using the time more effectively. In fact, you could actually work less and still accomplish a great amount of teaching if you really take the time to plan and analyze how that time is spent.
Here is one solution: pre-assessment.
Now - before you send the firing squad in my direction, hear me out. Yes, I know too much of your time is spent assessing already. Most likely the majority of those assessments don't really tell you specifics about the child's learning either. But for our purposes, we need to pre-assess in small increments to find out what we don't have to teach. Trust me, once you get the hang of it, you will be amazed at how much time you free up - and how you can even sometimes have a little free time to fit the "fun stuff" back in as well.
Simply by pre-assessing and scoring those assessments in a specific way (see the Assessment Flowchart below for more details), you are then able to really hone in on specific skill needs for individual students in your classroom. It will give you concrete formative assessment without waiting weeks for test results - or having a score that doesn't break down each individual standard/objective.
Trying to fit everything in each day gets overwhelming
It sure does.
Not to mention, how much really are students retaining when they are getting 10 minutes of a concept and then more thrown at them the next? It seems "easy" to grab a district-adopted curriculum and just start on page one, teaching daily until you get to the end. But when that happens, you are missing an incredible opportunity to skip past the items most already know (believe it or not, you are teaching things that almost all your students already know) and not having time to teach it at a deeper level - or do something fun with the topic. And that is one big missing piece: many teachers feel the fun has been sucked out of the teaching day. This is your chance to put it back in!
Check out the FREE 8-page Assessment Flowchart Guide now to learn a little more about how you don't have to teach it all. Try it for 3 units/chapters and see if it works for you. If not, try a different strategy for working more effectively. If pieces work, that is better than nothing. But imagine if this strategy does work? You will immediately feel much less stress to fit it all in.
Get started with a FREE 8-page Assessment Flowchart Guide!
And then the only concern is what to grumble about next in the lounge: maybe the fact that they forgot to send in donuts in addition to the chocolate. {I always vote for both. lol.}
Enjoy the freebie!
~Charity
This article originally appeared at Organized Classroom.
