Get Your Students Hired
What time management strategies do you use to ensure that you are “keeping pace†with your lesson plans?
I like to tell work related experiences that have resulted in success. I can determine how much detail I need to fill time. The students generally like these stories. By the way, you can also use stories of mistakes to reinforce the relevance of taught material.
I have all of my lessons on power point and even if I do not share them with the students I have them and I know how long each topic generally takes to cover. This helps me know how much I plan to cover and how much I have so I can move forward more quickly, or adjust the next days lesson if we fall behind.
my classes are 5 hours long. I divide the class in teaching modules. The first part for lecture, second to answer questions/concerns about class material and third part laboratory/hands on skills
In having taught Evolution of Fashion or 10 plus years, I have the pace down and except in extreme classroom sizes, know the exact timing on my lectures... but have found the switch to the 5 week term has thrown a wrench into the works. I find I am running behind on the content delivery due to the speed of information, the need to slow down and respond to questions, to make sure the information is sinking in. I find the transition between time periods to be very abrupt.
I do adjust to make sure I am delivering the content in the next class. But with a 5 week term, if I continuously fall behind, I could actually find myself cutting material important to the learning outcomes.
Anyone else having these issues?
Happy Saturday, Tremayne! ;-)
Using a timer helps to manage time on a day-to-day basis for various activities. For course time management, determining deadlines through the course.
Allot of the time management strategies I used were mentioned in the reading. Having extra assignments on hand (fillers) prevent down time if you happen to finish ahead of schedule.
I always put the class agenda on the board before starting class and I will start the class if they have any questions from the lesson before. The class likes to know what to expect and they actually can help the instructor stay on task if they know what needs to be accomplished that day.
If I have extra time, I move forward with the next day's lesson if possible. OR if I can I like to add classroom activities to supplement the lecture and increase learning potential.
i usualy have about 15min of on the job expierance that i share with them if it is needed
Always have extras prepared just in case of running early on time such as group activities and homework assignments.
I can add you tube videos, have slides to review, do homework in class or discuss questions at the end of each chapter.
My class is a lab class hands on so everything we discuss is usually a demonstration and after the demo we go over questions about what we did and it really keeps us on track.
I teach a three hour course. I will use a pretest at the beginning of class, a case study halfway through the class and a practice exam after the material has been covered.
stoping poins in my notes so i can give them a small break and so i can stay on track
I feel lucky to be able to teach the same course several times per year. Due to the amount of times teaching the course I have a day by day chart as where we should be at any given time. I do have add on that I like to use but when for what ever reason the class is running slow I can leave the add on out. The more/better an instructor know their class the smoother it will run.
I consistently manage & check organized lesson plans by adhering to dates and time of coverage of topics.
Time management to me was one of the most difficult things to learn when I first started teaching. It's something that even as a long time teacher, you need to still be flexible with it. Depending on the group that I have in any given class, it may take two hours or 8 hours to cover the content, and I have a 5 hour class. You need to be flexible with the flow of the class, though not to the point of being unstructured.
When the lesson is going to fast, I have short preplanned arts & crafts projects I assign in groups. I always have magazines, pieces of poster boards, colored pencils/markers, tape scissors, printouts for window paining and topic webs for students to work with. When I first started doing it I thought the adult learners would think it to "kindergarten like". Turns out...they love it! It also helps them to remember the lesson. Also, at times I've been known to extend a break an extra five minutes.
When the lesson is going to slow and I haven't covered what I needed to, I assign workbook pages that go with their text for homework. The next day the work book makes for faster lecture and the students are more familiar with the topic at that point.
Most importantly for my time management, I am hardly ever late in the morning, after break or from lunch. This encourages the students to be ready to learn! Which saves me a lot of time!