Get Your Students Hired
For time management strategies, I use the following:
1. Finished lecture/lab early - have additional activities readily available for students to continue to enhance learning
2. Not enough time for lecture/lab - I start planning and reorganizing the lesson plan for the next session to incorporate material not covered
Time management is effectively using the time given to complete a goal. If I have a slide show I devidie the time of the class by the slides to approximate how long I can spend explaining each slide.
I have my biggest issues with lab assignments going to long, any suggestions?
My class is also 2 hours long and I sometimes teach the last class of the night so my students are tired. I try to have several hands on experiences so they are not just sitting listening and answering questions. This usually helps them to stay alert for the presentation portion of the lesson.
My classes are 2 hours long, I usually time the assignments and the time allotted for discussions and research.
We teach 5 hour classes with 50 minute sections. It is pretty easy to stretch things across that 5 hour period. My problem is more of having too much content, not less. I really love and value class discussion and questions, where the students get fired up.
I really like what this lesson is saying about laying a foundation and then continuing to build upon it and expand it. A slow reveal that just keeps building.
Thank you!
I usually have back up material that mirrors the lecture. I will make crossword puzzles with key terms from the lecture and diagrams that the students can label. My first time teaching the course I needed to use these often due to not knowing how long the lectures will take but have now taught the classes enough to where I know which instruction days may need aditional activities due to finishing early.
Thank you Thomas, I appreciate your reply. I will plan on integrating some "hands-on" practice activities and have left some cues in my ppts to remind me. I also hope to practice my lectures on some friends outside of the field so I keep my professional jargon down (at least initially).
I came to teaching in a very similar situation to yours, Rebecca. I have found that one thing that really helps with not talking to fast or too much is to choose several activities - worksheets, videos, practice activities, etc. - that allow you to take a break from lecture. That way, the students are still actively working on something, but aren't subject to an endless onslaught of specific terms and phrases that someone with a lot of experience on the subject tends to rely on.
Rebecca,
Excellent question. This is an ongoing issue for both newer and veteran instructors. I think that it is best to plan your lecture, with additional "room" for student discussion. Also, you should prioritize the daily concepts (based on the learning objectives) and begin with the more important topics, followed by additional supporting details. With this method, you can simply add the additional topics to the student portal or assign them as a homework review. Class discussion boards are important, because the instructor can continue the discussion outside of class time.
Tremayne Simpson
I teach 2-3hr classes at a time, so I always make sure that I have at least 15-20mins of extra material to either cover or a project that the students can work on. Then that way if the class moves at a faster pace the students will get more in time class to work on the project where they can have more of my attention to get help that they might need or if the class is moving slower we are still covering the required objectives and the projects will need to be done in the students' spare time.
My classes are 5 hours long. I have a lot different talking point to cover this block of time.
I like to use an outline and make sure i have several resources to keep at a nice interesting pace.
I like to keep questions or scenarios for the students to discuss if we have extra time so they understand the subject matter and this way they also do not know I have finished before I planned.
Tremayne,
I have 12 years of experience in my field, but this will be my first year teaching. My 2 hour courses will be taught twice a week and I will also have 4-8 hours of lab to teach each week. I am nervous about fitting all of the information in and have a habit of talking too fast.
Do you, or anyone else on the forum, have good pacing techiques or tricks to make sure I am not speaking too quickly?
Rebecca
The contents of the day is the most important education. Having said that I have always made sure to create time for further illustrations and demonstrations to achieve better understanding of the content. This always provides the class with further knowledge and keeps it non stagnant
Like Rodger I also have 15 – 20 mini lessons that I can add to any class if time permits. Prevents that award 10 or 20 minutes at the end of the class with nothing to do.
I find that managing how much time spent lecturing in the classroom needs to be shortened as much as possible, but still be able to cover course content. As our lab time needs to be scheduled around other classes who may or may not be in the shop at the same time. communication between instructors become critical so that all students receive equal shop time.
I always like to have activities planned as more of a "bonus" than a time filler so to speak. If we do finish the lesson for the day early, I have a fun, friendly activities using technology, such as Poll Everywhere, to assess their retention and keep them engaged. This allows them to use their computers, phones, twitter, etc. to answer the review questions in real time.
Since I am presenting technical material, I will let the students know that we have a tight schedule and we will move through the easy material quickly so that we have a built in cussion for the more difficult topics. By having gone through the syllabus the first day and reviewing the difficulty levels of each topic, the students are prepared for when we are ahead of schedule and will hit on one of the tough areas so we can take more time. Student responses are fairly supportive of the concept and appreciate the slower pace when a tough topic is in progress.