Have you ever sat in a team meeting and noticed that some of your coworkers were, for lack of a better term, not paying attention? Is it possible to grade homework? Are you having private discussions? Texting?
As we all know, kids aren’t much different than adults in that if they’re not engrossed in what’s going on, they’ll find something else to occupy their time. It’s difficult enough to have everyone in the room focused, excited, and on track at the start of class. Observing them zone out is also difficult once they’ve been engrossed in the course. That isn’t out of the ordinary. After all, anyone who has to sit through a long routine, such as a teacher’s presentation, is going to doze off. Being a teacher is about being able to keep kids engaged, increasing their confidence and broadening their horizons. A learning area is so important.
Creating an armory of habits and activities is the first step in eliminating dead time. They might be general-purpose exercises that apply to a variety of topic areas or teaching styles, or they can be content-specific activities that allow your students to learn by using many bits of intelligence in addition to listening and recalling.
Some are physical exercises that help children release pent-up energy, while others provide quiet time for reflection. Alternatively, they might be well-managed student-to-student contact to ensure that everyone is thinking about the same thing.
It takes time to create these exercises at first, but the result is well worth the effort in terms of classroom management and overall learning. I’m rarely at a loss for activities to execute when it comes to getting students back on track since I’ve built a stockpile of them.
Without prior training, doing project learning and other team-based work might result in a lot of wasted time. You can prevent a lot of it by teaching collaborative skills before projects begin. To teach teamwork, you don’t need to employ an activity linked to your subject area. Giving groups of pupils a pair of scissors, two sheets of paper, ten paper clips, and a 10-inch strip of tape and instructing them to construct the largest free-standing structure in 20 minutes is one method.
When presenting directions, it’s extremely vital to avoid dead time. There are numerous effective strategies to get your pupils’ attention, but many of them will work or fail depending on how demanding you are of the ultimate result. Before you begin speaking, you must have (1) perfect stillness, (2) complete attention, and (3) all five eyes on you, regardless of the manner you utilize. Do the following five times in a row while introducing this routine to students: Explain that you’ll give them a signal (counting out loud from one to three, ringing a bell, etc.) and wait until they’re ready for you to speak.
Making sure your students learn is by also making sure they have the necessary things to do so. Choose a leading classroom furniture supplier at the start and for any upgrades, you need to do. Make sure books and materials are up to date and have the right desk organization so you can be an effective teacher.