Making Every Minute Count!
Time-on-Task: A Strategy that Accelerates Learning
Time is important for learning. Across decades of research, time-on-task is positively associated with academic achievement. Educators who use effective classroom management strategies, employ good teaching practices, and incorporate interactive learning activities manage their time wisely, and have the power to turn on the learning light!
Effective time management is one of the skills necessary for success in school as well as in everyday life. Students need time to practice, rehearse, review, apply, and connect new learning and relate it to their everyday lives. Teachers who effectively manage time give their students the best opportunity to learn and to develop personal habits that lead to an efficient use of time.
Studies explored how time can be more efficiently used in classrooms and the instructional practices that lead to active student learning. The California Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study (BTES) of grades 2 through 5 in a large number of elementary schools identified teaching activities and classroom conditions that advanced student learning. BTES findings highlighted three important time concepts: allocated time, engaged time and academic learning time.
Allocated time is the total amount of time available for learning; e.g. the length of the school day or a class period. This is identified in our district Tier 1 Guarantees, and it guarantees that all Hudson elementary students have an equal opportunity to learn.
What can you do? Check to make sure your schedule matches the guaranteed minutes. Make sure your instructional time goes from "bell to bell" so students are getting the maximum amount of instructional time possible.
Engaged time or time on task is the amount of time students are actively involved in their learning. Studies show that the more engaged time students have, the higher they achieve. Highly interactive instructional styles led to greater amounts of student engaged time, and, consequently, increased student learning.
What can you do? Make sure you are incorporating highly engaging activities, using a variety of tools and resources, considering student interests when possible, and helping students see the purpose of their learning.
Academic learning time has to do with quality and amount of time students spend actively working on tasks of an appropriate difficulty.
What can you do? Incorporate gradual release so that students have an adequate amount of support to move through difficulty in order to build their independence. To deliver lessons designed to maximize academic learning time, teachers must:
- Accurately diagnose each student's knowledge and skill level
- Prescribe learning tasks appropriate to a student's levels
- Structure engaging lessons around the learning tasks and give clear, concise task directions
- Have substantive teacher-student interaction during the lesson, such as modeling, guiding students as they practice, asking probing questions, and giving corrective feedback.
Need some help?
We will be talking more about this at Wednesday's staff meeting. In addition, Lori has several tools, and has worked with some teachers already - from documenting a student's time on task, to an analysis of a teacher's use of time within a lesson. I would like every teacher to work with Lori to do at least one time-analysis study at some point in your day, to address an area you are curious about. This is something we will continue to look at throughout the year - so we can make sure we are making every minute count!
