Classroom Rhythm Series: Pace Yourself!

I have always been a "bell-to-bell" teacher. I always thought it was strange when I heard teachers complain about never having enough time to "get through" the content, but then the first 5 and last 5 minutes of class were wasted every day, or they'd give silent work time even though students had already finished what they needed to complete. I witnessed a similar situation in my student teaching experience. We all feel the pressure of the material weighed against the short time in a class period measured by the even shorter attention span of our students. Keeping all of this in mind, pacing can help resolve much of that pressure.

Pacing a class takes practice. When we were student teaching and writing painfully detailed lesson
plans with the exact number of minutes each part of the lesson would span, did anyone really get that duration right every time? Definitely not. It takes time to gauge lesson duration, unit duration, and class pacing. So how do I do it?

I use top-down planning to make this happen. I was working with a middle school teacher I was mentoring, and she expressed frustration that she just didn't know what to do in what order or how long anything would take. We discussed her planning strategies, and it was clear that was what caused her confusion. She had a list of topics and skills she needed to cover for the year, and she'd just pick one, start a unit on it lesson by lesson until she finished or was tired of that concept and then would move on. It left her and the students feeling disorganized and made the class seem haphazard. As we met, I modeled my planning techniques to help her see another method for determining the content of a class.

Here's what I do:
**Check out the FREE Lesson Planning Template I created just for this series to help!

Semester-level
Start at the top with semester planning. Determine what standards and skills will be the primary focus during each semester. Also list which genres, texts, or large writing projects will be included in each semester. I like to plan for one or two units each quarter (for high school) or two or three units per quarter (for middle school). Divide these into the specific quarter in which they will be addressed. Determine how many total days are in the quarter, then consider the amount of time each unit may take (generally). For example, a poetry unit will probably be shorter than reading an entire play or novel.

*Note: Most teachers don't start from scratch completely and come into a year with their own plans or another teacher's plans to follow. Input what you know, what you plan to keep, count the days you know you will need and adjust for adding/removing activities. You can always begin top-down planning, no matter where you are in your year!

Unit-level
Once you've determined how many days you have for each unit, then you can determine the unit overview. If reading will be your primary homework, as mine always is, then begin there. Divide up the text into manageable reading chunks, assign them to the days reading will be required. Then you can begin plugging in the activities that coincide with each section of the reading, planning class discussions based on the topics or literary devices addressed in that section, and determining number and type of assessments that will be included. Work to list generally what will be included each day.

Daily-level
This is the point at which you are preparing for the day-to-day resources you will need for class. Put each activity you listed in the unit-level planning in order. Be sure you have created or found all materials you need for each activity. (Since I keep everything in Google Drive, I like to link each resource to my planning document for easy access!)

Class Pacing
For a typical 45-50 minute class period, I like to think of it as three 15 minute sets. Here is how I pace my class:
        0-15        Grammar/Writing instruction, practice, discussion, activities, etc. 
        16-30      Unit Activity 1
        31-45      Unit Activity 2
I typically expect to get through two activities in a class period. Generally that is a combination of a whole class discussion on a topic and individual or group work. Depending on the activity, it may be better to discuss as a class after they have time to work together.

Transitions
The key to class pacing is transitions. The transitions are what take the most time. Here are some helpful hints for speeding up class transitions.
1. Complete organizational tasks (attendance, missing work, etc.) while students are engaged in an activity. I start the class everyday with instructions that will get students involved in an activity or lesson on their own within a minute or two of the bell ringing. This gets them instantly involved in their learning and gives me time to take attendance or catch any student that was absent. These activities could be bell-ringers, passages to read, notes to annotate, discussion questions to address within a group, etc. I have never "called the roll;" I do this without their knowledge while they're otherwise engaged.
2. Set a timer- real or imaginary. I give minute warnings, like, "You have about two minutes left to discuss." Before every transition this time warning can either refocus students to finish the tasks at hand, or alerts students who need extra transition time to begin mentally switching tasks. Sometimes I even put an actual timer on the SmartBoard if I know the exact amount of time we will be involved in an activity, but honestly this is rare because I track the progress of students as they are engaged in activities to determine how much time they need. If we need more, we take it. If we're done early, we move on.
3. Group numbers- Even if my desks are in rows, a horseshoe, or stadium-style, students still know exactly where to move their desks as soon as I say, "Get with your group." Each seating arrangement I complete includes an outline of who will be in a group together when that is necessary. Then, I number each of those groups based on the vacinity to the number posted on the wall nearest them. That way, when I tell students to get into their groups, they can do it in less than a minute, no one is left out of a group, and I lose less class time in that transition.
4. To wait or not to wait- There's always that one student. The one who takes longer to get started, is slow to progress, or wastes time given to work- or maybe all of the above! How do you keep a class moving when it seems that everyone is waiting on that one student? Check-ins, that's how. Every teacher knows who those few students will be that can't or won't finish when everyone else does, so it's important to check-in with those students frequently. Help facilitate that students learning without the burden of being "the last." You can do this by assigning group roles, giving that student a manageable role, while maybe not a primary pace-setting role. You can also set note-taking expectations, that often means have copies of notes available for students to review and fill in gaps later. You can find them a time-driven buddy that will help move them along kindly. Or better yet- make them the time-keeper in a group role. Or even better yet- design lessons that will allow students to work at their own pace through the use of HyperDocs, group tracking sheets, and collaborative cohorts that support peer-helping.

As you follow a similar pattern within your class, students will come to anticipate the rhythm that creates in class. This doesn't mean you are bound to the same schedule everyday. I love to mix it up occasionally just to keep them interested, but it sets the pace that students can come to expect.

How can you become more aware of the rhythm of your class pacing? What patterns have you already established that have determined the pace of your class without your input? Is there anything you could do differently to set a pace that fosters engagement, student support, and success all at the same time?