Faculty Resources
Teaching Resources
Teaching Tips | Week 3: Streamline, Stay on Task and on Topic
Summer 2009
Summer session goes by in a flash! Try these strategies to streamline class activities and assignments to keep everyone on task and on topic.
Stay on task
- Expect students to post their work, take out their notebooks, turn in homework, and pick up handouts as soon as they enter the room so everyone is ready as soon as class officially begins.
- Start class with a quick activity each day or after a long lunch break. As soon as you arrive, write a provocative questionor simple task on the board. The question or task can review content from the last session, or preview a new topic. Once class officially begins, allow 2-3 more minutes for students to generate ideas and a few more minutes to share their responses in pairs or small groups. (A bonus: With everyone on task, latecomers will arrive and see they've already missed something!)
Streamline your activities and assignments
- Use assignments and activities that relate directly to your course outcomes; forgo the extras. Choose projects that do double-duty and serve two outcomes. When possible, require 20 thumbnails instead of the usual 50, or two pages instead of five.
Stay on topic
- Expect students to refer to course content, assigned readings and media as they develop responses to discussions in class and online.
Onsite
- Remind students of your expectations at the beginning of each discussion or demo.
- Respectfully—but firmly—remind them that you will not engage with off-topic comments. If you address off-topic concerns in class, students will raise them more often and you'll find yourself getting derailed.
- Students who have questions or comments that are off topic can record their ideas on an index card or scratch paper to share outside of class.
Online
- Remind students of your expectations at the beginning of each discussion topic. Let them know you will not engage with off-topic posts.
- Reword and/or repost the original question if responses begin to stray in the wrong direction.
- Regularly summarize a couple of times in each module, by highlighting the points that were on topic.
Resources:
More on staying on-task and time management:
Time Management for Teachers
More on discussions:
Lectures and Demos: Help Students Get the Most Out of Them
Launching discussions with thinkwrite-pair-share
Asking Great Questions
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