The young teacher’s guide to long lessons

Lessons lasting 60 minutes or more in a high school create a new set of conditions for the teacher and the students in his class.

It is important to understand the problems and devise ways to overcome these problems and make use of the advantages that the longer lesson period brings to the teacher.

These issues discussed below stem from my own classroom experience when my school changed from six 40-minute periods per day to four 70-minute periods per day. It also reflects the experience of the staff in my department.

The topics are not in any particular order of importance, but I thought it was important to bring them up.

1. It is hard work for teachers and students. It is impossible for most students and teachers to effectively concentrate on a subject for long periods of time, such as an hour. There should be short breaks or changes in what you are doing to keep both students and teachers interested and focused.

2. Your available teaching time must become “SACRED.” Don’t let anyone have it without a fight, even management. Longer periods mean fewer periods. Therefore, a missed period becomes a significant percentage of your instructional time in any instructional week.

3. Must have a homework/study strategy for students. Since you’ll be seeing the class less often, you’ll need to suggest when they do homework and when they study, for example, do homework tonight to keep learning fresh and reinforce quickly, or do it the night before the next lesson to keep it fresh. in the minds of students.

4. Lack of continuity. This occurs when students are absent simply because they miss a large percentage of their learning time, making it difficult to catch up on missed work. Also, for students who are present in class, there may be up to four days between successive lessons.

5. The work ethic is difficult to develop. Points 2 to 4 above support this point.

6. Strategy for absent student. It is important to ensure that absent students are not left behind. What I did was keep a detailed record of what I accomplished in each lesson in my journal. I made sure to save the flyers for the absent students. I wrote the names of all the absent students on any handout ready to hand out to the absent students at their next lesson. With the longer period, I was able to spend a little time with them to get them up to speed.

7. Strategy for absent teachers. With longer lessons, a teacher’s absence had a greater impact on the class. Therefore, it is important to plan an effective lesson to cover that absence.

8. Detailed planning and full use of time are essential. It’s easy to “waste” time. Plan some extra short activities for any unexpected free time that comes up in a lesson, for example, a quiz or problem-solving activity.

9. Group planning will be essential. If you are part of a team of teachers assigned to the same grade level and/or subject, team teaching may ease the burden of long lessons and add variety to help maintain student interest and focus. Students enjoy a change of teacher from time to time.

10. He always seemed to be in a hurry to cover the course when long lessons were first introduced. That’s why you need to carefully plan how to use every minute of the long period. What I did was plan to complete the work program for the term or semester at least one week before any planned assessments.

11. You need to break your lessons into short segments to survive. Each segment allows you and your students a break and a chance to “recharge your batteries and theirs.” Have a basic structure for each lesson. Your students should be aware of this structure. Post it on your board each lesson.

12. Teach skills first. Good basics improve a student’s chances of success in all areas of their course, especially the more challenging areas of problem solving and critical thinking.

13. Student Mentors. Encourage older students to form study groups of four or five to work together outside of school. In class, use your gifted students to explain ideas to the class as a whole or to individual students. This is good for your personal development. Students often learn a lot from their classmates as they tend to “speak the same language”.

14. There is time to teach students skills that take a long time to develop, eg, developing a logical decision-making process, experimental procedures in science, developing an argument in history.

15. You can teach an entire topic in one lesson and use later lessons to consolidate. You can give an overview initially, showing where the topic is leading.

16. Students should be more responsible for their learning, homework, study and technical exam. Teach these skills in class in short bursts over time. Review these skills as often as you can to reinforce and develop them.

17. Learn to work smart – use whatever tools or ideas are available to you that you can, eg multiple intelligences, listening skills, variety of teaching strategies.

18. Help students learn to think, write, and speak using the language and terminology of their subject disciplines. Provide short subject vocabulary tests/quizzes to improve these skills and add another segment to your long lessons.