Thought of the Day: Saturday, August 16th, 2014

Being more aware of our teacher talk time

As educators, we are all aware of just how important it is to keep teacher talk time to a minimum and let our students get on with their learning. However, it's easier said than done. 

There have been times in the past that I have tried to monitor my own teacher talk time by having a student who is sitting out of PE due to being sick or injured use a stop watch to time my whole group discussions in class. Although I think that I am pretty decent at keeping my teacher talk time short and sweet, I know for a fact that there is room for improvement. Simply put, I know I can get better in this area. 

I am setting myself a challenge that I sincerely hope I can follow through with. Starting this Monday, I want to monitor my own teacher talk time all week, Monday to Friday. My plan is that for each class, I will use a stop watch to record the total time that I talk during my whole group discussions. It certainly won't hurt learning and will put pressure on me to be more succinct and precise with what it is I want to say during my instruction time. Not only will it be important to think about the actual time spent talking, but also to reflect on how I can better say what it is I think I have to say. 

Teachers are known for unnecessarily repeating things over and over, especially when it comes time to giving instructions to our students. The tendency at times is to just give our instructions differently multiple times before setting them off to work. This not only wastes our own time, but also the precious time of our students. How about joining me in this one-week challenge? This is not meant to be competitive in any way, but more to get us all thinking about just how much time we spend talking in our group discussions in class. What better time to do this than at the start of the school year? For those teachers in the southern hemisphere, a great time to do it as you finish off the second half of your school year! If any teachers try this out, let me know how it goes for you. I'll be blogging about my own results next weekend.  

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