#Maintain a brisk pace of instruction plus#

One way to create the illusion of speed/pace is to use a variety of activities to accomplish a single lesson objective and to move from one to another throughout the course of a lesson. Then ask yourself these questions:ĭo you need to pick up the pace to maintain students’ attention?ĭo you need to use more inflection to draw students into the activity? If you are unsure what your own pacing is like – try recording one of your lessons to monitor your instructional pace and speech patterns.

Getting stuck with one group of students when you are trying to monitor the whole class.

Teaching to the weaker learners in the class.

Always getting your students to work in the same pairs/groups.Always using the same materials or presenting in the same manner.Too much down time locating resources or transitioning between activities.Too much teacher talk and/or long explanations/instructions.Generally, this will mean that the lesson appears to unfold more quickly and helps students feel like they are moving along.įactors that can make the pace feel too slow include: Pacing is the skill of creating a perception that a class is moving at just the right speed for the students. We all know students can play video games for hours at a time! Some experts would assert that there is no such thing as an attention span at all and that as long as we feel something is interesting – it is easy to pay attention. Others say students will pay attention for half of their age or a maximum of three activities each hour. a 13 year old will pay attention for about 15 minutes).

#Maintain a brisk pace of instruction plus#

Some say students’ optimal attention span is equal to his or her age plus two minutes (e.g. There is conflicting advice about the length of a student’s attention span. Likewise, when instruction moves along too quickly, many students fail to understand what you are teaching, become discouraged and frustrated and again can begin to misbehave. When students become bored, they are often easily distracted and begin to misbehave. Instruction that moves along too slowly will likely result in bored students who quickly stop paying attention. If you want to keep students engaged, it is crucial to consider the speed at which you move through a lesson and the rate of delivery for different parts of the lesson. Have you ever been in a meeting or class that seemed to drag on forever? Or, better still one that seemed to pass in a flash? Keep students engaged in learning through pacing