I greatly revised Daily 3 this week. I’ve spent the last month and a half pulling my hair out at the lack of effort my students were putting into their work during independent station time. I had created what I felt was very meaningful spelling and vocabulary application practice and yet they wasted time, procrastinated and then finally rushed through the work to meet the deadline for turning it in. I offer extended time for those who need it to finish, but even with that, nearly half of my class was still unable to complete the work – and complete it well – on their own.
So, as a last resort, I made my kids stay at their tables this week. No more moving about to comfy spots, no more choosing which station to work on first and worst of all, no more small guided reading groups. We abandoned the novels we were all very much enjoying together so that I could monitor the class during the Daily 3 station time instead.
The kids have told me that they love this. In unsolicited feedback, several have shared how much more work they are getting done, how much more focused they are this week. I see that, as I walk around, monitoring their progress. I see higher quality work being produced. I see kids actually reading instead of pretending to, and I see students applying things we’ve learned in the moment of their writing and reading.
I’ve seen the new practice routine also benefit my numerous students with attention issues. While they still struggle to stay on task, I’m more able to help nudge them than I am when I am working with groups. My students are normally very quiet and give the appearance of being on task during Daily 3 rotations, but with everyone at tables, my easily-distractables now have less to pull them away from their work. When they look around, they see others right beside them, focused on the same task and it seems to help keep them engaged. For the last few weeks of school, their behavior is remarkably good during this time and some are even eager to go above and beyond on the work.
But I hate it. I cannot even begin to explain how much I hate this. Reading in small groups feels like the absolute best teaching that I do. With text literally in hand, we have the best in-the-moment discussions and applications of learning. We use the various chosen texts to work on the standards we are focused on and I model and provide practice for reading strategies right in the context of grappling with difficult words or comprehension. This is too much of a sacrifice to abandon it altogether and return to whole-group instruction only.
So I am left wondering how can I get this same focus and same attention to detail and same motivation to put in their best work without sacrificing small group time? There is just too much to be gained during small groups to give it up entirely!
I don’t have a ready answer, and I am not one to vent without trying to create a solution in the next breath. I think teachers have had to evolve their practices dramatically in the last few years to address the apathy and lack of motivation we see in our students. This profession is never stagnant and never should be, but I think all of us in education wish our time could be spent finding better materials and diving deeper into the research of learning to help our students more expediently instead of trying to reinvent teaching processes just to get students to put in the time and effort necessary to learning any task, skill or strategy.
During this time of year, I always keep a Google doc of concepts, practices and ideas that I want to put into practice in the fall. Improvements on my teaching, ways to get more meaningful practice out of my students and better ways to assess what they know. I also use this time to test out an idea or two. The kids love the novelty of change during the last few weeks and it’s a great time to try out things and start tweaking before trying full implementation in the fall.
This week, as I look around my quiet classroom full of focused, hard-working students, I wonder what independent task(s) can I create for them that will keep them this engaged so that I can return to small groups in the fall? Maybe this is only a temporary need; perhaps this lack of attention is the result of several things in recent years and eventually we will see students with better dedication to tasks and more intrinsic motivation to do their best work. Who knows? But I know I have to adapt to the students in front of me every year and I know that I have to maximize their time on meaningful work each and every day. It’s up to me to find a solution. I suspect this one, like so many, is going to require more than just out-of-the-box thinking. It’s going to require trial and error, and additional time spent on my part as well as collaboration with colleagues across the country. But most of all, I know this is a problem that has to be addressed and solved before our kids get any further behind.
Teaching at 3am 