On In-Class Focus and Vigilance
If you are reading this, you have a reason to refocus or to reconsider your in-class efforts. Perhaps you’ve been ordered to do so. Begin with this:
If this is not the first time you’ve read that instructional post, read it again. Notice that reading it carefully takes a while, even though it is relatively short. There are hyperlinks, handouts, reviews of course fundamentals, and so on. If you’re reading it during class, that post alone might take you half the period.
That’s the point. In fact, that’s always the point: This takes time. And I’m going to keep saying and writing this, because no theory developed in this space has ever been more solid and more substantiated:
If you work from the moment you enter the room until the moment the bell rings to send you somewhere else, you will be successful.
First Reason: Your GAP Score
The most obvious reason for this is that you are assessed every three weeks or so on on how well you focus. That expectation is all over the profiles and skills and traits we use, and it’s been made even more transparent in the GAP scoring guides updated each year . The first thing you self-assess is your in-class focus.
In fact, every aspect of the GAP scoring process is simple and straightforward, and it all ties back to using your class time effectively. It is not a complicated idea, and it cannot be made any more straightforward for you. It’s also not a particularly unique request. You should be working hard when you’re in every classroom.
That said, let’s be clear that I am not saying that you must have perfect focus. No one is asking you to work so hard that you collapse. What we’re talking about is the really obvious foray into being off task. Not for a moment, but for a lot of moments. Significantly. Obviously.
You have control over this. It’s not a matter for debate, either. There is an entire unit built around understanding and grappling with self-control and focus. I recognize that it’s human nature. You must recognize that it’s your job to master that part of human nature.
And if you can’t do your job on a particular day, you need to advocate for yourself immediately so that accommodations can be made. That’s the other thing. If there’s some reason you’re not able to do the work required of you for these 40 minutes, that’s okay. All it takes is a little transparency and respect. You just have to ask.
Second Reason: A Self-Fulfilling Loop
Now let’s talk about the deeper purpose behind telling you to work from bell to bell. If you know that you have to keep working, you’re going to have to find something to keep working on. You’re going to have to fill the time productively. The quest to fill the time will lead to success.
Example: You’ve started an in-class writing response that should take the entire period and probably some time at home. You finish after 10 minutes. You wrote something. You submitted it. You’re done.
But you’re not done. You know that, because you know you have to keep working for the entire class period, no matter what. If you don’t know what else to write, ask for help. Solicit feedback from your peers. Print a copy of your writing and edit its grammar and mechanics.
It’s a simple but profound shift at how you look at “finishing“ an assignment. With the same example: It takes you 37 minutes to finish writing, and you have only three minutes left. You decide to pack up, because you just wrote for 37 minutes. You check social media and load a game, because you’ve worked hard enough.
Instead, you should spend the last three minutes looking over your work for typos. You could do a cursory edit of the piece in 60 seconds. Or you could plan out the evening. You might spend three minutes organizing what you want to look at that night. You keep working, because you have to keep working for the entire class period, no matter what.
However long you think you’ve needed to finish, you must fill the rest of the time productively. The second you disengage from the class and do literally anything else, you have failed the most basic requirement of the room.
Again, and I say this with empathy, it’s not open for debate. You have such extraordinary freedom to navigate the requirements of this course that — including the ability to advocate for a break! — that you have to keep working for the entire class period, no matter what.
If you remind yourself as you walk in that you have to be productive for the entire 40 minutes, you will be more vigilant. Your focus will follow, and your work will improve exponentially. You’ll be asking more questions, working with more peers, writing more, reading more, constantly seeking the next step.
This is how you fit the top profiles. In fact, the default action when you truly have no idea what else to do with yourself is to reflect and be metacognitive. You could do that with any assignment, any bit of feedback, any post, any central text — anything, at any time, is open to that kind of writing.
What Else You Could Do
An entire section of the post on the GAP process covers this:
Those are interactive or instructional guides to how students should spend the class period. Face-to-face time is strongly correlated with whichever profile is eventually correct. To a sometimes surprising extent, staying actively engaged in class is all it takes; the rest of the learning process is almost a logical consequent of that investment and focus.
These correspond to posters on the walls and handouts available throughout the room. If your question is, “What should I do next?” there is a way to answer it for yourself. You could also use the explicit, still-relevant outlines in this instructional essay.
There’s always more to read, something to re-read, and a chance to learn. What I will add now is an answer to the question of what to do next that focuses solely on what is available online. What to do:
- Read any and all recent instructional posts again and again, looking for something new to learn each time.
- Ask questions about those instructional posts online, in a way that will bring other students back to see the answers.
- Do the same things — read carefully and repeatedly, ask questions — with our ongoing discussion posts.
The point of all this interstitial content is to invite you into an ongoing interaction with your overall learning habits, not just the content of this course. That’s why the third option in that list — a list that is just a fraction of what you can do to fill your time — refers to these posts:
When in doubt, go back to those discussions. They are ongoing. They should bridge courses, grade levels, even entire school years. Those are the discussion we need to have, repeatedly, to understand ourselves and our learning environment.
So if for some reason we can’t work from bell to bell on a certain day we have the option to advocate for a break?
Yes, of course. Advocacy reflects many of the most important skills and traits — self-awareness, communication, organization, and so on. We all need a break from time to time, and the point of an interstitial classroom is to give you access to what you need when it’s most efficacious (that is, when it has the most efficacy for you).
Can we decide to work on creative writing if we have finished work that was assigned?
Yes and no. The work that is assigned includes creative writing, for the most part, and there is always an option to take your assignments in more divergent directions. There’s also the fact that you can always do a bit more with the assigned work. See this post for the complete breakdown of that, or see some of the other posts and guides embedded here.
If you are inspired to work on a piece you see as creative but somehow not connected to our current work, here’s what you do: Bring it to the much looser and less defined project work we do on Fridays, or advocate in the moment for the need to work on it then. You’ll probably succeed in advocating. But you’ll need to have a keen sense of what separates that creative work from the mostly endless possibilities of the space.
Could a “daily goal” be to write/ finish a creative piece? Do you think assigned work would be done quicker and better if the person writing it knew that they could work on something they enjoyed writing right after? When someone wants to do something, they are more inclined to do it than when they are just told. I think that can be used as an incentive.
That’s a kind of gamification. It can work. Let’s look at examples of what you mean in class, and I’ll follow up here for others.
Are students expected to not engage in casual conversation that doesn’t have to do with our work with our peers? Since it’s impractical to think they can be working consistently while doing so and since something like taking the last three minutes of class to pack up is even divergent behavior, is that condemned? Is doing that, however short, worse then stopping work with three minutes left?
Nothing will be condemned. We’re setting our goal high, because trying to reach it will result in better choices. Yes, it’s okay to engage in casual conversation while you work. You must only recognize when that conversation is inhibiting the work. The best work environments are friendly and collegial, but it takes time and practice to get there; some casual conversation happens in place of the work, which we obviously don’t want.
There’s also a marked difference between packing a few moments early and packing up a few minutes early. I’m sure there are exceptions to this, but in most of my experience, those few minutes are a kind of capitulation. You want to fight past that, if you can. While you’re in this room, you and your peers create the atmosphere, and it can be fun and studious… or it can be loose and unfocused. The difference, again, is considerable.
This post discusses how we should constantly be writing,revising our work ,etc. However, this post fails to mention discussing assignments with peers as part of working “bell to bell.” I feel that if we are seen talking and not typing on our computer, or reading an instructional post, it is assumed that we are off task. More specifically, I feel that if we are talking it is assumed that we are not working “bell to bell.” I personally like to discuss assignments out loud with my peers because it helps me develop responses that are more meaningful. But, I feel that if you see me talking it is automatically assumed that I am off task.
The first skill we assess is collegiality, though. You are always permitted to work with peers. You’re encouraged to do that. There are many posts and guides that emphasize this, and we’ll read some of them together, I think, starting with this one: A Better Form of Feedback. To be successful, you must work together. Ken Robinson said it, too: Collaboration is the stuff of growth. The whole course is built around that idea.
I think it’s very important for students to know that they can advocate for a break. This way, the student knows what is expected of them, but they also feel cared for. During class, I find myself working with others in a way that benefits my writing and work in class, not necessarily in a way that is too casual. Therefore, I think that the collaboration is part of the work from bell to bell.
The article says we have control over our focus and that it’s not a matter for debate. What about people who have disabilities that make it difficult to focus? It seems like some people are just better at focusing than others.
Good question! We take that into consideration. It’s always a conversation, too, about each student’s abilities and needs.
You say, “you have to keep working for the entire class period, no matter what.” but the exception of “no matter what” is when we ask for a break… what you’re saying is confusing for me because normally “no matter what” means no exceptions… except you do have an exception? It makes it unclear as to when advocating for a break is okay…
Yes, that’s a little more confusing than I intended it to be. To me, working all period includes advocating for yourself and being mindful of when you need a break. That’s a kind of work. Anything that isn’t mindless — that isn’t just your default setting — is work, including those days when you ask for time to recover.
I have frequently found myself lost in the beginning of class, looking around to see what other people are doing. I have struggled to find something to work on right away. However, with the new daily check-ins, I set a goal for myself so I determine what I should get to work on. They help me to center my focus from the very beginning of class, so it is easier for me to work “bell to bell.”
Excellent. I’m glad it works.
I believe having the daily check-ins in the beginning of class really helps set your focus on being productive for that period. I find it much easier to get work done when you have a set goal and know what you are working to accomplish during that time. I also believe it is important that students know they have the option to advocate for a break if they need one. For me personally, it lessens my stress level knowing that if i do need one for whatever reason it won’t affect my grade negatively.
I feel like talking to our classmates during class about what we should be doing and asking for feedback on our writing assignments can be very helpful and shouldn’t be considered and not working bell to bell. By collaborating with other people it makes it easier to bounce ideas off from them, ultimately helping you create the best essay/response you can have.
Yes, that’s right. Look closely at what this post is arguing: You should be talking to your classmates about what to do, and you must ask for feedback. The feedback system depends on it: A Better Form of Feedback.
Asking for help and guidance will always look and feel different from being off-task. Lively discussion and collaboration is absolutely the most important part of learning — see Ken Robinson again, and note that “collaboration is the stuff of growth.”
I feel I can argue that Highschool students similarly to the way they write essays will write a goal to please the teacher rather than writing a goal for themselves. Students may write a goal that doesn’t personally get them excited or just seems right because the teacher just assigned the post, however, if students set up realistic goals they may be more productive.
This is a tough sell, but an important one: You aren’t setting goals to please me, nor are you trying to do what you think I want. We are using universal skills and traits and profiles that reflect that universality. The individual approach you take has to guided by a teacher or mentor, but you aren’t doing it for them/me. You’re doing it for you.
The daily check-ins are very helpful because it helps me decide what it is I want to do and have to get accomplished. However I find my self doing busy work if I finish what I need to get done because I know I have to fill the time.
It’s critical that your work is never busywork. As soon as you feel that it is, let me know. It might be that the work is unwelcome, which happens for all of us; being metacognitive, revising essays, proofreading, etc., aren’t always fun and engaging tasks. They are necessary, though.
You always have meaningful work that can be done. Since it’s one of your options, think about the Pareto Project: That is a passion project, which makes all the work related to it meaningful. You also have the option of revising and attempting to publish meaningful essays you’ve written. And then there is the meaningful work of helping peers. In a very real sense, it’s up to you all to recognize the difference between busywork and the vast possibilities in here — but I’m always going to help you find what you need.
This post has really changed my mindset and the way that I have been working in class. I had found myself not being as productive in class and having to do most of my work at home. By setting a goal for myself and working through the whole period I’ve seen improvement in my work already. I have been more focused on my assignments and haven’t been procrastinating.
Glad to hear it. Let me help you with any particulars.
I feel like the daily check ins are helpful for me to map out the work I will be doing in class. I also feel like This post is useful as an example of what our focus should be like in class. However I feel as though the conversations we have with our peers is important as well and sometimes can even help us grasp the concept better. Interacting with my fellow students to discuss or attack a topic can provide an even better understanding of the topic or material.
Keep having those conversations. They are essential.
I think that giving and receiving feedback is an essential component to growing as a student. Working with your fellow classmates/teachers helps you to see things from a different perspective. While that is very important, self assessed feedback is also important, picking up on your strengths and weaknesses and finding what works best for you.