Bell-Ringers, Warm-Ups, Activators, are not something you see in every classroom. I am a HUGE fan of implementing a consistent warm-up/bell-ringer at the start of the class period; however, my teacher bestie hates them. She doesn’t see the need, and she is still a highly effective teacher. Having a bell-ringer can be a huge asset, and I highly recommend it, but you can certainly still be effective without one. 

Benefits of Using Bell-Ringers

One benefit of using bell-ringers is that it gets students ready for your class. In middle school, they typically go from one subject to the next, back to back. They likely haven’t even thought about your social studies class since yesterday when they were here. So, the bell-ringer gives them that time to come back into the social studies class mindset.

It’s similar to a warm-up you might do at the gym. I always feel like my workout is better when I give myself 10 minutes to warm-up first. It gives my mind time to turn off all the outside distractions and focus on what I’m at the gym to do: work out. Similarly, students need to get back into the zone of your classroom. 

A second benefit of using bell-ringers is that it gets YOU ready for your class. As a middle school teacher, you know that there are a billion fires you need to put out in the first 10 minutes of class. You’ve got attendance, admin or counselors coming to you in the hall, a quick chat with their last teacher, and all those random questions that come your way first thing. Students can be busy with their warm-up, while you’re getting all of that taken care of. 

Best Practices for Bell-Ringers in Middle School

1. Keep it short. 

A bell-ringer is not supposed to take a large chunk of your instructional time. Keep it less than 15 minutes (including the review). This may take practice - for you and your students. Middle school students will either be quick as lightning because they didn’t even try, or they will take a billion years because they are procrastinating. You’ll need to give them a sense of urgency.  A visual timer can help with this. If you notice that your bell-ringers are consistently running over the 15 minutes and your students are not “wasting” time, consider lessening the number of prompts.

I do NOT recommend making students copy the prompts. To me, it’s a waste of time. The point, in my opinion, is to spark their social studies skills - not their copying skills. If you want them to have a record of the prompts to study later, just print them out. 

2. Always review afterwards.

Even though you’re trying to keep it short and under 15 minutes, reviewing is still very important. This will allow you to quickly correct any misconceptions. You can also get a pulse check for understanding. 

3. Have accountability.

I typically had 3-5 questions each day, but we still “graded” them. Students would swap with a neighbor and use a highlighter to grade. They subtracted 10 points for each wrong answer - no matter how many prompts there were. So, if a student missed 3 out of 5, he made a 70 (not a 40). While we graded them every day, I did not take a daily grade in the grade book every day. I took two as a daily grade per week. I did not tell the students ahead of time which ones I was taking for a grade. We kept the routine the same, though: do the warm-up, get your highlighter, swap with a neighbor, grade, turn in. 

Now, sometimes I would have questions to spark interest or gauge knowledge of a topic we had not yet covered. I never counted that against them. Either it was not part of the grade, or it was not the one I chose for that week to take a grade on. 

4. Strategize your bell-ringers. 

We want our bell-ringers to be as useful as possible, right? If possible, try to create your bell-ringers in a way that will show a pattern. This pattern will help you find the root of the misconception. Now, you won’t always be able to do this, but it’s a great bonus when you can! Can you create a multiple choice prompt that will show specifically where students are misunderstanding? If the correct answer is A, but the student chose B, what does that tell us?

Here’s an example. 

Which best describes the relationship between investment in capital goods and gross domestic product? 

        a. Higher investment in machinery = higher gross domestic product

        b. Higher investment in education = higher gross domestic product

        c. Lower investment in machinery = higher gross domestic product

         d. Lower investment in education = higher gross domestic product

In our example above, “A” is the correct answer. We’ve designed this question in a way that will show us whether students are misunderstanding vocabulary or the concept of the relationship. If students choose “B”, they are mixing up human capital and capital goods. If students choose “C”, they are misunderstanding the concept of the relationship. Students who chose “D” are misunderstanding both (or just guessing). 

See how valuable that is?! This strategy will save you tons of time! I know this will be tough to do for every single question, but if you can do this for even one per day - that’s still helpful! 

5. Spiral your skills. 

Bell-ringers are a great opportunity to insert one prompt from a previous unit to keep those skills fresh. I recommend using an old prompt at least two or three times per week in your bell-ringers. Certainly, everyday is better, but at minimum, 2 times per week. In 6th and 7th grade Georgia Social Studies, this will be easy because you can connect current standards to the same standards with previous nations studied. Even if it doesn’t fit “perfectly” with your current unit, throw it in there anyways! You don’t necessarily need to include this one as a graded part of the bell-ringer - use your discretion, there. 

Bell-Ringers can add major benefits to the structure and management of your middle school classroom. Here’s a free week of 8th grade bell-ringers for you to try out!