What to do when you're running out of time in your unit
It’s inevitable. There will be a time in your teaching career when you will realize that you’re running out of time in a unit. You’ll realize that your assessment is fast-approaching, and your students are not ready. What do you do?
There are so many perspectives on what to do when you’re running out of time. Ultimately, it all depends on your students and your standards. I’m going to share 4 strategies you can use when you’re running out of time to teach your standards. Keep in mind, though, these specific strategies may or may not work based on your students and your standards. Teaching is often trial and error, and this is no different!
Keep It Simple, Sweetie
Honestly, the phrase, “keep it simple, sweetie” can be applied to most things in teaching. Let’s use it when you find yourself running out of time in your unit. We’re using this phrase in terms of “trimming the fat” off of your lesson plans.
Let’s say you have only one week left before your assessment, but you have two weeks of your plans to get through. You’ll need to separate the “must-knows” from the “it’d-be-nice-to-knows” and the “must-dos” from the “it’d-be-nice-to-dos”. You probably have both in your plans, but when you’re running short on time, cut it.
Let’s look at an example of a 7th grade standard (SS7G8) about Southwest Asia’s cultures. Religions and ethnic groups lend themselves to lots of fun instructional time and activities. However, if you’re short on time, you may have to skip those for now and maybe do them after testing. You might have an extra two class periods dedicated to diving deep into different religions, but is this what students “need” to know or “it’d be nice” for them to know? Or, you may not have time to do that research project that usually takes 3 class periods. Can you modify it to 1 class period? Or, do you have to skip it altogether?
You’ll need to separate the “must-knows” from the “it’d-be-nice-to-knows”
Priority Standards
This strategy is similar to the first one because it requires you to identify the priority standards in your unit. This can be tough for our Georgia Social Studies teachers because the state does not provide a specific list of “priority” standards. But…they do provide us with domain weights in their assessment guides. We can use this to help us determine which are “priority” standards.
Before I give you tips on this, I have to give a disclaimer. This is information is my interpretation of the standards and assessment guides. This is not endorsed or approved by GaDOE.
Here are the Domain Weights for 6th (2015), 7th (2015), and 8th (2020). I’ll have them linked below, so you can access the actual document.
Use these weights to determine what your “priorities” are in your curriculum planning - especially if you find yourself short on time. For 6th and 7th grade, you’ll want to make sure your students have mastered those geography standards. 8th grade students really need to master those history standards - history is 50%!
Grab this free printable version!
Domain Weights for grades 6, 7, and 8
Standards checklist separated by domain for grades 6 and 7
Cover Now, Review Later
“Cover now, review later” is a personal favorite of mine. I used this strategy when I taught 7th grade, and it was a classroom game-changer for me. The caveat here is that you actually have to have the time to review it later. If you push into that “review” time at the end, you’re in trouble.
Many of the “recall” standards will have to be reviewed at the end or just before the assessment anyways. If you’re short on time for the entire unit, you could briefly expose students to the recall information, then move on. You’ll review the recall information again just before the assessment.
If you go this route, you’ll need more time to review than you may have needed in the past. I typically planned a minimum of 4 weeks of review time before our end-of-year assessment. I had the time because we rushed through certain parts of the curriculum (based on priority and depth of knowledge.
Try Stations
Stations are always a great fall-back plan. You can cover more in less time, if you’re strategic. You can plan to have one or two stations that are student-led and one that is teacher-led. You can introduce a new topic in the student-led stations and help students master a current topic in the teacher-led.
Typically, we have stations that cover different aspects of the same topic. In this strategy, though, I’m suggesting that you have two different topics in two different stations.
For example, you’re still working on SS7G8 Southwest Asia’s cultures. You’ve covered SS7G8a (difference between ethnic group and religious group), and you’ve introduced SS7G8b (ethnic groups in Southwest Asia), and now you’re rushed to cover SS7G8c (religions in Southwest Asia).
Station 1: Independent/Student-Led: Reading Packet or Video with comprehension and standards-based questions on religions in Southwest Asia.
Station 2: Teacher-Led: Review of ethnic groups in Southwest Asia and differences between ethnic and religious groups.
MY TIPS:
I recommend the teacher lead the review station, so you can quickly identify and clear up misconceptions. Make note of misconceptions as you’re working with students. You may be able to hit this again in tomorrow’s warm-up.
Leave enough time at the end of class for a good summarizer. You’ll want to make sure you (the teacher) can give a brief summary of what they learned in the independent station. Then, give a quick 3-question exit ticket, so you have a formative assessment. Use this to create tomorrow’s warm-up.
I recommend keeping these stations at 3 or less - unless you have a 90-minute block. Students will need ample time to learn the new topic, and you’ll need ample time to work with them on the review topic. By the time you leave 15 minutes for a summarizer, the time for each station is already limited.
Free Stations Planning Guide
Plan your stations quickly with this free guide and checklist!
Closing
When you find yourself short on time in your unit, give these four strategies a try!
Keep It Simple, Sweetie - Separate “must-knows” and “must-dos”.
Prioritize Standards - Use domain weights to prioritize some standards over others
Cover now, review later - Save extra time at the end for an extensive review, so you can move on from recall standards before students have shown mastery
Stations - Use stations to introduce a new topic, while reviewing another topic
Need to know WHEN and WHAT to reteach?
Read this blog post.
