In what may be the greatest book on classroom management ever written, The First Days of School, Dr. Harry Wong stresses the importance of starting every class correctly. This means students enter the room correctly, go to their seats, and being independently working on something academic while the teacher takes role and accomplishes any other tasks that they need to do.
I love this strategy, and recommend using it.
The Problem
The one hiccup I have noticed plaguing teachers, which also caused me a great deal of anxt until I discovered the tip I am going to now share with you, was collecting and grading the students’ work.
What is the most effective strategy?
After One Day
I have seen some teachers collect it every day and grade it, returning it for a grade the next day. I feel that this removes the ability to immediately go over the work in class witht he students os that they can learn from their mistakes.
Beyond this, collecting and passing out papers takes time – time that could be better spent learning or practicing math.
Furthermore, collecting their work every day is such a waste of paper!
Once A Week
For the reasons mentioned above, I decided to collect Do Now papers once a week. This allowed me to go over the work in class almost every day, and saved time as well as paper.
However, a new problem immediately surfaced. Tracking the students’ work.
I was constantly getting papers where the students did not number them properly or put them in numerical order! Did they skip number 5, or can I just not find it? Oh there it is, at the bottom of the page, after number 12. Of course it is.
Finding the question numbers wasn’t the only issue, I often couldn’t follow their work, or find their answers.
I tried everything. I had them draw lines under each day’s Do Now to seperate it from the previous day’s work. I had them circle their answers. I taugh and taught and TAUGHT them how to seperate the question number from the problem…. all to no avail.
I was spending too much time grading DO NOW papers, especially considering that I gave almost all the answers in class. And I was constantly having students come up to me showing me the work and answer for one of the questions that I had said that they didn’t do.
THE SOLUTION
So, after struggling with this for way too long, I finally decided that there was an easier way.
I created a standardized Do No paper where the questions were pre-numbered for the students and a space to do the work was already blocked off for them. As well as a section on the side for them to write their answers.
Yes, I still have to train them to record number six in the box that is for number six, and to keep their work inside the allotted space, and to record the answers on the side. But it has improved things dramatically. And it has decreased the time I spend grading papers dramatically (as well as decreased my frustration level).
The Do Now is a free download on my Teachers Pay Teachers page.
One More Tip
To encourage student participation, I circulate the room while students are working on the Do Now questions. When I witness students doing a good job (for example, they walked straight to their seat, got out their Do Now and immediately began working on the assignment) I put extra credit on their paper.
I give them verbal praise and write +10 at the top of the page. This strategy is so effective, as the whole class witnesses it happening and immediately tries to get in on the action.
