We’re working hard to decrease the amount of time we spend in transition. In January, 2011 and again in May, 2011, data from the observation report that was gathered by our consultants with the Instructional Coaching Group indicated that 22% of our instructional time is spent in transitions.
One of the Requirements from our School Improvement Grant is:
Requirement 3A – Establish schedules and strategies that provide increased learning time.
Transitions are tricky because there are out of the classroom transitions and then there are transitions that happen in the classroom in times where teachers are giving directions and students are transitioning between activities.
We have another observation scheduled the week of November 7th. Our goal is to decrease the amount of instructional time that we spend in transitions to less than 5%. You may remember hearing me say that “I think we’re doing ok” is not good enough. We need to KNOW that we are on track to meet this goal. We have gathered some informal data twice in the last month (sounds a bit like formative assessment, don’t you think???).
The first time we observed a 20 minute instructional block and counted the number of minutes spent on transitions during that time. The average was 15%. That was definitely an improvement from 22%, but it was far from our goal of <5%. The second time, we observed an out of classroom transition. This was when teachers were transitioning back into the classroom from another place. Each team was observed separately and learning lab was observed on its own. It was a little tricky to come up with a way to make these numbers comparable. So, here's how it was done... We looked at the number of minutes that we are given each day, subtracted time for lunch and recess and found out how many of the remaining minutes could be spent in transition if we used less than 5%. With this one transition, we figured what percentage of each team's total transition time they used. Here's the breakdown:
Kindergarten – 40% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
1st Grade – 32% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
2nd Grade – 38% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
3rd Grade – 22% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
4th Grade – 16% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
5th Grade – 26% of the available transition time used on this one transition.
Learning Lab – 117% of the available transition time used on this one transition. (Based on 5 minutes of transition time allowed)
Here’s your challenge – See how low you can go! We’ll check these times again to see which team made the most improvement. Remember – this is just one of the out of classroom transitions you have each day – there could be 3 or 4 more just like it, and this doesn’t even account for the amount of transition time you spend in the classroom.
A note about transitions…The time starts according to the schedule (if you are supposed to leave recess at 10:50, that’s when the transition time starts). The transition does not stop when students stop moving and you’re in your classroom. It continues until students are settled, your learning target is stated and you begin teaching. Yes…when you state the learning target (objective, purpose, etc.), this cues the observer and your students that learning has begun.
Good luck! And I’ll see you soon with a stop-watch in hand.