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JUNIOR TIME MANAGEMENT

Teacher Implementation Kit

© 2015 Elevate Education

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Overview

Elevate Education is Australia’s largest provider of study skills workshops to high school students, and works with over 700 schools and 175,000 students every year across the UK and Australia.

Founded in 2001, Elevate has spent more than 13 years benchmarking the habits of the country’s top students. This research has identified 17 areas where the habits and study processes of the top students differ from middle and lower performing students. Elevate workshops introduce students to these 17 skills and show them how to adopt them.

What makes us different

Young presenters students can relate to Elevate uses university students that have recently faced and aced the final years of school themselves. By using presenters that students can relate to, schools have found the impact of the study skills message is increased. Young presenters are perceived as being credible as they have only just gone through the experience themselves.

Practical study skills students can use Most study skills programs fail because they are dense on theory but lack the kind of practical skills that students can use straight away. All of Elevate’s material focuses on practical study skills modelled from the top students.

Short, high impact sessions

Research shows that as the length of a study skills program increases, student implementation tends to decrease. Students are left with an overwhelming list of ‘52 skills’ which is so long that students don’t know where to begin. These short, sharp sessions maximise student retention rates and isolate a handful of skills to implement immediately, encouraging student skill adoption.

Follow-up resources Most study skills programs are ultimately flawed in that teachers are not provided with materials to follow-up and reinforce the skills covered in the program. Study skills, like any skill, are developed through repetition, practice and review. This teacher implementation kit is designed to be used in conjunction with the Junior Time Management seminar to reinforce the skills covered in the session.

How to use this document

This teacher implementation kit contains a

range of modular follow-up activities for

staff to run in class. The focus of this

implementation kit is on getting students to

use the skills while studying in a classroom

subject. However, if this kit is being used in

pastoral care time, the activities can still be

run using work the students have done while

in another class (e.g. English).

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Activity 1 – Creating an effective timetable

Initial class time required: Where do I spend my time worksheet:

Follow-up time:

Suitable subjects:

5-10 minutes each week

all

Timetable activity from Student

Activity Pack

Resources required:

Research Background

One of the biggest challenges for junior students is planning their time to incorporate homework, revision and the various activities they do after school and on the weekend. The first challenge is getting students to use a study timetable in the first instance. As you can see in the sample cohort to the left, many students – in this case over 45% - don’t use themat all. But once students are using study timetables, the next challenge is getting them to actually stick to them in the long term. In our research, students who use study timetables typically add in the study first, and then add non-study activities. This often results in students being unable to sustain the ambitious

Lesson 1 – Where do I spend time?

Step 1: Complete ‘Where do I spend time now?’ worksheet.

Have the students open to the first page of the Where do I spend my time now worksheet. In groups, students will complete the table to identify times of the week when they are not going to be able to homework or revision (this will later slot into their weekly timetable). While students do this, it is important to make sure that while all types of potential distractions are included, they don’t over-budget for particular activities. For example, spending 2 hours on the computer every night is not reasonable – 30-45 minutes would be more appropriate. An example of how this worksheet should look is over the page.

Example – Where do I spend time?

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Once students have finished their worksheet ensure they have a copy of the Weekly Study Planner in

front of them. Again, the purpose of a weekly timetable is to ensure students are continuously updating their commitments to keep the timetable realistic.

Step 2: Add in their activities from “Where’s my time now?” worksheet into the weekly planner

Students will now have a clear idea of when they aren’t going to be able to study during the week. What they

can now do is take these specific activities and times and add them to their weekly planner so that actual

study can be fitted around them. This should be a fairly straightforward task provided each student has

assigned a day and time to the activities from the previous worksheet. An example is seen below:

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Step 3: Fit revision and homework (taken from the Revision Planner and their diary)

Now that students have exposed when they won’t be doing work, they can fit in times where they can do revision activities from their planner or homework, in the gaps between other commitments. This means that each day, students have at least one activity they enjoy doing which won’t be distracting them from study. Also, they are likely to find a lot more time that they previously thought they had. A completed example is shown on the following page.

Once students have completed their timetable encourage them to place it up on their wall at home, at the front of their diary – somewhere that you can see it regularly. Due to the fact that each week is different with various activities changing, different amounts of homework etc. continue to refer back to the template and have them re-fill the sections out, following the same process.

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Activity 2 – Revision Activities

Initial class time required: 20 minutes

Follow-up time: 5-10 minutes each week

Suitable subjects: all

Resources required: Revision Planner

Research Background

A common problem for students is determining how and when to start revising for an assessment. This can often be quite confusing for junior students, especially those who are experiencing this for the first time. It’s common for students to only start revising a few days before a test, if not the day before. Not only does this lead to students cramming due to a lack of time, but they also end up with very little time to do any application or memorising.

In the Junior Time Management session we show students how to work consistently throughout the term. Students are shown how to do a few revision tasks a week, so that revision notes and summaries are on the way to full completion when assessments draw closer. But the problem for students is that revising early doesn’t carry any urgency. There isn’t always a deadline by which time revision needs to be completed, and being an independent learning task there often is little follow-up. Faced with a mountain of homework students end up putting revision on the backburner, to the point where they never get around to actually doing it.

The way we solve this problem is by including revision tasks in students’ weekly planners and attaching deadlines – adding an additional layer of accountability to students to get revision done. Before we move into the module,here is a recap of the key revision skills the presenter discussed with the students in the seminar:

1. Aim to do 3 or 4 revision tasks per week: (makingnotes, memorizing notes, testing yourself)

2. Keep it simple: these tasks should take 15-30minutes. We want to make this work as easy to do aspossible to minimise procrastination.

3. Do it first: If students leave this type of work (makingnotes, memorising etc.) until late in the evening, itwon’t get done. Students should complete it firstthing in the afternoon when they get home.

Lesson 1 – Identifying Revision Tasks

Step 1: Complete worksheet titled Elevate Revision Planner

Ask students to use the template on the first page of their Student Activity Pack and enter in each one of their subjects. Ask students to identify what revision task they will do for each subject. This can be done individually or as class bouncing ideas off one another. Guide students to tasks that will only take 10-20 minutes maximum. Over the page you will see some examples you may want to include in the discussion.

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Example: different revision activities

Step 2: Attach deadline to task

Once students have identified the specific task they are looking to complete ask them to add a realistic deadline to complete the task. Ask students to look over their week to see what other homework they have, as well as their extra- curricular activities. It is ideal if students take these revision activities and add them to their weekly planners from Activity 1.

Step 3: Check – off

As students complete each task they can tick off as they are going to make sure they are keeping track of their extra revision. Creating these ‘small wins’ means students feel a sense of gratification for having completed the task and are encouraged to complete more.

Follow-up

Once students have identified a range of revision tasks they can complete for their subject, have them go home and complete one revision task each week. It is important to stress again that these tasks should not take more than 15-20 minutes to complete, or students may start to find themselves overworked and overwhelmed. Have students write down in their diary what their revision task for the coming week will be.

Each week after students have committed to completing their revision tasks, spend 5 minutes going around the class doing a spot check to ensure they have completed their tasks specific task for their subject. Have students show you their work to show you that they have completed their tasks.

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Activity 3 – Planning Methods

Initial class time required: 30-45 minutes

Follow-up time: 5-10 minutes each week

Suitable subjects: all assignment/ test based classes

Resources required: Assignment/ Exam Planner Template

Research Background

The concept of having long-term deadlines for assignments and exams is usually new to junior school students, especially Year 7 and 8 students. As a result, many students struggle to hand in assignments on time or end up cramming before exams or tests. As you can see in the example to the right, of the 362 year 7 students surveyed, 268 – or 74% - gave themselves one week or less to prepare for a major test or assignment. This clearly constitutes a problem when students should be forming strong habits now when assignments are relatively smaller compared with senior school workloads. The goal of this section is to provide students with a system or process to manage the workload involved in long-term deadlines. Further, the goal is to get students working in small chunks to avoid last minute cramming and stress and to ensure high quality work is submitted.

Lesson 1 – Identify Tasks

Step 1: Assignment/ Exam Planner Template Ask students to bring a copy of an upcoming assignment or exam they have. Use the template provided with the students so they can break down their tasks into 3 sections (research, write and present or alternatively for an exam/ test prepare notes, memorise and practice). In the Junior Time Management seminar the presenter brainstormed with students the types of work that would call into each category. They may need to be reminded of this (use the example provided below as an example for students).

Step 2: Add in tasks

Have students write down the subject of their assignment or exam in the heading. Down the left hand side of the sheet ask them to circle which category applies to them. In our example below we have used an English assignment. Ask the class to think of different ways they can research their assignment and have them write them down. In the seminar, the presenter encouraged students, to think about different resources they can use in their research process (avoiding a heavy reliance on purely internet research).

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Step 3: Continue down to Step 2 and 3: Writing/ Presenting

For the next section have students work independently and fill out their specific tasks for writing and presenting components. If students are struggling to think of examples, refer to the example below:

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Step 4: Write in assignment due date

The next step for students in to go down to the bottom of the worksheet and fill in when their assignment in due or when their exam/test is occurring. This date is obviously a non-negotiable therefore students need to work backwards from this date.

Step 5: Allocate timing to each task

Once we have written down the due date (in this case, 10th March) have students allocate a rough time to how long they think the task may take. They will be familiar with this process, having gone through it with their presenter in the seminar but some students may need some guidance to how long tasks will take to complete. In the example below we have worked backwards starting at Step 3’s last task ‘print assignment’ – as the assignment is due the following day we need to have it printed and ready to go the day before. Continue to work up the sheet and allocate dates to each task.

Step 6: Fill in the rest of the bottom table

Now that students have allocated their specific dates they can fill in the rest of the bottom table. For our example we need 10 days to complete the task and therefore need to start of preparation on March 1st at the latest.

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Example: completed assignment planner

Follow-Up Lessons

Each week or every few days, depending when the assignment is due, spend 5 minutes going around the class

doing a spot check to ensure they have completed their tasks for the assignment. Have students show you their

work to show you that they have completed their tasks. If they haven’t work with them in conjunction with their

weekly planner to see what gaps they have where they can catch up on the tasks they haven’t completed. As

mentioned this can be used for both assignments and exams/tests and can therefore be constantly revisited

throughout the term.

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Activity 4 – Using study planners with a timetable

Initial class time required: 5 minutes

Suitable subjects: all assignment/ test based classes

Resources required: Assignment/ Exam Planner Template

Research Background

The first thing students do when they receive an assignment or notice about a test is to put the due date/ test date straight into their diary. For an assignment due a few weeks away, it is common for students to sometimes even forget they have an assignment due until a few days before. This is commonly due to the fact that student will only ever look at the week they are currently in their school diary. Within the Junior Time Management seminar the presenter emphasised the importance of looking ahead in their diary to make sure they aren’t missing out preparation time for an assignment or test. The purpose of this task is to transfer information from Activity 3, where students have broken down their assignment/ test tasks down into smaller pieces, into their school diaries. As they have already assigned deadlines they simply need to enter these straight into it.

Lesson 1 – Using your timetable with your diary

Step 1:

Ask student to have their assignment planner from Activity 3 as well as their diary in front of them. Place the due date of the assignment or test date into the diary first.

Step 2:

Once students have entered the deadline the next step is to enter the last task due and continue to work backwards until all the tasks are entered into the diary.

Step 3:

Look over your timetable that students created in Activity 2 for the week and see where you have time to allocate to preparing for the assignment.

An example is shown on the next page for your reference.

Example: Transfer of deadlines from planners to diaries