Lesson Pacing
Lesson pacing is linked to timing, but is not quite the same. Pacing links two concepts - how high is the work rate, and how frequently does it change?
A key advantage of LessonStack, is that it presents your lesson back to you as a timeline, which allows you to easily get a feel for the pacing of the lesson. How a lesson is paced depends greatly on the subject, but a great question for the teacher to ask of their students is: how can I maintain a challenging pace?
In Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code, a case study of the famous coach John Wooden describes a room full of energy, with students just about keeping up with one task before being moved onto the next one. In this description, the coach is like a conductor, calm and in control while the work rate is sky high.
As a new teacher I found pacing tough. Of my many faults, the one that seems the most obvious in hindsight is that I often tried to do the work for the students. That is, instead of firing questions and problems at them, I would exhaustively research a subject before putting it together in a slide show, expecting them to make notes as I went.
That meant that the pace in the room depended on my work rate instead of the students. It also put pressure on me as a teacher to prepare large quantities of information I could deliver, before delivering it in a way that was engaging. The result of this was that I diligently worked hard doing the work that the students should have been doing.
The takeaway from this, is that where you apply your mental energy matters. Applying your energy to ensuring students are working on a tough problem, is a lot more effective than spending your energy solving a problem for them. This sounds obvious, but it’s an easy trap to fall into.
Having your whole lesson laid out in an easy to read timeline gives you a quick and easy way to read the flow of the lesson, and check exactly who is doing the work and when.
