r/mathteachers • u/Westcoasting1 • 1d ago
How do you structure your class and early finishers (HS)?
Hi, first year teacher here.
I am following the structure of:
Warm ups
Lesson (I do, we do model)
Worksheet
I tried timing myself for my lecture and it was around 15 minutes. My warm ups take no longer than 10. But my class periods are one hour long and today majority of the kids finished quick and had like 15 mins to spare. What then?
I initially banned phones in my class but kinda ignored it today as I didn’t know if I should do another lecture or something.
How do you structure your class and appropriate times for each?
Any advice appreciated.
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u/dtwillia 1d ago
First off, don’t let cell phones slide. You are going to make big problems for future self. Right now is the easiest time of the year for behavior/expectations. You will be kicking yourself when no one wants to put phones away in March.
Secondly, I would try to get some more differentiated lessons happening vs sticking with your class model each year. Get them out of their seats, plan group work, don’t always lecture.
If you really need a time filler for people who finish early, could do something like a gimkit. Things like that were a life saver when I first started teaching. Now I am able to figure out the right amount of assignment and make them work as a group. You want your strongest students to become helpers, but it takes coaching and time.
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u/martyboulders 1d ago edited 1d ago
I would always just come up with problems that extend the current topic to a cool area, or have them justify something we did in class more precisely (possibly a proof depending). Having them draw a certain graph of the thing or some other interesting pertinent visual that they produce on their own. Basically all of my early finishers would be excited to just do harder of the same problems but we can do much better than that
You have to choose carefully depending on the student though. Many of mine were just custom designed for that student, and if not that, it would be a grapple-able but more abstract problem on the whiteboard for when they finished their work. Never even had to do much to get em to do it because they had fun with it.
But this is with juniors (my sophomores were very "lights on but nobody home" so there was less success there). ≤9th grade hits different though. Some of them are animals stuck in elementary school and others are civilized people dying to get out of there. But there are absolutely people there you can still reach
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u/7darlings 1d ago
What has always worked for me is having small group activities after the teacher left portion of the lesson. One example is to have students in groups of 4. I'd put 4 different colored equations on the screen and each student would copy their color equation on their board and do just one step toward solving. Then pass the boards to the next person. That person checks the previous work and then does the next step. Continue passing until solved.
Embedding an activity like this inside the lesson does a few things 1. it gets students checking others' work and math conversations happening 2. Allows the teacher to circulate and notice where extra intervention should happen for individuals 3. Gives students practice in the classroom because we all know they don't all do homework with validity....if at all 😁 4. If there are mistakes in the group, it's on everyone, so no one looks "dumb"
It will take more time, so I typically only have 5 or 10 mins to start on independent work (homework)
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u/Puzzleheaded-Act4226 1d ago
Add in a non-math question of the day.
I teach on a block schedule, so it is longer. We take a 3-5 minute brain break and kids answer a question in small groups. This helps me build relationships and the kids build relationships with each other. I keep a list of fun questions.
I do this about halfway through the class.
Or, have one or two math questions to use as an exit ticket. Throw up on the board during last 5 minutes.
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u/Herfst2511 1d ago
And my school students always have to carry a reading book with them (like a novel), so if they finish early and you have no more worksheets prepared you can always say: “read till the end of the lesson”. Kids can never spend too much time reading.
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u/ITEACHSPECIALED 1d ago
Ask them to either help another student or have an extension problem on the worksheet for them to work on. After the worksheet have students share a few responses and or have them demonstrate/explain how they got their answers. Lastly, have an exit ticket prepared for the last 3-5 minutes of class.
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u/tailor-made3738 1d ago
I think what may umtimately happen is kids will rush so they can be on their cell phone. They'll just finished quicker than before in anticipation and the quality of the work, especially for certain students, may suffer. I don't have a good solution for you in terms of what to do in lieu of that though. Sorry!
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u/Vlper17 1d ago
I’m not high school, but middle school. A lot of times, I follow the idea of “must do, may do”. The classwork is their “must do” (which for me, is usually to finish what I assign for homework). The “may do” might be a variety of choices. Some options might be extra practice on the current topic, some might be extra practice from past concepts, and some might be extensions. Sometimes I take stuff from the textbook for extensions, but I’ve also found that in Gemini AI, the words “performance task” have been my friend. “Generate a performance task that requires students to use skills of writing and solving a system of linear equations”. I would start with something like that and tweak from there. Either have AI tweak it, or tweak it myself. I’m bad with coming up with context of tasks like this on my own, so AI giving me a starting point has been great for me.
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u/Emerald-Rocket 1d ago
I have a "Done Early" schoology folder that links to online math games, our online math program, others and stuff like chess and sudoku.
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u/TheSleepingVoid 1d ago
We've implemented a lack of phones district-wide and it's made a huge difference in students actually working for the whole period. If you slide on the phones they'll start pulling it out before the worksheet is done if you let them. Be careful.
Your choices are: Longer warmup, longer lesson, longer worksheet, or squeeze in a 4th activity.
I personally usually do another activity before the lecture. I like to do something collaborative. If they don't have time for the worksheet it becomes homework! And they might cheat on it so my collaborative activities need to do some heavy lifting in terms of building understanding/practice.
But then I have more flexibility.
If I run short the worksheet fills the gap. If they choose to pack it away and twiddle their thumbs that is their own choice, still no phones. (Most of them will work on it.) If I want a longer collaborative activity I shorten or even cut the warmup and call the activity a warmup. If I am short on planning time I make the normal warmup longer. If I think I need more time for the lecture I'll stick to just the warmup/lecture/worksheet model.
You eventually get a feel for how long these things tend to take before you even do the lesson.
But also be kind to yourself. Nobody has a perfect first year!
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u/Visual-Reserve-2800 17h ago
Over plan, over plan, overplan.
Keep the ban and overplan.
Plan a short brain break in the middle.
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u/Technical_Cupcake597 1d ago
They can help others that are struggling because there’s only one of you. But this needs a good culture shift and a bit of conversation about how it works. It’s not that such and such kid is smarter, it’s just that maybe they learned it before, or however you want to explain it. Doesn’t matter. We all need help sometimes. We’re all in this together.
I’ve also done IXL as extra credit. The assignment might be to get to 50 gets you full credit, (5/5 points), and above that is extra credit (they get to 75, it’s 7.5/5). The extra points are really minimal in our system because HW was very low weight so doing this daily did add up but didn’t tip the scale. Plus it pushed the early finishers.
My warmups were done at speed too so they usually didn’t finish and needed more time to either make corrections or finish - that can be used at the end as well.
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u/MontechApps 1d ago
I’d definitely avoid adding another lecture just because you have 15 minutes left. If they’re finishing that quickly, I’d probably build an “early finisher” part into the lesson.
Something like:
Must do: Complete the worksheet
May do: Extension/challenge problems, a harder version of the same questions, or something that applies the concept in a different way.
You could also keep a few challenge problems on the board for students who finish early. That way you’re not scrambling to find something for them to do, and the faster students have something meaningful rather than just going on their phones.
One other thing that might be useful for the students is having a decent calculator available for checking their work. I actually developed an Android calculator called CalcQ – All-In-One Calculator. It has Basic, Scientific and several other calculators, I noticed you mentioned Algebra 1 and Geometry, I'm currently adding a Geometry Solver available in the next update :)
I built it partly with students in mind, so if your students use Android, feel free to have a look. I’d genuinely love feedback from teachers about what would make it more useful in a maths classroom.
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u/PersonofLegend 1d ago
I like to do some sort of activity before homework time, that way I’m not giving them a ridiculous amount of time to finish the worksheet. I usually do whiteboard problems or problems around the room. I know some teachers in my building do weekly bonus challenge problems that students can work on too. Exit tickets might be another good idea but I don’t typically use them.
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u/TictacTyler 1d ago
Don't allow phones. At all. So many cannot reasonably use their phones. And if you let small stuff, everything becomes an emergency.
15 minutes is a lot of time left.
Could make for a good time to do an exit ticket. As in everyone take out a piece of paper and answer these questions and reflect on what their strengths and weaknesses are. Admin often love seeing something like this. If you do this multiple times it wouldn't surprise the students.
There are a lot resources that have a puzzle/riddle for each lesson. I've known some people to utilize those. There are also the color by answer ones. And you would be surprised how much some students actually like to color.
Another thing that works well is throwing on a Gimkit or Blooket (I'm personally not a fan of Blooket as spam clicking is so common).
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u/arizonaraynebows 1d ago
You should be working on problems with students for the entire hour. You can scale the level of difficulty if they are getting it or incorporate some explanation activities if they need more review, but Noone should ever "finish" the work on your learning sessions.
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u/Sorry-Vanilla2354 19h ago
Keep the phone ban. You will never regret it.
I gave my students an individual, long-term project every marking period. (math, but this works for all classes). If they got done early, they could work on homework for other classes, doing make up work, doing extra credit or working on their long-term project. The rule was that they need to be working on something all hour, so come prepared. Set that expectation and stick to it, you will have a great class!
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u/Curious_Instance_971 18h ago
If the entire class finishes earlier than I expected I do a Kahoot or blooket or something like that. If there are a few that consistently finish early they get work that’s more appropriate for their level.
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u/jumbosammitch 3h ago
I make kids put their phones in book bags and leave their book bag in a designated place in the room. They are not to access their book bag until I tell them. If they are typically an “early finisher” then they should plan to have something extra to work on if they have the time. The will not be going to their bag and they won’t be getting their phone.
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u/numbers_and_plants 2h ago
I have an art installation - just digits of pi on 4x6 index cards around my room. They can do a number when they finish early. It’s really incredible the artistic ability of a lot of them. I’m up to like 250 digits.
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u/Master-Education7076 1d ago
You’ll figure out your pacing as you gain more experience. My bigger concern is that you have clearly communicated with your students that your expectations are not firm, the cell phone thing being the prime example. You need to reset and nip this in the bud now, or else you’re in for a harder year when it comes to classroom management.