Get students started as soon as they enter the classroom. So, how do we salvage our 540 minutes and make it mean something? That is the problem Rachel planned to solve. These are non-instructional (non-learning) moments. However, as we do those tasks, the clock is ticking. How do we balance this need to get class started with our need to finish certain mandated tasks? We need to take attendance, change our projected presentation, collect something, count something, address something. Whether it’s 1st grade or 12th grade, kids are kids. What was the Problem to Solve?Įvery teacher is faced with the cold hard fact that the longer that students sit in class without a task, the longer it takes to get them focused and on task when it’s time. She embraced OneNote when we rolled it out several years ago and built a procedure that was an inspiration to me, and the rest of the staff, at her school. While Rachel is only one of the many teachers using bell ringers, she was the first one I knew that jumped on board to move her bellwork online when her school became a Microsoft school. Rachel is a high school Math and Computer Science teacher. In true Teach With Wings fashion, she is our expert to learn from today! And we know the difference a good procedure makes! The Inspiration Rachel inspired this post. Gaining back those 540 minutes is as simple as creating another procedure.īellwork is simply that, a procedure. Harry and Rosemary Wong’s The First Days of School, it is impossible to not take away the importance of procedures. The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher With hilarious drawings and an easy to read format, I loved rereading the book each summer to brush up on my skills before starting school each year. I am a huge fan of the Fred Jones book, Tools for Teaching. To each their own! Where Did You Get This?!īellwork is pretty common these days, but I remember reading about it in college, and I have seen it many places since. However, I think calling them bell ringers is actually more common. Bell ringers reminds me of that “Ring My Bell” song. I, personally, prefer calling it bellwork. We call it different things, but the intent is the same- to get students right to work! The names “bellwork” and “bell ringer” both come from the fact that students should get right to work on these tasks as soon as the bell rings. You’ll also learn about specific ways to provide bell ringers to students, including using Microsoft OneNote, Microsoft Teams, and Google Classroom. This post, about one teacher’s solution to this problem, will take you through various ways to use bell ringers to ADD to your instruction, not just keep kids busy.
This is where we are faced with the difficult task of balancing our instruction and our paperwork responsibilities at the beginning of class. (That’s 9 hours!) That, my friends, is a A LOT of wasted time. However, that comes out to 15 minutes a week. If we waste 3 minutes at the beginning of class, it doesn’t seem like much. 3 minutes doesn’t seem like much, right? How about 15 minutes? 63 minutes? What about 540 minutes?
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