Using an Agenda to Help Classroom Timing

I have had any number of fellow teachers come to me and say "I just did not have the time to cover the material today"; in fact, I have said that myself. It is very easy for the entire class period to slip away before essential material is covered, material the student needs to complete the homework assignment. You then have two choices: assign the homework anyway, knowing that many students will not do it, or cancel the assignment. All because you ran out of time.

Using an agenda can provide a significant advantage to avoid this situation. By creating an agenda, which takes about 5 to 10 minutes, you almost guaranteed that you will cover the main points. An agenda not only provides you with a guide to your class, it helps you react to the inevitable surprises that come with teaching.

What is an Agenda?

An agenda is a schedule of activities and topics that you plan on covering during a class. This helps you remember what needs to be covered, it allows you to notate what must be done as opposed to what might be done, and it provides a structure to help you run the class.

An agenda is not a timetable. You should not put down when each topic is to begin and when a topic is to end. You could put down a number of minutes for group discussion, but even that is not necessary. You need to keep your flexibility when it comes to running your class. As long as you know what has to be done, you can actively monitor your progress, adapting your pace as you go along.

An agenda also provides you with a sequence of actions and events. By knowing what you want to do next, you can easily segue your class from one part of the material to the next. If you need to, or want to, you can add breaks in the longer classes, giving your students an opportunity to stretch, get some water, and so on. Since you know the sequence of activities, you know when those breaks would best occur.

An Example

Say you were going to teach a class on graphing the sine/cosine function in a class that lasts 75 minutes. You could create an agenda that looks like this:

• Unit circle
• Plot points for sine function
• Discuss graph shape
• Plot and discuss cosine function
• Introduce amplitude
• Introduce frequency
• Introduce period
• Introduce shifts

That is a lot of material to cover in just over an hour. However, it can be done as long as you maintain your focus. You have a definite sequence of topics, and you can keep track of where you are and how much remains.

As you are going through the class, you complete the second step and realize that things are going a little slower than you thought they would. That means you know that some future topic, such as the cosine graph, needs to be done faster. When graphing the cosine, a student asks about how a graph can be moved up and down; you respond by saying shifts will be covered later in the class. By having an agenda, you have a structure and a guideline about what must be done.

How to create an Agenda

The place to start creating an agenda is from the homework problems. Look at the problems and decide what must be known to complete the assignment. That gives you a list of topics, and you can of course add topics if you feel it would be appropriate. Then, you need to look at the list of topics and create a sequence. Maybe the sequence is the one from the textbook, maybe not. You need to find a sequence that works for you.

Another option you have is to reduce the homework, if you feel that too much is required for the class. But you will not know what to do until you know the material being covered. The agenda is the first step.

Conclusion

Creating an agenda is relatively simple, particularly in classes that you have some experience in. The source of the agenda is the homework problems, which should already have been decided. By writing the agenda down, you avoid forgetting something crucial. Do not simply say you will remember everything because we have all forgotten things. Take the five minutes to write it down. Not only will it help you remember, it can also be used as a tool for managing those disruptive students. Imagine being able to say, when somebody starts acting out, "If you keep wasting time, you will not cover all of this material, and you will not be able to do the homework," and hold up your printed agenda. Most students will calm down at that point, and if they won't, their peers will often calm them down for you. What a pleasant prospect! And it costs five minutes. I would call that a bargain.