This has been the most requested topic so far this year.
And it’s an important one. Independent practice is the most critical factor in developing academic skill and competency.
Done right, it can also profoundly affect maturity, mental toughness, and enjoyment of learning.
So what’s the answer? Is there room for allowing students to talk while working independently?
No, there is not.
Here’s why:
They can’t concentrate.
The quieter it is, the easier it is to concentrate. Mere ambient sound, like planes flying overhead or raindrops on the roof, is a close second.
In the presence of louder environmental noise, like construction or an unruly classroom next door, classical music can be a big help.
But talking, even whispering? Like a surprised knock on your front door, it cuts straight through to the prefrontal cortex, breaking concentration in an instant. If you allow talking, this happens again and again all over your room.
Even if your students get used to the chatter, the brain will naturally attempt to decipher what is being said, pulling it away from the focused work that needs to be done.
Interruptions ruin flow.
It takes several minutes of quiet focus to get into a state of flow, whereby time slips by unnoticed, performance soars, and the very act of doing the work becomes an enjoyable experience along the lines of rock climbing, yoga, throwing pottery, and other highly focused activities.
Each time an interruption breaks the flow, it takes more time to get back in. And if the interruption is perceived to be an annoyance, the state of flow will often never return.
Independent work then becomes what it is in so many classrooms: A painstaking, boring slog to fight through and get over with as fast as possible while giving the least amount of effort.
It makes students less independent.
Independence is a muscle students develop through daily practice. It results in an ability – a superpower in this day and age of shortening attention spans – they can enjoy and carry with them into the future.
And it’s good for all students, even those who have struggled with attention issues. In fact, it can be a powerful antidote to ADHD.
One thing is for sure, if you do allow talking, then the ability to attend will weaken for all students. You’ll create a dependent, immature class that can’t sit still for more than ten minutes.
You’ll struggle with work production, knowledge acquisition, writing ability, memory, listening, motivation, and the freedom to move on to new and more challenging topics each day.
The Summit
Having the skill to push the envelop day after day and week after week on the amount of time your students can focus independently is a sign of great teaching and the secret to enormous academic progress.
It also results in mature, mentally tough students who are on task weeks longer than the average classroom.
But what if they have questions while they’re working? What if they need help? What if they like to talk things out with a neighbor or have to borrow an eraser?
You take care of all of this beforehand by preparing your students to succeed all on their own—yes, every student—and without help from you, their classmates, or anyone else.
The entire SCM approach supports this game-changing strategy.
In fact, it’s the summit of the mountain of good teaching. To learn more about how to make your class fully independent, check out the Learning & Independence category of the archive.
Also, if you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.
What about students who were out of the room during the directions and missed the instructions/lesson? I teach first grade and my school has lots of pullout services. There’s not one minute of the day when all of my students are in the room. I’m not exaggerating. Do you just have them work on something else independently?
Don’t know if this helps but ..
I teach second grade and have pull out time for an hour after the first half hour of the day. I try to go over directions of independent seat work right away (when almost everyone is in the room). All of their work is already in a folder and given at the beginning of the day right after instructions are given. If there are big instructions that someone missed, I’ll call them to me and give them a quick rundown. I also have copies of the worksheets on a board with signs saying to either turn in work to the orange basket (on orange paper) or keep in yellow folder (on yellow paper). I also try to be as consistent as possible (phonics and math worksheets are all set up the same, spiral review, last lesson review, today’s review). Finally, the students know they are to read the directions first.
This is a huge issue for me as I teach classes on coding & spreadsheets. We often have a significant amount of tine during class where students are writing code or building spreadsheets. I have a tough time requiring the class to be completely quiet bc I see a fair amount of times where students are legitimately helping each other out to solve an issue. And I’d much rather them help each other out than get help from me.
This just feels different to me than independent work such as a math worksheet. Anyone have experience or thoughts on this?
Hi I completely understand and I haven’t done this but I am thinking of making quiet time a class goal based thing – start with 1 minutes of uninterrupted quiet time then add a minute each week. Don’t make the timer visible so they actually have to focus on their work. Slowly build that muscle. A class that can meet a certain benchmark by end of semester or whenever (maybe 20 minutes?) gets a class reward (pizza party!!!!) with this method kids can learn to appreciate the quiet but we build it within their capacities.
You can try to challenge the students to hold absolute silence for 7 minutes at a time of quiet independent study, then allow for 1 minute of collaboration on school subjects, then back to 7 minutes of silence. I find that when they know they will get a permitted break coming up, they are more likely to respect the quiet time. This allows for collaboration and peer tutoring which is legitimate use of class time.
I teach math and I agree that sometimes allowing students to collaborate can be helpful! What I often do is I have a set amount of time that they have to work individually and silently, then after that I open it up for them to share and collaborate.
This way they’re still thinking about the problem on their own for a bit before working together. I find it makes the collaboration even better because if given enough time, each person has something of their own to contribute to the group effort. Hope that helps! 🙂
Purposeful, specific collaboration as a component of the task doesn’t seem like the “problem” being addressed here. I feel like this is aimed at the situation some teachers allow in which the students may freely chat as long as the teacher isn’t talking. I try hard to maintain a very focused, quiet environment, but sometimes I give specific directions that allow low-voiced collaboration ABOUT THE WORK. This isn’t hard to monitor, and I can usually navigate any issues without creating more disruptions.
Hi Michael
How do you enforce this without having to repeat your self over and over- “no talking, independent work”.
Thanks
Carmen
How would independent work look in a band class? I want to give students time to work on their own, but silence is not possible.
Because doors are required to be locked at all times, every return from the bathroom is an interruption. There is absolutely no respect for the quiet and sanctity of a learning environment. Students are pulled out constantly in our middle school for who knows what.
This is a helpful article, thank you Michael. I agree that silent working does make a massive difference to children’s focus, output and learning. I do though struggle to ensure every child can get on independently, particularly in maths. I have a range of abilities and some barely need to listen to the input, while others have so many gaps in understanding that the main maths topic is too far on for them. Several need a lot of shared practice that most don’t need. Would you then work with a group during independent work? Can you advise on this, maybe even in a future article? Thanks again!
I assume then that the teacher is also silent? In other words, no working with small groups because of course everyone is listening and that isn’t silence.
Does that mean that I can’t walk around the room helping students? When I do this it’s near on impossible to keep complete silence as students know I am not watching them as I am explaining or listening to a student? I understand the point you are making and I will endeavour to give it a go.
I teach art. In a throwaway comment, only a small part of one sentence in this article, you managed to belittle art education and inform anyone who cared to read that learning is unenjoyable. Perhaps you won’t see it that way. Perhaps you misspoke. Perhaps the wind blew, making you lose concentration and, therefore, common sense and courtesy.
Maybe I misread, but are you talking about the rock-climbing, pottery-throwing line? I took that to mean that in-desk learning can rise to the level of enjoyment of one of those activities when students are forced to focus. I’d be interested to hear how you interpreted it.
I bet you are correct, Bethany. I bet it IS where Mr. Linsin states that “doing the work” becomes an “enjoyable experience–like throwing pottery.”
I think it’s the referring to an art process as an “enjoyable experience” CONTRASTING with “doing the WORK” that may be getting to the art teacher.
An art teacher knows that throwing pottery IS doing the work. Anyone who can throw ceramics on the pottery wheel has developed significant skill to be able to throw well.
Art as a content area is often percieved as “fun” rather than as the serious work that it is. Art teachers experience this so extremely often, it hurts. Then they notice the smallest hints of their life’s work being treated differently than other subjects. It’s a huge part of the experience of teaching art for a long time.
As Michelangelo once said, “If people knew how hard I have worked for my “God-given” talent, they wouldn’t think it was so “God-given.”
My bet is that the answer is somewhere in there. I doubt Mr. Linsin intended a drop of disrespect, and I get how Melissa could have read it how she did.
I think you misunderstood, Melissa.
Thank you. I agree that silence is important during individual, independent work. I find that students are very settled and happy when there is silence, as long as they know what to do.
Would you please kindly comment on situations when students are working in pairs, co-operative learning etc. in which talking is necessary in order to complete the task? It seems that in such situations, it is worthwhile to teach students how to talk and interact productively.
Thanks
Hi Tom,
Independent means working alone. There are articles about group work in the archive, but I’ll be sure to cover this topic again.
Yes! I agree with the talking and discussing before silent, independent work and that independent means alone. You may say jot down any questions, concerns and/or comments for an added discussion to take place at another time.
I plan my lessons this way:
I do (I teach the lesson explicitly, model how to do it)
We do (whole group discussion and practice of teaching point)
Ya’ll do (collaborative work with a partner/group)
You do (individual silent work time)
This gives students the benefit of collaboration and time to ask questions/get clarification from each other, and then apply their learning in focused and silent work time.