It’s among the most frustrating classroom management problems. You give directions and your students either ignore them or they . . .
- kinda-sorta follow them.
- grudgingly follow them.
- try but fail to follow them.
So you reteach. You remind. You narrate. But the problem persists.
The good news is that it’s fixable. Regardless of grade level or who is on your roster, your students are capable of following directions quickly, accurately, and the first time they’re given.
Here’s how:
1. Be clear.
In most classrooms students are confused. They halfway listen. They’re partially informed. They’re only nominally aware of what is expected of them.
Thus, you must be extraordinarily clear. Always. Never leave a scintilla of doubt about what you want before allowing your students to do anything.
2. Don’t hem and haw.
Wordiness, fluff, and thinking aloud are your enemies. Wait until you know what you want and what it looks like before uttering a word.
Any deviation or hesitancy will draw students away from the directions you want them to follow. When in doubt, model, show your students, step by step what success looks like.
3. Use going-to language.
Your students must see themselves in their mind’s eye successfully performing the directions you give them. This is why modeling is so effective.
It also helps to use going-to language, as in “You’re going to take out your laptops, bring them to the carpet, and place them in front of you.”
4. Shift the onus.
Always ask if there is anyone who doesn’t know what to do. By putting the onus on them to speak up if they don’t understand, they’re more apt to perform well.
This also piques better listening and places gentle pressure on them to prove to you through their performance that they understood.
5. Give a “Go” signal.
Saying “Go” is the most effective way to get students moving. It shakes them from their stillness and launches their purpose, which is to complete your directions.
Pause first to build anticipation, and then say “Go.” Pausing increases urgency and prompts one last mental review of what’s expected of them.
Success Seekers
To make following directions a habit, you must use each of the steps above every time. Otherwise, sloppiness, confusion, and resistance will return.
Your goal is to make the process so rote and predictable that your students become automatic success-seekers, ticking off each step in your directions as efficiently and accurately as they were taught.
This is part of a larger approach that has you pushing for higher levels of excellence throughout each day. Success, after all, begets more success.
PS – This week’s video is Why Your Students Don’t Respect You (It’s Not What You Think). Be sure to subscribe to the channel.
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I use your ideas all the time, highly effective and productive. I been told my co-workers that I have magic with kids, I say no magic, just have a few simple principles to follow.
Sadly many co-workers continue with yelling and lectures. One told me that they tried reasoning with a rage baiter.
Excellent, John! I use his ideas all the time, but with less success. Every piece of good advice I hear makes me excited, and come Monday, I implement it enthusiastically, only to find that somehow I can’t make it work. After almost twenty years in education, I finally start realizing that not everyone can be a great teacher. Now I focus on investing, and try use my natural sense of humor to survive.
Great topic, approach, and advice! Perhaps the main overall problem is our increasingly disjointed society, with the students:
1) not even knowing that there is such a thing as directions,
2) being allowed to chat excessively,
3) not listening to the teacher,
4) not actually reading the directions.
As a sub, I arrive early and I write the teacher’s directions on the board, for each period. Then, I get the students’ attention by making them stop talking, closing their chrome books, and looking at me while I speak and point to the directions on the board. I even go over the directions a second time if it seems like there are crickets hovering over the students. Then, I walk around the room during class and keep the students moving along in the assignment.
I believe, alas, that getting students accustomed to listening and directions has to start in the early elementary classrooms.
I am an elementary school librarian. I teach 45 minute classes to grades K-5, once a week. I have implemented this program with great success in grades 2-5, but can’t seem to get it to work with kindergarten and first grade. I don’t know if it’s their limited attention span, or boundless energy.
I’ve been teaching for 36 years, and have been a school librarian for 13 of those years. It seems to me that today’s kindergartners and first graders are more like preschoolers than elementary school students.
Is there anyone who has expertise using this program with students of this age?
Any suggestions?