Speed

My target students feed back that lessons are too long and they get bored distracted and don't understand the big words! 

I observed them over the next few sessions and discovered that they lasted about 10 minutes before they began fidgeting, looking away, whispering to each other and the lesson lost its impact and purpose.

So this created something for me to focus on. Short and sharp lessons were called for. After being filmed I realised that of the 20 minutes in a lesson, I tried to do too much which confused the kids and distracted from the main purpose.

So moving forward, my planning didn't change much at all, my delivery did! I now focused on just what I had planned to do in the lesson. 

Lessons speed up. We discussed the reason for the lesson and then got straight into things. Read a small piece of information and discussed the ideas we had read, or watched my modeling and then practiced a writing skill or technique once or twice and then moved on.

How did it go?

I found it easier to focus on the one thing, not trying to do too much. The boys seemed less confused as we were only focusing on one thing. They also feed back that they liked the shorter lessons and engaged more as they didn't get bored. With single focus and short timeframe, the tasks/learning was more achievable for the students. 

So moving forward, short sharp lessons are far more effective than 30 minutes of me talking and only a small number of kids contributing.