EDUA 5929 Getting off on the Right Foot-Bell
GETTING OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT WITH BELL-RINGERS
The first five minutes of class. They can be some of the most challenging minutes of the day, in terms of getting your students quiet, focused, and primed for learning. Whether you are an elementary school teacher transitioning between subject areas or a subject area teacher who sees students just once a day, it’s crucial to get chatty, excited, or distracted students settled as quickly as possible. A key solution to this challenge is bell-ringers. Also called Do Now’s or bell work, these are quick, targeted start-of-class activities that students do at their desks. Not only do bell-ringers help focus students and prime them for learning, they also provide teachers with a few precious minutes to prepare for the class period ahead.
This course provides the teacher with concrete, actionable strategies for choosing bell-ringers based on curricular objectives, designing bell-ringers that engage students in creative and critical thinking, extending bell-ringers into that day’s instruction, differentiating activities for special populations, and formatively assessing student work in order to modify instruction going forward. After finishing the course, the teacher will be equipped with a set of easy-to-implement best practices for starting every class period on the right foot.