Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Making Study Hall Time Useful
On the Owl team we have been struggling with Spring Fever in our study halls. It seems that students are choosing not to use their time to get work done. Either students have all their work done because they've learned how to use their class time, or students are checked out and have given up on school it seems. We have been printing their grades and giving them extra copies of their work. We have also started doing read alouds for silent reading time because students are not reading independently. Mr. Neu suggested that on Friday I give talking time at the end of class if students work dilligently during the first 3/4 of the hour. I was just wondering how you manage your study hall. Also, do you find that study hall is useful for students in lower grades? I never had a study hall growing up and I see the same levels of missing work. So I was just wondering how useful people think this time is for students.
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has your team discussed individual goal setting? Having students, regardless of how much work they have/don't have, create a goal for themselves....it's a baby step for students who may be disengaged.
ReplyDeleteCould there be other activities integrated into study hall for those who are done with everything? (fun math puzzlers, tic tac toe choice board for activites, creative projects, etc)?
I currently advise a study hall and I have done the individual goal setting that Shawna mentioned above. At the beginning of each hour students know to come in and pick up a half sheet. On the half sheet they put their name, date, their top priority assignments and what they are going to work on if they finish their top priority assignments. Obviously, students can still choose to sit there, but it does provide some structure to the class period and stress the importance of coming to study hall with something to work on.
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