Task Orientation of Students

For a class period we observed the class and kept track of when students were on-task versus off-task and found the following data:

On this particular day there were 25 students in class, and at the beginning of class 24 out of the 25, being 96% of the class were on-task, ready to start class. It took only a minute or two before the whole class was prepared and ready to start the activity for the day, but as seen by the data, the whole class (100% of class) wasn’t recorded to be all on-task until 15 minutes into the class, this being the most attentive time in class. This was when the whole class was working on a problem given by the activity we were working on. The least attentive point in class was at 1:57, so 45 minutes into class, where only 21 out of the 25 students, being 84% of the class was on-task, working on the problem given by the activity.

I noticed most students were on-task this particular day throughout the whole class time. I also noticed most students were on-task towards the beginning of class, but towards the end of the class time, more students gradually were off-task. The students may have taken a second to become on-task at the beginning of class from the transition of passing period of getting settled in their seat, but the expectation in the class is that once the bell rings, students are in their seats working on the warm-up and silent. The lesson today was an engaging activity with watching videos and using information from the videos to complete problems. This engaging activity was most likely the reason for students being engaged throughout the class. The small amount of students’ off-task towards the end of class may be due to students getting bored of the activity, or preparing for the transition of leaving class. The increase of students’ on-task before leaving class is due to another expectation in the classroom, being that students are seated and packed up before being dismissed from the classroom. These expectations and resulting behaviors are large influences on students’ on-task versus off-task behavior because these well-established expectations from the beginning of the year helps students know how they should be acting and what they should be doing during class time, with some reminders when needed of these expectations.

The students today surprised me with how on-task most of them were throughout the whole class period because the day before many were very off-task, as the lesson wasn’t very engaging as the lesson this day was. This idea is one way to encourage on-task behavior, lessons that are more engaging keeps students’ on-task and allows students to have a bit more fun with the material. Another strategy that helps students stay on-task and will help achieve my goals in the classroom is setting very structured expectations for the class such as expectations of what to do when they’re working in groups versus partners versus individually, and what students should be doing when they arrive to class & how they show they are ready to leave class. Overall I think these expectations/management of the classroom, combined with engaging lessons/activities help students stay on-task and engaged overall.