*okay, at least build focus, awareness and ownership 

If you are a college counselor or advisor, you’ve probably started assisting your students on their college applications.  It’s about this time of year when we start hearing from counselors and advisors who have students in a group advising or classroom setting looking for promising practices for helping their students maximize their independent work time.  

As someone who taught and advised students for 12 years in a classroom, I finally (why didn’t I do this sooner????) devised a tool and approach that *changed everything* and helped students develop a mindset, knowledge and skill that would benefit them for life.  

Consider using the Weekly Prioritization Planning Sheet and the following steps to bring a level of focus, awareness and ownership to the independent work time in your classroom.  Have students:  

1. Set goals or milestones for the week.  The college application process is lengthy and complex.  Consider pacing your students through themed weeks like transcript / courses one week and then essays another.  During this time you can provide some direct instruction on how to do these things effectively and then students can complete those tasks that same week.  Students won’t always be on the same timeline, but this helps them to see what they should reasonably be working on during this phase of the process.  

2. List out the specific tasks they want to complete in a single work period. Before launching into any independent work time, have students write down exactly what they hope to accomplish in the time available to them.  Help them be realistic by modeling actionable milestones or intentions.  Most students will be tempted to write “Finish applications”, but have them be more specific like in the 45 minutes available today “[I will] transfer all courses and grades from my transcript onto the academic history part of the UC application”.  Instead of “write essays” it could be “create a first draft of a response to PIQ question #4”.  

3. Rate themselves on how well they did.  At the end of the period, have them rate themselves on a scale of how well they completed what they said they wanted to complete at the start of class or work time.  I noticed that when students started doing this they would overestimate what was possible in a single period, and as time went on they were better able to self-assess what was possible and rate it as such. As an exit ticket, I would record their self-assessed rating.  I had a printed roster for each class with the days of the week listed and the numbers 1,2,3,4 listed under each day.  As students would walk out of class they would show me their number from their Weekly Prioritization Planning Sheet, and I would circle that number on my roster.  At the end of the week, I would use this for their participation grade, which in the end was deminimous by grading standards, but powerful data to show productivity and efficiency.  Hot take: I never questioned a student’s self assessment rating.  I would use the numbers during conversations to help them become more realistic self-appraisers.  If anything, students would often be too critical of themselves when rating their productivity.  

4. Reflect at the end of the week.  Have students take the Weekly Prioritization Planning Sheet and look over what they said they hoped to accomplish at the start of the week.  How did they do? Have them weigh their daily milestones and intentions against that goal.  Were they too ambitious at the start of the week? Maybe they need more realistic goals.  Did they accomplish more than they thought they would? Maybe they set some accelerated goals next week.  Have the students think about what worked for them each day and some things maybe they want to start or stop doing.  I would have a lot of students say that they worked best when they didn’t work with friends or classmates.  Some would claim to be more productive listening to music.  They began to see what was working (or not working) for them and make choices accordingly.  

In the end, you’ll notice the students in your classroom or group advising sessions becoming more focused and efficient (that in itself is winning!!). AND, look at you building real skills that students will hopefully develop and employ in college and beyond.  Being able to organize and structure independent work time is challenging and a critical skill for both college and career.  

If you’re looking for resources on what to have students working on in class log into Aspiration to Action for scripted lessons and student-facing handouts and PowerPoints.  

If you’re looking for a few more strategies to employ in your classroom take a look at this short Teacher Hacks video for some additional instructional tips.