Pacing Guides

 

After working for a district that insists on people following the textbook pacing guide for two years, I’ve decided that is a bunch of crud.  In all honesty, the pacing of the guide is such that students rush through the book without really learning that much.  In addition, there is no time to differentiate, scaffold, or help students who have learning disabilities.  Furthermore, most of the differentiation and scaffolding provided by the textbook comes in the form of the problems assigned at the end of the section.

The program comes with all the examples set to show students how to do the examples in the book step by step.  It allows students to work on assigned problems from the book online so all they do is put in the answers without a place to show work.  All the quizzes and tests are done and ready to give out.  Unfortunately, the digital presentation doesn’t always allow the teacher to show every single step in detail.  

I get frustrated because I have students who have gaps in their knowledge when they arrive in high school and I don’t have time to help them fill in the gaps.  The pacing guide is not set up to add in activities such as “search and rescue” where they get to move around the room while working through a set of problems. 

I don’t have time to try all the great ideas I read about because the district wants us to follow the guide.  The guide only allows a maximum of two days for any one topic which is not enough for students to really learn and the pacing is set to get through the whole book rather than meeting the needs of the student.  Yes, I’ve gotten in a bit of trouble for not “following” the pacing guide.

The middle school has an accelerated math class filled with students who can move faster while I have the students who have special needs, who have gaps in their fundamental knowledge, or are absent a lot.  I can’t move as fast as the other class yet I’ve heard about it.  I will admit, I try to choose a pace that works for my students so I’m always one to two chapters behind the other class but I don’t care.  

The reality is that most students cannot move at the pace laid out by the guide.  In fact, if we move too fast, students do not learn and retain the material so at a point in the future, they may get frustrated due to not being able to do the math.  I understand why the textbooks offer a pacing guide but I don’t understand districts that think the pacing guide is god rather than a suggestion. 

I prefer to go through the book at a pace that meets the needs of my students while allowing them to learn.  I prefer having time to work in activities to help retain and use the material at a future date.  I want to be able to move faster when I can but slow down when needed.  I want to put student learning first rather than the pacing guide because student learning is more important.  Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear.  Have a great day.

Pacing Guides Are Unrealistic!

 

I am trying to figure out why districts have the idea that the pacing guides provided by math textbooks are realistic.  I have a pacing guide for every textbook I teach from and I can tell you the one I have is totally unrealistic and do not meet the needs of my students.  

It seldom allows students more than 2.5 days on any particular section but most are between a day and a day and a half. The lessons begin with an exploration, vocabulary, notes, practice and then the assignment.  Most of the explorations take my students at least 20 to 30 minutes instead of the allotted 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, the author's idea of differentiation is to assign different problems depending on a person's level of performance.  Every lesson is the same and none of the lessons are designed to really help students who are behind.  The year before I arrived, the district insisted teachers follow the pacing guide as written. If  a teacher got behind, they had to meet with the principal to determine what could be done so they got back on pace. Last year, they didn't push as much and when the pandemic hit, everything fled from their minds.  

I've known for a very long time that when we follow any pacing guide, we are just forcing them through a class with no regard to their actual learning.  The lessons are not designed to take time out to help students work on weaknesses, and really learn.  It doesn't really follow the practice of breaking information down into small, understandable chunks.  If you have students who are classified as English Language Learners (ELL), the pacing doesn't give them a chance to work on vocabulary or learning the language of mathematics.

How can we expect students to learn and progress if we do not include time for meaningful exploration, a chance to develop visual representations for various concepts so we can take students from concrete to abstract.  It's like the pacing is designed to get students through the whole book rather than learning the concepts.  It makes students feel as if they just need to make it through lessons, put the "right" answer down without transference of knowledge.  This may be why students often see each problem as something new.

I think it is also responsible for students not seeing the connections between basic topics and their applications to various situations.  That may be due to the pacing because it doesn't give students a chance to develop relations between one topic to another.  In addition, most lessons still rely on material and methods from when I was in school. It's almost as if everyone is brainwashed into believing one has to teach students everything in the book. It just seems to me that if we expect students to learn, we need to either cut significant amounts of material , or we have to throw out the pacing guide.

Rather than following a pacing guide, I would rather have a list of the most important material students should learn, and the time to present it in small chunks with additional time to provide differentiation, scaffolding, and a chance to let students work on any missing skills at the same time.  I've been at schools where the mantra "We are here for the kids" resonated around the school but we still followed the pacing guides rather than looking at where the students were and deciding ways to help them gain their missing skills.

On Wednesday, I want to share a few ideas from a book I am reading that makes so much sense.  It is totally in opposition to following a pacing guide yet provides a proper way to help students fill gaps and move forward.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.