Published: June 13, 2025
Time is one of the most valuable commodities a teacher has. In a lot of ways, time dictates what gets taught when and how. Spend any amount of time talking with a teacher, at any level, and ask them to explain how they are thinking about building out their next unit. The answers you hear will take into consideration many factors, but time will steer the bus. Here are a few examples of how this could play out. Time becomes limited due to field trips, picture day, pep rallies, and many more wonderful events that enrich students’ school experience. Those events interrupt a day’s lesson while the calendar shapes timing on a larger scale. That awkward two-day school week, the random Wednesday off, and the reintroduction that happens on January 2 after almost two weeks off all disrupt the sequence of learning. This doesn’t even take into consideration the delicate time balance of planning lessons, prepping materials for lessons, and reflecting on the lesson after it was given.
With so many potential issues with timing, it is easy to become overwhelmed. It’s in those moments that the need to get out from under that pressure can lead to lessons that are less effective. It is here where instruction becomes reduced to telling through examples. This is where it becomes easy to work through problems step-by-step, expecting students to follow along and memorize the steps that are presented. In those moments, what is most needed is a refocus to determine which question or which type of questions will allow for the most learning in the time given. Students need to reason and make their own connections, not just be told a process and how to get the answer. When the only strategy a student has is memorization, what do they do when they forget the steps? When telling is used to make up for a lack of time, more time is actually wasted having to retell. Students are far more likely to remember the process and experience of problem solving over a series of directions. Maximizing time still requires time for learning to develop through experience, it just means being super selective about the experiences provided. This is also not the place to throw out the program that the school district has purchased. Rather, it’s about adapting, selecting, and sequencing questions.
The first place to look to determine if the questions used in class maximize the time given is at the end of the lesson. Having a solid and consistent closing routine is the winning play for the whole game. A consistent and well-practiced Closure routine maximizes time in two main ways.
It allows students to share what they are taking away from the day’s lesson. This reveals if students are leaving the lesson with an understanding of the intended mathematical focus or something else. For example, a common fall counting lesson in first grade involves cutting open pumpkins and sorting the seeds from the pulp to determine which pumpkin has the most seeds. At the end of the lesson, if the only thing students can reflect on is how ‘slimy the pumpkin guts’ were, that lets the teacher know that the mathematical focus was not maximized. While the lesson was fun and the kids remember it fondly, they have not taken the math from it that was intended. The teacher will now need to spend more time building the connection from that lesson to future lessons. Worse, that experience may never connect because the task was too distracting from the concepts that the lesson was trying to build.
Also, the information collected from a meaningfully planned closing question will provide the teacher with information for planning subsequent lessons. To effectively maximize time, questions must be selected based on an accurate understanding of the current level of knowledge for the class. There will always be variations from student to student within a given class. There will also be variations from year to year for the same teacher using the same program. Without clearly thought-out closure questions and a well-established routine, lessons take on the feeling of spinning tires in the mud.
Bell ringers and other established starting routines can help maximize the time. At All Learners Network, we call the first 5-15 minutes of each math block Launch. The best class starters are those that don’t require the teacher to write, print, copy, collect, and grade. Those routines can become a time suck not a time maximizer. One such starting routine that appears in many fourth-grade classrooms is some form of a timed multiplication list. The routine usually goes something like this:
That’s a lot of time given for this starting routine for very little math thinking. A routine that better maximizes instructional time is a Launch in the form of an expression string. Develop a list of multiplication expressions where each new expression relates to the one that comes directly prior. The list of expressions can be on the board for them to begin to work through immediately. An example string could be:
A routine like this maximizes time in a variety of ways. First, students are thinking about multiplication as soon as the string is revealed. There’s no wasted time waiting for a paper to be passed out. Having the first two problems be ones that students commonly know allows for all students to engage in building through the activity. The discussion that results from this task is about improving understanding through decomposing expressions through factors. This enriches students' strategies, supporting fluency over memorization. A routine like this allows for quality student discourse. The discussion here is around how students saw the expressions are built from one to the next, rather than how many each student was able to answer. This method allows teachers to maximize time by keeping the conversation focused on mathematics. More ideas for multiplication fluency through Launch can be found here!
When time is limited, it is important that students work through experiences that move them forward. A prime example of this happens in many middle school math classes when students are building their understanding of proportionality. There are many layers for students to develop and navigate within the concept of ratios and proportions. A typical scenario for a sixth-grade student will read something like:
‘To make Tasty’s Tropical Fruit Punch, mix 3 cups of concentrate with 5 cups of water.’
From here, there will be a list of basic if-then situations:
These are all important questions for students early as they develop their understanding of proportionality. A class that gets caught in a loop of basic questions doesn’t get a chance to move forward. To maximize time during Main Lesson questions and activities need to have a gradual increase in the level of difficulty. Moving towards more in-depth questions like:
‘Billy is having friends over for his birthday party. His mom knows that Tasty’s Tropical Fruit Punch is everyone's favorite drink. She estimates that she will need to have enough concentrate to make at least 75 cups of punch. How much concentrate will Billy’s mom need to purchase?’
A problem like this allows students to explore a more layered problem that forces them to use the basic information from previous lessons. Following a script like The Problem Introduction Protocol can be highly effective in maximizing time in Main Lesson. This protocol is used to highlight the key aspects of a given task. It also asks students to provide ideas for which strategies and models may be used. This is a crucial component as it provides different access points that can be used by students who struggle on their own to get into tasks. Just as importantly, teachers can feel confident about following the script and then getting out of the way. The single worst time suck in Main Lesson is standing at the board telling students how to do a particular problem. Following this script and allowing students time to go muck around and make a mess of a task can be the most effective way to maximize class time. This can look a lot of different ways. Students working alone, paired up, in groups of three, randomly assigned, teacher-selected or self-selected all have their time and place. The key is to get the students to do the thinking. This can be a difficult task if the teacher and the students are not used to working this way. The time invested to build up student independence so lessons can operate in an environment that provides space for them to explore the work and not wait to be told is well worth the time investment.
Frequently incorporating opportunities for spaced practice provide the long-term learning, and the development of deep understanding. Leveraging the different components of Math Menu to provide students the chance to connect back to previous topics while allowing lessons to continue forward is effective for maximizing time. If the material being revisited has a variety of layers and entrance points, teachers can track how students are continuing to deepen their understanding of a topic. Incorporating reflective practices into these review problems can also tell the teacher how well students can make connections between topics. For instance, a typical review sheet for an Algebra I class would include questions like the following:
‘For each of the following equations, solve for x.’
These review problems are important for many students to come back to revisit. Left as they are written, though, the review is a revisiting of procedural steps that don’t encourage any advanced thinking. To make this review meaningful and maximize the time invested, ask a reflective follow-up question.
‘Choose one of the equations from the previous set of problems and change the lead coefficient to its opposite. Predict what impact this will have on the answer you found for the original equation. Defend your prediction without solving for x.’
This follow-up question now forces students to reason and build connections between multiple topics. In this example, a student could use their understanding for multiplying integers to defend what they predict will happen to the x value. Or, students could relate their selected equation to a general equation for a line. This would allow them to talk about the symmetry between two lines with opposite slopes as a way to defend their prediction. Reflection-based problems like this incorporated into spaced practice review maximizes time for both the student and the teacher. The student gets to go back and think about how different topics connect, and make those connections on their own terms. Teachers are able to see how students are making connections between ideas that may have been sequenced in a way that isolated them. They are also able to see what connections students rely on more than others. If no one in the class makes the connection to the symmetry explanation, time can be dedicated to reinforcing that element of graphing lines. Both preparation time and lesson time are maximized for reasoning that needs more support.
There is never enough time. There are always too many lessons to teach with not enough time. Maximizing the time a teacher has through selecting the right questions is a skill needed at all levels of instruction.
What Now?
1. Explore the High Leverage Concepts (HLCs) here, and sign up for an All Learners Online Unlimited membership to get access to the HLC Progressions and the HLC Assessments.
2. Learn more about our brand-new AI Match Coach that will be included in every All Learners Online Unlimited membership for 2025-2026.
3. Bring All Learners Network (ALN) into your school or district for embedded professional development.
All Learners Network is committed to supporting pedagogy so that all students can access quality math instruction. We do this through our online platform, free resources, events, and embedded professional development. Learn more about how we work with schools and districts here.