Lesson Pacing in a Classroom

Lesson pacing can be described as time management through setting the speed rate of the activities during the classroom lesson (Yager, 2006). Deciding on appropriate pace for the whole group activities is very important since classroom is composed of different students who have diverse backgrounds, learning styles as well as abilities. A group of the students may grasp some concepts or even master skills quickly whereas others may struggle to get the concept. Some of the students may be impulsive learners and may quickly decide they have understood and may want to quickly move on.

Other students may be reflective and may be requiring more clarifications and examples before they are ready or comfortable to move on (Yager, 2006). This can create a problem to the teachers since they are supposed to make sure that each student has opportunity of learning and thus they may be reluctant to move on quickly. However, there may be a risk of moving too slow since the students who master things quickly may lose their attention.

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This calls for the need of the lesson pacing.

Lesson pacing is important because the teacher can manage the behavior of classroom in such a way that can maximize the instruction pace (Savage, 2010). In addition, the teacher can provide to the students positive reinforcement, corrective feedback as well as prompts in order to maintain the classroom behavior in a manner that complements rather than distracting the lesson pace. Furthermore, pacing can promote the learning environment if the teacher employs the best way of instruction pace.

This can maximize the likelihood of maintaining students’ interests and attention. Lesson pacing can also be important in other lesson presentation methods that do not need to rely on the teacher such as assisting the students in computer instructional materials (Yager, 2006). Lesson pacing can help the teacher to know how to deal with the students especially at times when the students appear to be off task or distracted during the instruction (Yager, 2006).

It can enable the teacher to check on the difficult level for the material so as to make sure the students have acquired the necessary skills or concepts successfully. At the times when the students may not be able to continue with lesson because of the pace, the teacher may slow down the instruction pace in order to increase the accuracy of the students (Yager, 2006). Q2 A class that include English language learners need lesson pacing which is slow since first they are not quite conversant with the English language.

The teacher has to be slow in order to make them to be accurate with what ever they are being taught. They also require more explanations and examples to enable them grasp wholly the context of the material being taught (Short, Vogt, & Achevarria, 2004). English language learners are slow to move with the learning context and thus the teacher should set a lesson pace that should favor them to ensure each student responsibility of learning has been achieved as well as enabling them to perceive the learning environment to be conducive.

The other students who are not English learners already are not limited by the language barrier and thus can move on with the lesson quickly and understand easily what the teacher is teaching them. The teacher does not need to give them more examples or explanations for they can easily grasp the content of material being taught (Short, Vogt, & Achevarria, 2004). Moving slowly for the students who are not English language learners can pose risk of them losing attention of what the teacher is trying to teach them. For instance, native English speakers would require a high learning pace as compared to ELL students.

Q3 Complexity of lesson content for a class which includes English language learners can influence the lesson pacing since the classroom will be consisting of different students who have diverse language backgrounds as well as abilities. For instance, if the lesson content is complex, then the teacher would have t adopt a slow learning pace for the ELL students to grasp the content. This may pose a difficult situation to the other students who are conversant with English and who would prefer a faster learning pace (Short, Vogt, & Achevarria, 2004).

This can make a teacher to have difficult in planning for the lesson pacing since the class is consisting of students who can grasp the concept quickly while others may be struggling to understand the concept or skills. On the other hand, simple lesson content would be easier for the teacher to moderate the lesson pace. The problem a teacher may as well encounter is that some of the students are impulsive learners and will want to quickly move on where as the rest may be reflective and will be demanding more examples and explanations before they move on with the lesson.

This can create dilemma to the teacher since he or she is supposed to ensure that every student have understood the concept he is teaching. Deciding on the appropriate pace to use in a lesson with complex content would be difficult for the teacher for a class consisting both English language learners and the other students. This is because if the pace is too high, the ELL students will not be able to understand what they are being taught whereas if the pace is too low, it may result to boredom especially for the other students and may even result to them losing their concentration or attention.

A teacher may also not be able to determine on what reference group to use in the classroom as well as how to interpret the behavior of the students since they learn concepts at different rates. References Savage, M. (2010). Successful Classroom management and Discipline: Teaching Self-Control and Responsibility. Thousand Oaks: SAGE. Short, D. , Vogt, M. , & Achevarria, J. (2004). Making Content Comprehensible for English Learners: The SIOP Model. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Yager, R. (2006). Exemplary Science in Grades 5-8: Standards-Based Success Stories. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.