Saving Your Teacher Sanity with Exit Directions
Have you ever given your students directions and released them to work, only to have multiple kids ask you what they’re supposed to be doing? 😅
I think it’s probably happened to all of us and it can be a real frustration in the classroom as a teacher. To prevent this from happening on an ongoing basis, you can implement exit directions.
Exit directions bring true purpose and clarity in the classroom and quite honestly give you your sanity back!
Picture this: you’ve just delivered directions for what your students should work on next and you’re ready to exit the teaching stage. You project a slide on your board that everyone can clearly see and read.
Your students have little to no questions and are ready to get to work. The rest of class time is filled with students doing exactly what was expected of them and you end class feeling confident in yourself as a teacher!
That’s a picture you want to see, right?!
You can achieve that ⤴️ when you implement exit directions, friend!
What they are not: step-by-step written directions for the assignment - that’s what you give during your teaching time.
What they are: what they should be doing during and after they complete the assignment
For example, exit directions could be something like:
Get into groups of 4
Complete notebook assignment
When completed, get stamp
When done, [insert options they can do]
In order to do this well, we encourage you to couple your exit directions with images or emojis so that it captures your students' attention in a new way and so that it trains them that when they see the image, it sparks something in their brain and they know exactly what to do.
Implementing exit directions allows students to really lead themselves with a little guidance from you so that you aren’t the one having to do all of the heavy lifting throughout the entire day.
Try out Exit Directions in your classroom today to provide clarity, direction and purpose to your students while saving your sanity!
If you are hoping to hear more about Exit Directions, head over to the Green & Growing Education Podcast Episode 128 for our Educational Director to give you more tips and tricks.
