Faster reading is better reading

Many online and traditional students wish to improve their personal reading skills. They 

indicate that they read slowly and often have to re-read. Actually a little-known method to improve reading skills calls for reading faster for better comprehension. At first it seems counter-intuitive, but it does make sense.

Your brain can process approximately 100x the speed slower readers read. So when we read slowly, our minds have time to wander off on tangents and we lose our concentration--and find ourselves re-reading. 
When we read just a bit faster, we have to concentrate more on the information and we have less time to get off track. Does that make sense?

Try reading faster when you read fairly easy material like a newspaper or magazine. Push yourself to read faster and see if you can develop the habit. 

Has anyone tried this? Would you be willing to? Let me know what you think. 

Here is a link for more information. http://english.glendale.cc.ca.us/speed1.html

Using what others have learned

In my last post, I promised to share a resource that takes the write-everything-down method to the next level—and makes it even more useful. Writing everything down that is needed to complete a project is indeed helpful for planning our time for any given project, but it can be much more than that. In this post, let’s take that method one more level to see if we spend our time doing what we want to do, or what is most important to us.

Dr. Nancy Zingrone posted an article called “Five Useful Tips for Good Time Management for the Online Teacher” at WizIQ. I contacted her to gain permission to repost it here. http://blog.wiziq.com/5-useful-tips-for-good-time-management-for-online-teachers/#disqus_thread

The article pertains to any learner or teacher, not just online teachers. Dr. Zingrone advocates not only writing down everything we do during the day, but then to categorize our activities, analyze how we spend our time, and make changes based on the data.

I thought at first that the method was tedious, but it takes little time to track our time—a bit like keeping an old-fashioned checkbook.  After the second day, I was eager to write down what I was spending my time doing so that at the end of five days I could see if any patterns emerged.  Did patterns emerge? Yes, indeed. I was surprised that I spend about two hours at the computer each day drafting emails. Then I go back to those high-stakes emails and re-read or revise before sending.  By high-stakes emails I mean emails to my bosses or my clients. I want to strike the right tone and by drafting and revising, I think I do a better job of that.

Is that too much time spent on drafting and revising? I guess it depends. If I am responding to a request to share work, I do not think so. Do I wish I were faster at writing appropriate emails? Absolutely!  Will I get faster by tracking my time? I will get back to you on that. J

Write down everything

Earlier in July I wrote about Jo Hartmann teaching me that time is not elastic. Another colleague, Maggie Austin, showed me that time is not elastic by example.  I call Maggie’s method “write-down-everything.”

I have had the privilege of working with Maggie on a few projects.  In one of our planning meetings, she showed me a list she had created of essential tasks that go into an event. Maggie had listed every detail such as prepare handouts, set up participant tables and chairs, hang posters, set up welcome table, prepare participant folders, order snacks for breaks, and tidy up after first day. She had included an approximate time each task would take.  I was amazed at how much time these sorts of tasks take—I had planned for events and classes before--but in my mind--I had always thought about the time it takes to study the material, plan the activities for participants, and prepare the handout. I had not planned for the phone calls, the set-up, and the gathering of auxiliary materials.

Now I call this time management strategy “write-down-everything.” Whether I am planning a study session for myself, a team meeting with a few colleagues, or a professional development event for an entire school district, I need to remember to write down everything.  I write down everything for three reasons:

1. I realize how much time the work will actually take
2. I am not rushed when I do my studying
3. I can check off the tasks as I finish them to feel a sense of accomplishment.

Maggie and I are not the only ones to use this write-down-everything method. Next time I will share a time management blog that incorporates this method and takes it to the next level.  

Time is NOT elastic

I learn many strategies from watching and listening to my colleagues. Let me highlight one of those today.

Jo Hartman taught me that time is not elastic. She claimed she has the same problem that I do about ignoring a time frame and concentrating on completing a project.  I am not sure I totally believe her. Jo may have time-is-not-elastic-itis, but she hides it well. She rarely seems frazzled and I have not heard a cross or impatient word from her when a deadline is looming. 

I am still learning that indeed, time is NOT elastic. Although it seems admirable to focus on the project rather than the timeframe, that may not be so admirable in this information, multi-tasking age.  Good teachers and students do focus on completion of a project, but it is no longer admirable or even possible to complete one project before starting on another.  I used to pride myself on completing one project before tackling the next one on my to-do list.  Now I try to find commonalities in my work projects so I can see what may work for more than one assignment. I am not advocating using the exact same communication or information for more than one assignment/project, but I do use the same general idea and modify it to fit the situation.

 For instance, I plan to use the same connecting activity with two different groups of educators.  Last week I facilitated a Common Core State Standards training for K-2 grade educators.  The topic was bringing rigor to the classroom. For the opening table talk on the third day we conducted an exercise in which half of the people at each table (the A’s) had an opportunity to explain a rigorous situation they had experienced.  After listening to the A’s, the other half of the people at the same table (the B’s) had an opportunity to explain a difficult situation they had experienced.  Then the table discussion was “What is the difference between rigorous and difficult?” Educators came up with clear differences between rigorous and difficult and they came to a consensus that difficult is more emotional than rigorous. Rigorous is something the person feels proud of when it is accomplished.  One table determined that people need to employ rigor to get through a difficult situation.  The educators then discussed the value of rigor for K-2 students. My goal was to put educators in a position to discuss how primary students could be successful in rigorous situations.

This same activity will work to meet one of the goals of my next professional develop event.  This week  I help facilitate the annual retreat for South Dakota Learning Power online educators. I plan to use the same connecting exercise for these teachers of Advanced Placement high school students.  Even though the group will be only one quarter of the size of the K-2 educators and the AP educators have a very different focus than the K-2 educators, the activity will still be productive.  I will use the same process with the A’s and B’s at each table. This time my goal is to put educators in a position to discuss what processes they can use to focus on student learning rather than content.  Educators will likely discuss the bigger picture of helping students master not only the rigorous content of their particular AP courses, but also strategies to help students master any rigorous learning situation.

Jo explicitly told me that time is not elastic. Another of my colleagues, Maggie Austin, has taught me about time management by example. Stay tuned for more about what Maggie has shown me….

Time for what?

June 13, 2013
Time for what?
These past two weeks have been exceptionally busy for me. I never seemed to have the time to write about saving time---hmmm…imagine that.  I told myself I was too busy traveling, too busy conducting trainings, too busy providing feedback to my online students.  As I was preparing the training for the Shannon County staff, I chose to use Judy Brown’s poem “Fire.”

The message to me from the poem is that the space between the logs is just as important as the logs themselves when building a fire or keeping a fire burning.

I have used that poem many times and it seems to really connect with teachers. This time the poem meant something different to me. The lines, “When we are able to build open spaces in the same way…” provided an ah-ha moment for me. The verb “build” stuck out to me. We build the open spaces, Judy Brown writes. The open spaces do not occur because of the logs we build. We actually have to build the open spaces, as well.

FIRE ~ Judy Brown

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

So I ask myself, what am I saving time for? If I am saving time doing tasks just so I have time to do more tasks—or lay on more logs, it is no wonder saving time is not so important to me.  If I am saving time doing tasks so I time to build open spaces to talk with family on the phone or play a table game with friends or take a walk with my husband, then the time saving strategies do become important.

I challenge you to ask yourself, “What are you saving time for?” I invite your comments. 

Job jars

The weekend has just passed and I did not get everything done I had intended. I can hardly remember a Monday when that was not the case.

When I was taking graduate classes, teaching full time, and raising three children, sometimes the household chores became overwhelming. I needed help. One morning it came to me—create a Job Jar! It was a simple idea. I cut slips of paper and put one household chore on each slip of paper. Take out the trash. Fold the towels. Empty the dishwasher…you get the idea. I also put in a few slips that said Free Day to make the Job Jar more palatable. I put all of the slips in a red plastic jar, let the kids know that each child needed to draw a job for the day, and also let them know  there were Free Day slips.

I was amazed at the result. No one grumbled as they each drew their slip and the chore itself seemed more like a game than work.  No one drew a free day slip that first day, and I was relieved when Brad drew one the second round—now there was evidence that there really were some free day slips in the jar.

Over time, I learned some important strategies to keep the Job Jar from being contentious.

·        Jobs cannot be traded with siblings—what you draw is what you get.

·         I drew a job, too—we are all in this together.

·         I encouraged the kids to submit jobs to the job jar—it is surprising what kids see that needs to be done.

·         We drew out all the jobs until the jar was empty  before starting over.

·         I posted the job with the child’s name on the refrigerator and then did not mention the job again—I was amazed that this worked. The kids kept each other accountable.

·         As the kids got older and their schedules became heavier, we  drew jobs by the week instead of the day—they each drew five jobs and needed to complete those jobs as their scheduled allowed before the end of the week. 

Never finish your sentence

One of the best time-saving tips I learned when I was writing my dissertation is to never finish a sentence...at the end of a writing session.
Here is how it worked for me. I was working full time while I was earning my doctorate degree. The time I had to write my dissertation was early morning before I went to work. I had to stop writing at 7 a.m. to get ready for work.
Because I had to be so clock-driven rather than project-driven, I was unable to finish a section before I had to quit writing each day. I was frustrated.
Then I remembered a time I got to interview Fredrick Manfred, the author of Lord Grizzly. Manfred told me and the other graduate students that he always purposely quit his writing session each day in the middle of a sentence. The next day, he claimed it was much easier to pick up his train of thought, finish the sentence, finish the paragraph, and move on.
I thought if it could work for a career author, I would give it a try.
I was amazed at how freeing the technique was AND how much time it saved me because I was able to get right back to my writing the next morning.
It really did work! I seemed to be able to remember where I was headed in my paper by finishing the sentence I had started the day before. That sentence led to the next sentence, next paragraph, and ...