Routine Building IN A Thinking Classroom (Teach Like A Champion Technique #50)

With a new school year on the horizon (mine starts tomorrow!), many of us are looking forward to Building our very first Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, while others of us are dreaming of Re-Building even better ones with new knowledge and experience under our belts.

While the experiences of Builders and Re-Builders will differ in many capacities, there's one thing all of us will be devoting substantial energy to for the next month or so - routine building.  

Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics differ from traditional ones in myriad ways, but I think it is important to keep in mind that great teaching and great classroom experiences share certain features that don't differ regardless of style, philosophy, or framework.  In Teach Like A Champion 3.0, Doug Lemov and tells us that:
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"there are teachers who without much fanfare take the students who others say 'can't' - can't read great literature, can't do algebra or calculus, can't and don't want to learn - and help, inspire, motivate, and even cajole them into being scholars who do."
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In these classrooms, he goes on to tell us,
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 "the activities differ, but the techniques are the same.... My goal was to find as many such teachers as I could and to honor them by focusing on and studying their teaching.  What I found is that while each great teacher is unique, as a group their teaching held elements in common..... In the aggregate, a story emerged.  There is a toolbox for excellence... it turns out" (pp. xxxvi - xxxvii).

One of the tools in that toolbox, he found, is that great teachers build routines (Technique #50).
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What is a routine?

A routine is a procedure or a series of procedures that defines precisely how a certain classroom process gets done and that students practice doing until it becomes automatic.  In great classrooms, students have internalized countless routines.  Lemov puts them into three categories (p. 388):

1. Academic Routines - routines that help students to properly engage in learning activities
2. Procedural Routines - routines that help students manage materials and transitions
3. Cultural Routines -  routines that help students feel and contribute to belonging with others

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Why are Routines Important?

Lemov, again, gives us three reasons that having clear, automatic routines that everyone follows is important (pp. 390-391):

1. It makes things easy to manage.  When we need thirty people to thrive in the same small space at school, we're unlikely to get a quality outcome if we leave it to everyone to figure out their own efficient, respectful, and productive way of doing things
2. It it effective at norm-setting.  "When we don't know how to behave," Lemov writes, quoting Tom Bennett, "we look to other people as a safe guide of what to do....  A clear norm not only encourages people to follow, but often gives them comfort" (p. 390)  Most students, in my experience, want to do the right thing, and they appreciate know what that right thing is.
3. It makes it easier to focus mental energy on learning.  Every second a student spends trying to figure out how to do a basic classroom task is a second that he or she isn't learning the academic content we're teaching.

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What Routines Are Needed In A Thinking Classroom?

As they are in any great classroom, routines are needed for just about everything that happens in a Thinking Classroom.  Thinking Classrooms look free-form, independent, and self-disciplined, but paradoxically, they're actually born of extreme structure and routine, just like any enviable classroom under a different structure.

​I don't know about you, but at any given moment in my class - no matter what subject I'm teaching or what framework/philosophy I employ in that class - I have a mental model of a "dream student" in my mind that is doing precisely and exactly the perfect and wonderful things needed for success in that moment.

My procedures and routines are born from that dream student.

Academic Routines
What is that dream student doing during the task launch?  What is he/she doing during the thinking tasks?  What is he/she doing during closing activities?  How does he/she complete the check-your understanding questions?

Procedural routines
​What does that dream student do upon receiving his/her visibly random group assignment when entering the room?  How does that student get to the board and get thinking as fast as possible?  Where are his or her belongings at that time?  How does that student clean up the board area and get ready for the closing activities?

Cultural Routines
How does this student behave when leading the thinking group?  How does he/she behave when following or listening to another member of the group?  What if a member of the group isn't contributing?  What is he/she doing during note-making?  How does he/she come to feel safe and confident enough to ask keep-thinking questions?

If we're honest with ourselves, we can imagine what this student is doing at any moment in class quite clearly, which means we need a routine for just about every moment in our classes. 

The way to get a dream class is to teach every student to be this dream student. 

​They won't know how to be our dream students if we don't teach them to be.
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How Do You Build A Routine?

Lemov gives us six steps to building good routines in Teach Like A Champion 3.0 (pp. 408-410):

1. Roll out the routine.  Tell students what to do and why you're asking them to do it that way.  ​Here is a terrific video of a star teacher in my district rolling out a new routine.
2. Outline the steps.  Leave no detail to guesswork.
3. Model and describe it.  Don't just tell them how to do it, show them how, narrating and thinking aloud along the way
4. Practice it. Lots.
5. Transfer ownership of it.  For several weeks, each time the routine is to be carried out, you'll need to re-describe - and maybe even re-model - the steps.  The kids will forget.  It's ok.  Expect to narrate it every time for quite a while.  Eventually, you'll need fewer words.  Then later, maybe just a few key words or gestures.  Gradually allow it to become habit.
6. Maintain it.  Once the routine has become a habit and students can reliably do the routine without your reminders, you'll just have to review it now and again when it gets sloppy or when students test to see if you hold them accountable to it.  Make sure you do.

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What Are Some Pitfalls when it comes to Routines, and how can I avoid them?

There are quite a few ways I've seen routine building fall short over the years.  Here are some I've learned:

​Pitfall #1 - Under-utilizing them, especially with older students - It can be easy to underestimate just how often the kids should be following a routine.  It's pretty much all the time​.  If I want the kids to do something - anything - well, I have to teach them how to do it well. Even older students.  Kindergarten teachers rarely under-utilize routines.  But the older kids get, in my experience, their teachers are more likely to think "these kids are old enough that they should know what to do without me having to tell them."​

How do I avoid pitfall #1?  Think about your dream student at all times, and narrate what that student is doing.  Especially at the beginning of the school year.  "We're about to transition to the boards.  Here's how I want you to do that."  See that dream student in your mind, and lay out the steps.  Model them, too.  Practice them lots.

Pitfall #2 - Not enough detail - Many routines fail because they're simply not specific enough.  

Not enough detail: "Ok, we're going to the cafeteria.  Stay silent in the hall and stay in line."  

Better detail: "We're going to the cafeteria.  First, you need to be silent in the hall.  Silent is different than quiet. It means NO talking - not even whispering - and no noise from stomping or touching walls either.  Second, you'll need to be in line.  In line means directly behind the person in front of you.  Not next to, not diagonal, behind.  Please keep enough room behind the person in front of you that you don't step on the back of their feet, but don't leave a gap either.  Like this [model].  Are there any questions?  I've tried to be very clear, but I'm SURE I have left you with some questions.  What are they?  OK, let's practice."

How do I avoid pitfall #2? - Don't be afraid to be VERY specific.  It isn't condescending - it's respectful.  Again, most of your students WANT to do the right thing - exactly as you want it - and they just need you to tell them EXACTLY how (and why).  Your dream student certainly wants to know.

Pitfall #3 - Assuming the routine is installed too early - Installing a routine takes a lot of modeling, repetition, and practice.  Some schools encourage teachers to not teach any content the first day - just routines. That's well-intentioned, but a day isn't nearly enough to install a routine, much less many routines.  Don't assume a day of pure routine building is sufficient.

How can I avoid pitfall #3 - I personally think of the first six weeks of school as the "beginning of the year."  That's how long I will assume it'll take to have the beginning of the year routines automatized. I hear the number two weeks a lot, but I find that isn't enough. Remember - you're going to have a lot of routines.  So will their other teachers.  We're asking a lot of our kids.  Give it time.  I count on six weeks.  Then, if it's only four and everything is humming just how I want it, I'm thrilled.  But Thinking Classrooms are "a shock to the system."  Don't be surprised if your students take longer than usual to install routines.

Pitfall #4 - Not enforcing routines - As I keep saying, most of your students want to do just what the dream student in your head is doing, and you just have to teach them how to be that student. 

MOST students, that is. 

​Like rules, however, the mere existence of the routine isn't enough.  You'll need to enforce them when they aren't followed.

How can I avoid pitfall #4 - You'll need a plan for enforcing routines, just like you'll need one for enforcing rules.  My class knows that, when we transition from the launch to the boards, they're to go straight to the boards.  Once the routine is properly installed, however, and I've transferred ownership, the occasional visit to a friend in another group on the way to the board may take place.  And the whole class is looking at me to see if it is ok.  It isn't.  And it'll be enforced ultra-consistently.

Pitfall #5 - Limiting routine installation to the beginning of the year - As Lemov teaches us in the six steps to installing routines, routines need maintenance.  They'll get sloppy with time.  Or you might want to install a new one!

How can I avoid pitfall #5 - First, expect to have to maintain existing routines from time to time.  They'll get sloppy with time.  If one student visits a friend on the way to the boards, I enforce.  If quite a few do so, the routine needs some maintenance.  The video below is one I captured in the middle of last year where I realized I needed to do some maintenance to our review routine.  It happens.  And notice, it takes fewer than two minutes.

Second, feel free to change existing routines or install new ones whenever you feel the need.  It is actually quite easy to do mid-year when everything else is going great.  Just still follow the six installations steps.  It won't take 4-6 weeks at this point, I promise.  That time frame is for the beginning of the year when you're launching ALL the routines. They can learn ONE new routine pretty quick.
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Will Routines Really Help To Build A Better THinking Classroom?

Last year, on September 9th - in my seventh week of school - it happened.

After weeks of struggle - and after nearly abandoning the quest to Build A Thinking Classroom altogether - I looked up, and the classroom of my dreams was taking form with almost no involvement from me.  The kids just .... did it. 

All of it. 

All the routines had settled in. 

​I sent them off to think, and they thought.  For 30 minutes.  On a Monday.  The very vision I had in my head for six weeks​ and stubbornly, relentlessly pushed for was all grown up.

I'll venture to say that building routines in a Thinking Classroom is even more important than it is in a traditional one.  The activities in a Thinking Classroom are very different from a traditional one, which means all the routines are likely to be brand new, too.  This is a whole new experience, and the kids need you to help them be successful in it.

They need routines.

They want routines, too.

Whether you Build Your First Thinking Classroom in Mathematics this year or Re-Build your best one yet, give it the foundation it needs - build it on routines.

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