"Learning" Time and "Doing" Time

I’ve spent a good bit of my writing time this year working on a series of posts called Leaning Into the Science and Engineering Practices for a More Dynamic Classroom.  I’ve also done some live presentations on the same idea.  The feedback I’ve gotten on this topic has been wonderful, and I’m thrilled that it has been helpful!

Separate from the feedback on the topic itself, I’ve also gotten a lot of positive comments and questions regarding just the idea of mentally dividing class time into “learning time” and “doing time,” which I show and talk about quite a bit in the series (example below).

Because of how attention-getting this simple idea has been, I wanted to share a brief post explaining it further.

I started explicitly planning this way after reading a post called To Learn, Students Need to DO Something on a favorite education blog of mine.  I link to it often, but if you’ve never clicked over and read it, I highly recommend it.  Even though the main idea in the post was intuitive for me, it still paints the idea perfectly and in such a way that I couldn’t help but learn from it even though I was already doing most of what it said. 

From that day forward, my planning calendar has had two columns instead of one.

Gonzalez talks in the piece about a class we can all probably identify with - one where the whole class, for the whole period, for the whole year is nothing but the teacher delivering information. It’s all learning time with no “doing” time.  Kids receive information, but they don’t do anything with it.  Personally, I remember pretty much every social studies class I ever had operating this way.

Gonzalez doesn’t talk in the piece about the opposite situation, which I think is equally cautionary - a class structure where work or activity is provided, but very little teaching takes place.  Several AP classes I took in high school operated this way, and I remember finding it incredibly frustrating.  I spent inordinate amounts of time doing work that nobody had taught me how to do.

Learning time consists of, in some way, delivering or reviewing information.  That has to be a big part of the educational process, at all levels.  Learning through inquiry or discovery is great, but people need teachers to teach them what they need to know.

Doing time consists of, in some way, practicing, working, or participating in an activity that forces you to apply and make sense of learning.  People rarely learn by simply taking in information.  They have to engage with it and sort out how it works for themselves.

​The easiest way I’ve found to avoid either trap is to commit to doing both in every subject every day.

Simple as that.
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Recent pics of learning time (top) and doing time (bottom)

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is learning time always first?

No. In fact, my most widely-read post, Do the Fun Stuff First, suggests just the opposite. Sometimes learning time is first.  Sometimes its at the end.  Sometimes it is sandwiched in the middle.  Sometimes it occurs in multiple smaller installments.

     2. Is planning like this just for science?

No. My planning calendar looks exactly the same for my math classes.  It also looked the same for my writing class the year I taught that.  I can’t think of anything I would teach where both elements didn’t need consideration every day.

      3. Do you do both every day, or just try to make sure you balance the two?

I do both almost every day.  There are rare occasions where I just do one.  They usually don’t work out very well.  But I do have one or two lesson formats that are entirely focused one or the other.  They are very carefully crafted, however, and used sparingly.  

             4. Does taking notes count as “doing”?

Personally, I don’t think so.  I don't think they're mentally active enough or involve enough meaning-making to accomplish what doing time is supposed to accomplish.  

​I’ve written a whole piece on note-taking, and I personally don’t think they make the cut for either column on their own.  I include them in learning time when I have to, but the notes aren’t the focal point.  They’re just to help remember what was learned later.

Note-taking isn't mentally active enough to constitute "doing," in my opinion.

        5. Do discussions count as “doing”?

I think so. Discussions require students to apply, organize, and make sense of what they’ve learned. That’s exactly what doing time is for!  I think they can also suffice for learning.  Just today, I saw a clip of an Uncommon Schools class involved in some very discussion-focused learning time.  Very high level!

        6. Are there ever times where learning and doing time overlap?

Absolutely.  Some days my learning and doing columns have the same activity in them.  I’m just careful to make sure both elements are truly present in the activity.

         7.  Do the two portions get equal time in class?

No. While assuring that both get some time in class every day is vital, it doesn’t have to be a 50-50 split.  There was a big push in my district a few years ago to limit teaching time to 10 minutes per class for the sake of students’ attention spans.  I was never successful in doing this, and ended up flipping my classroom in order to try to manage it.  I’ve currently settled, personally, on trying to keep the completely teacher-focused part of learning time to 10 minutes, but allowing the parts of learning time that are more participatory (like in the clip provided in #5) to go past that.  I probably

Learning includes any time spent introducing or reviewing something. It isn't spent just listening. 

spend 20-30 minutes total most classes in what I think of as learning time.  That's probably more than you would typically see recommended.  It seems to work for me though.
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​         8. What kinds of things do you do for learning time?

I mostly stick to good old direct instruction.  A lot of math and science is procedural learning, for which I apply the Gradual Release Model very explicitly (explained in this post).  For conceptual learning, I typically use some version of the Concept Attainment Model.  If I use any videos, they’re short and I pause and interrupt them a lot.  I use reading and text sparingly, though that’s a personal choice because I’ve not learned how to teach well that way.  I know other teachers who do a great job teaching through reading and text in science and social studies.

At times, I’ve used a “flipped classroom” model for learning time.

I experimented with self-paced learning earlier this year after learning about the Modern Classrooms Project.  That was a promising experience, as well.

         9. What kinds of things do you do for doing time?
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In math, I organize doing time around the workshop model and choiceboards.  I’ve also increasingly used Formative Assessment Lessons in math, which I have found to be excellent doing-based learning activities that produce terrific results.  When I taught writing, I organized that around the workshop model, too.

​A huge amount of what I written for this blog is devoted to how I organize doing time for science. Leaning In, Project-Based Learning, Doing the Fun Stuff First, and creative projects are all very engaging ways of providing doing time.
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Formative assessment lessons come with excellent doing-time activities.  
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Traditional practice, quizzes, and tests also come during doing time in my class.

           10. Isn’t the learning-time-doing-time idea obvious?

I think so.  I think most teachers do both most days.  But when I read the post, it still caught my attention, I think because I started thinking of it as DOING time rather than WORKING time.  Doing is a lot broader than working, and I’ve expanded my horizons as such.

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