Keeping Students on Task and on Track

Data insights to support Maths Pathway teachers Dr Katerina Schenke

Overview

This paper looks at students’ off-task behaviour during Maths Pathway, to understand which aspects of classroom instruction teachers should focus on while using Maths Pathway. It focuses on attention, module transition, and lesson launch.

Key findings

There is a relationship between how long it takes to get started in the lesson and total number of questions responded. For every 1 minute quicker a student can complete their first module question that day, the student can answer an additional 6 questions in that lesson – equivalent to about 6 minutes’ work.
Most off-task behaviours occur at the beginning of class, but the amount of cumulative time spent off-task is roughly the same across the entire lesson.
The time a student spent transitioning between modules was less related to how many additional questions the student answered that lesson. Day of the week (Friday versus other days) doesn’t always matter in terms of off-task behaviour by students.
Afternoons seem to be the worst in terms of off-task behaviour.
Most of the variation in off-task behaviour occurs from lesson to lesson, not school-to-school or teacher-to-teacher.
Overall, we recommend teachers who use Maths Pathway to pay particular attention to the lesson launch.

Paper by:

Dr Katerina Schenke

An Evidence-Based Approach for Mathematics Instruction

Maths Pathway

English Pathway

Keeping Students on Task and on Track

Overview

Key findings

Access full research paper

Maths Pathway

English Pathway

Keeping Students on Task and on Track

Overview

Key findings

Access full research paper

Sign up for a free trial

Sign up for a free trial