About half the students had their phones out, despite the school’s no-phone policy. Three girls chatted loudly from their seats near the front of the room. Another girl and boy bantered loudly across two other students. A boy came in and out of the classroom, making a show of his entrance each time. A handful of students sat quietly but were too distracted by the others to possibly follow the attempted lesson.

This was the scene in a class of 11th grade Algebra 1 students one day in October. The teacher, a soft spoken former college professor with deep content knowledge, had been trying to follow the required curriculum and pacing guide but struggled to get the students to settle down and listen to her. The express purpose of my visit that day was to model an Illustrative Mathematics lesson. I was there with another consultant, Jill Bloomberg; the two of us had decided to combine efforts to support the math teachers. We had planned the lesson with the teachers and tried it out in another classroom already; we had made adjustments and prepared the copies; we had quickly moved the desks into groups of three, hoping to model how students could work together and have conversations about the rich mathematics in front of them. But that plan went out the window ten minutes into the period.

With four teachers in the room (two of us special visitors), the students were polite and curious for about a minute before returning to their typical behavior. After a few minutes of me attempting to lead a whole-group discussion, Jill whispered in my ear, “This isn’t working; let them work in groups.” She elaborated: it was virtually impossible to get the whole class’s attention, so let’s just give them the tasks and let them work. Some would surely need a lot of support, and others might not, but there was really no way to try to lead them as one group. I had to abandon my goal of modeling an IM lesson in favor of a more practical approach: Listen to what your students are telling you. 

A remarkable thing happened when we let the students work in groups: nearly everyone got to work. Many needed help, but many others already had an idea of what to do because they had done it once, maybe even twice, before. A few students even made discoveries beyond what we had expected in the lesson. They were loud, rambunctious, and sometimes silly, but they helped each other; they debated answers; and they asked for help when needed. 

During our debrief, we discussed the importance of listening to what your students are telling you. As Jill put it, this class was sending a message loud and clear: they wanted to learn, but what we were doing wasn’t working for them. Their experiences with Algebra, their emotional and academic needs, and everything else that students bring with them to school made it nearly impossible for them to engage as a whole group. How often do we plough ahead with our plan, I wonder, without listening to what students are trying to tell us? What if we could be open enough to look for and receive whatever message they are sending and adjust our approach to meet their needs?

To do this takes a certain mindset, level of preparation, and trust. We need to be open to the message that students are sending through their words and their behavior. Then we need to be ready to pivot. This doesn’t mean abandoning your pacing calendar altogether, but working with your class to meet their needs while also meeting the demands of the school and district. If you adjust your approach, they will adjust their behavior. And chances are they will be grateful to you for listening and being flexible. 

Abby Gordon, Metamorphosis Coach bio.