Myth of Bell-to-Bell Instruction Vs. "Golden Rule of 15 Minutes"
Many teachers have been told to teach from bell to bell. Unfortunately, some teachers believe this means they must stand and deliver in front of the board for fifty minutes. Big mistake! In traditional urban schools, it is hard to keep students' attention for even five minutes without them taking out their phone or simply daydreaming while acting like they are paying attention.
I teach urban high school students with a history of failure, helping them succeed in mathematics, as well as close achievement gaps across content areas. I credit my success to the CREATE instructional model—a style of teaching that is strongly against bell-to-bell teaching. In fact, I'm never up in front of the board "teaching" the class for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Let me explain:
A typical class starts with a ten minute warm up exercise where students refresh what they learned the previous day. Then come the "golden fifteen minutes of teaching" which I call "interactive teach-back." During the interactive teach-b