How to improve time management in your classroom

Effective time management in classroom teaching is essential for student engagement, lesson flow, and maximizing learning time. Whether you're a new teacher or a seasoned educator, implementing strong classroom time management strategies can transform your teaching experience. In this guide, we’ll explore time management for teachers, from structuring lesson plans to using timers and brain breaks to keep students on track.

1: Balance structure and flexibility

Good time management in the classroom isn’t just about strict schedules—it’s about knowing when to adapt. If a classroom discussion is going well, don’t cut it off just because the lesson plan says so. Instead, prioritize what benefits students the most and adjust accordingly.

tip:

When preparing your lessons, highlight key activities and mark areas where you can be flexible.

2: Make your lesson plan visible

One of the simplest time management strategies for teachers is to display your lesson plan. Clearly outlining objectives helps students understand expectations and stay on task.

Our Timetable widget is ideal for communicating your lesson or plan, because it shows how much time is allocated to each task. Display your schedule using the Timetable widget. If things go completely different from your initial plan, switch to checklist mode to disregard time indications completely.

This image shows the new Timetable widget available on Classroomscreen, as well as some of the icons available for use within the widget.

3: Implementing differentiation in your classroom

Students work at different speeds, and time management in classroom for students means ensuring that everyone stays engaged. Differentiation—providing varied tasks for different learners—keeps the class running smoothly.

Here's some of our top tips:

Use a secondary checklist for extra assignments.
Structure activities using the 'Must do, May do' framework in our Ketchup, Mustard, Pickle screen.
Offer enrichment activities for faster students through our Fast finishers template.

Fun, exciting and a big stress reliever for fast finishers.

Help students complete their assignments with this fun and structured template

4: Set clear deadlines

Deadlines create focus and urgency in learning. A countdown timer can help students manage their pace and stay productive, and hopefully not get so easy distracted.

note:

Keep in mind that some students may perceive a countdown timer as negative stress. These students might need some extra attention in learning to deal with time pressure.

We have two different timers to choose from:

Our Timer widget, which has a standard digital clock display that allows you the flexibility to add/subtract time through + and - buttons on each digit.
Our Visual timer widget, which displays the remaining time in a clear and visual manner using an analog clock face that slowly disappears as time passes. This is ideal for longer periods of time (20+ minutes) and for students who might struggle with comprehension of a digital clock face.

5: The subtle alarm clock

During tests, a countdown timer might be distracting. With a timer, you see time decreasing every second, which can sometimes cause unnecessary stress. Instead, use a classroom clock display with a subtle alarm. You can use our Clock widget for this purpose, which can be either an analog or digital display depending on your preference.

tip:

So, how do you make sure you're not caught off guard by the bell? The clock has a built-in alarm function. Set an alarm for 10 or 15 minutes before the end of the class as a standard practice. A simple ping sound subtly alerts you that the final phase of the lesson has started, allowing you to act.

This image shows how to use the text box to display key information that keeps students on task with timers

6: Countdown to big events

Students stay motivated when they can see upcoming events. The Event countdown widget is a great way to keep track of important dates like exams, project deadlines, and holidays.

This image shows all the possibilities with our Event Countdown widget, including counting down to the Christmas Holidays and using it to show progress through topics

7. Evaluate & improve lessons

Reflection is key to time management in lesson planning. At the end of each class, try gathering student feedback to improve your lesson flow. Did you plan for too much or did you overestimate how long it would take them to complete a task? Note it down for next time.

example:

You can use our handy Exit ticket template which provides everything you will need to quickly evaluate how well your students understood and enjoyed your lesson.

8: Give students a brain break

A scheduled brain break improves focus and helps students self-manage their time. When students know a break is coming, they are more likely to stay engaged. Embed YouTube videos through our Video widget, or try some of our most popular brain break screens to get them out of their seats and focusing up!

Explore our brain break templates

9: Organize your class materials in advance

Sometimes, timing is key. When you just need that one video or quickly need to create groups for an assignment, you don't want to spend class time searching for the right resources. Wasting time searching for resources can disrupts learning and good time management as a teacher means having everything ready before class starts.