You don't have to strain your imagination to see how being late to class can impact students' academic performance. Tardiness means missed instructional time during critical classes when lessons are introduced and announcements are made. And not to be overlooked is the disruption that late arrivals can cause across an entire classroom.
While they may suffer academically, chronically tardy students do get good at one thing: coming up with excuses, which can be as simple as, “I lost track of the time.” One way to eliminate that pitfall is to install a synchronized time system with a Bell Countdown digital clocks.
Middle school case study
If anyone is familiar with the problems caused by tardiness, it's middle school educators, whose students are new to the concept of switching classrooms throughout the day and getting to class on time.
Angie McAndrews was well aware of this challenge when she served as vice principal of Faribault Middle School in Minnesota. But a couple years after her school installed an American Time clock system with a countdown feature, McAndrews was able to reflect on the difference the clocks made in her building. In addition to counting down the designated minutes students have to get from one class to another, the school's time system plays music at the two-minute mark to spur students on to the next period. “It has been really helpful in reminding kids of the urgency to get to class in the next two minutes,” McAndrews said.
Some students still have issues getting to class on time – we are talking about a middle school, after all – but it's “not because they don't know what time it is,” the educator said.
Saving time and energy
There have been examples of schools overcoming tardiness with interventions of their own, but those measures take substantial instructional effort.
The education journal, "Preventing School Failure," chronicled the experience of one middle school where faculty took focused measures to reduce tardiness. They instituted a school-wide intervention program in which staff taught about expected behavior during passing time while establishing a stronger adult presence in the halls to keep students on schedule.
Those efforts worked, substantially reducing average daily tardiness, but it came at a cost. Staff members only have so much time and energy, and when they were stressing the importance of timeliness, they couldn't teach core academic subjects. A hallway mounted digital clock with Bell Countdown can help teachers focus on instruction while their students get to class on time.
Manage Time During Test Taking
Another way to improve academic performance is to establish environments more conducive to test taking, which brings up one more way a countdown timer can prove a benefit.
When in the midst of an exam, especially during the strictly timed standardized tests that serve as measures for entire educational systems, students need all the brain power they can muster. Extra calculations, such as figuring how much time they have left, don't help.
In these scenarios, the person giving the test can initiate a countdown using new technology like the EverAlert digital communication platform. This technology can simplify the test-taking process as students remain keenly aware of their remaining time, pacing themselves accordingly. For a demonstration of EverAlert’s countdown capabilities, click here.
So, whether your students are walking from one class to another, determining when lunch ends, or how much time they have left on a test, a clock with a countdown is beneficial.
Learn more about American Time's digital clock offerings here.
