How To Help Your Students Work Independently

Do your students need help working independently?  Do they bother you with questions and random comments when they should be working on their own?  Here is a strategy that might help:

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If your students are anything like mine, they struggle with working independently.  When you give them something to work on by themselves, they start waving their hands frantically, or even worse, start following you around the room begging for your attention.  I have developed these cards as a way to help keep them in their seats and learning, while I can figure out who truly needs my assistance.



Each student has a set of cards at their desk.  I printed them on red, yellow, and green cardstock and attached them to a binder ring.

They display the colored cards to let me know how things are going.  The green card means everything is ok, and they can work independently without help from me.

The yellow card means they are stuck on a problem, but can continue with the rest of the assignment.

The red card lets me know that they need help before they can work independently.  I target these students first as I offer assistance.  If I see several of these cards at the same time, I might call a small group over, or interrupt the class for a quick re-teach.

You can grab these cards for free at my TpT store here.

I did a Periscope about these cards earlier today, and you can catch the replay here: 

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