Procrastination is an addictive habit that reduces productivity of a person. Once you start procrastinating, you get trapped in a vicious cycle as it conquers all the good habits and makes you less efficient. Teachers should be carefully watching their students and keep an eye on their performance. It is majorly the responsibility of a teacher to teach students good habits. Teachers should point out which habit in a student is bad for them and will not help them succeed in life. Procrastination is one such habit that always drags a student behind. This article provides tips for teachers so that they can tackle procrastination efficiently.
Below are a few tips for teachers that will help them tackle procrastination easily:
Checking the progress of students constantly: Students must be asked to share their progress as they proceed. The pace may be slow but they should never miss the deadline. As a teacher, you must keep a check on this. For instance, if the students are given an assignment to be completed within 10 days, the teacher must ask for their progress every three days. If you feel that any student is lagging as per the timeline, then you should immediately focus on his/her progress. If needed, the parents can also be intimidated by the project. A collective effort by the teachers and parents can push the students to perform better.
Teaching the students time management: One reason for procrastination among students is a lack of time management skills. Teachers must teach students time management right from the beginning. Time management skills are crucial for every student as it helps them in the long run. Maintaining a daily planner and following an everyday schedule helps manage time. Teachers must teach students that any distraction that kills their time must be avoided. Maintaining a list of works to be done based on priority is important and helpful for efficiently managing time.
Follow up with the students regarding the approaching deadline: Students may remain distracted due to many factors. Sometimes personal problems act as hindrances and affect students' performances. In such cases, procrastination is not deliberate. Sometimes students are not able to avoid procrastination. Due to a lot of stuff going on, students might often forget about the due dates of their assignments. Therefore, as a teacher, you must keep giving them constant reminders about the approaching deadlines. Teachers can also suggest students to keep a reminder on their digital devices such as mobile, which will help them keep a track of their progress and the deadline.
Keep the assignments simple: At times, an assignment might look complicated to the students. If a bigger assignment is broken down into small parts, then it becomes much easier to complete. As students do not find it daunting to complete a small assignment, they do not tend to procrastinate. It is the job of a teacher to simplify learning for students. This is a simple way of making learning easy for the students. Students usually show a tendency of procrastination when they find something hard. That's why it is always a good idea to break a big assignment into smaller parts. Thus, students can easily finish off their tasks on time.
Make the assignments interesting: If you want your students to complete assignments on time rather than procrastinate them, then you should grab their attention towards the assignments. To grab their attention, the assignments should be fascinating to them and fun to do. For example, making a PowerPoint presentation is far more appealing than writing pages of a long report. Similarly, instead of asking students to write essays if they are told to make short videos or animations, it will be much more intriguing for them. For history projects, instead of giving them long topics to write, assign them projects like making relevant miniatures of historical monuments. Even before you remind them of the deadline, they will complete the assignment on their own, if it is captivating enough and fun to do.
Assign projects that are relevant to their studies: Unless students can relate their studies with a given project, they won't be interested in completing it. When students can link the importance and practical application of an assignment with what they learn from their textbooks, then they will really take interest in their assignments. The assignments must be designed to actually judge their skills and progress. Many times, explaining the importance of the assignment also helps to fetch the attention of the students. When you explain to them how important it is for them, they automatically take interest in completing it rather than procrastinating. Thus, teachers have indispensable roles to play in terms of designing the assignments so that the students avoid procrastination.
Reward your students for not procrastinating: A teacher must reward the students for completing the given tasks on time. It gives them a sense of achievement. Moreover, it also encourages them to perform better the next time. When a student gets rewarded, it inspires other students as well to perform better. In this manner, teachers also set a goal for the students which makes them complete assignments on time. A teacher must always congratulate the students when they achieve something. A word of praise or a small gift like chocolate may do the work. A compliment from the teacher is always motivational for the students.
Conclusion
Procrastination is not very difficult to deal with. Teachers must keep in mind a few points which will help them tackle procrastination. If students find a topic boring or difficult, they tend to procrastinate. As a teacher, you must explain the importance of each topic and assign them interesting and relevant projects related to those topics. Rewarding the students for completing assignments on time is also a great way of motivating them for better performance. With these few simple tips, tackling procrastination will be an easy task for every teacher.
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