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Would you leave a school that doubled your planning time? I mean, same amount of students, same work, same salary, same responsibility, same everything, but doubled your planning period. Well, I think I know the answer to your question because a school district actually tried this and the results are staggering. They saw teacher retention jump into the 90s. 90 plus percent. Why? Because teachers all over the world are saying, I just don't have enough time. There's so much things I have to do. I'm so stressed, I'm so overwhelmed, so many things I have to do. So giving them back some time is actually definitely gonna lead to retention. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about what that district saw, how they implemented it, but also what were the results of giving teachers double planning time. But most importantly, I'm gonna let you know how to get back time in your day, even if your district never does this. All that's happening on this episode, Impact begins now. New teacher Big Impact. And in this episode, we're talking about how to get more time in the instructional day. Teachers report spending eight plus hours outside of school just doing school-related tasks. And oftentimes, psych that is just unsustainable, and a huge reason why so many teachers are saying, I don't know how much longer I can do this. You know, my goal is to retain teachers, keep them in the classrooms that they want to be in. I'm talking to the teachers who are passionate, who are driven, and who want to make their impact through education. How are we gonna get them to stick in a classroom? Whether you are a teacher or you are a leader, I teach you the system before strategy framework that helps teachers stick. What's the system before strategy framework? As you know, random strategies are not what helps teachers stick around, but there's a system that increases retention. Driver number one of new teacher retention is how leaders see them. Driver number two is how teachers see themselves, and driver number three is how the school feels to be a part of. So I'm sure you can guess and assume that this episode is all about driver number three, how the school feels to be a part of. If I feel as if I'm in a place that sees me, that values my work and that supports me by giving me more time in my day to actually plan and prep and get ready and grade and do all those things. Yes, that's gonna be a place that I want to stay because I feel seen, I feel valued, I feel supported, and I feel like we're all on the same page working towards student success. So that's what we're gonna do a deep dive into on this episode of the podcast because I was blown away by this article and I'm gonna link it down below that's talking about how this district, uh the Alliance College Ready Network, tried doubling teacher planning. And I'm serious, they doubled teachers' planning without reducing student instructional time, which means the teachers that maybe they had a 45-minute planning block throughout the whole day, now they have 90 minutes, they have two blocks of planning, and students still have instructional time. Now, they did it by you know bringing in some co-teachers and um they gave students a study block and all those great things, so they just got creative because here's what they saw they saw that teachers were complaining about the fact that there's so much work that we have to do, and I know that you resonate with this. We talked about survey data from the North Carolina Working Condition survey a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, where teachers are saying, Listen, I'm spending so much of my own time, my family time, my personal time doing school-related tasks that is burning me out. And this district saw the same thing. So they said, What if we give them more time throughout the day? They were able to give teachers eight to 12 additional hours of planning throughout their school day so that they wouldn't have to do administrative tasks and grading and things like that after school. Let me know in the comment section how you feel about that. Would you would you like that? Would it be cool? Do you think you would actually use it? Another thing that they did throughout those planning times was give them more teacher support. They said that they noticed an increase in teacher morale as they reported a better work-life balance, right? That is huge. So, what are the results? What happened as a result of this pilot? Well, as a matter of fact, they saw a huge increase in teacher retention. The high school saw a 4% jump and they went from uh 81%. I'm sorry, they went from 87% to 91% teacher retention at the end of that year. And the middle school saw even more, they went from 88% teachers retained to 94% during that year of teachers that returned. And that makes sense. If you were in a school that had double the planning of every other school in the neighboring cities and towns, I'm pretty sure if you want to be a teacher that this is the school that you would choose to work in. So they did that, and as a matter of fact, they also saw student achievement go up. Why? Because now teachers are having more time to spend and to spend in planning and preparing and grading and providing feedback and all those great things. So they did that with four schools. That district did it with four schools over the 2025-2026 school year, and they're expanding to 11 of its 25 schools in the next upcoming school year 2027-2028. So, what I'm saying is they're seeing that it's working, and they're saying, man, if we give teachers more time throughout the day to do the things that teachers need to do, then teachers will stick around. Ding ding ding ding ding. I mean, teachers have been saying that for years, but I'm glad that there's a district that's listening. What I'm most excited about is if this district is doing it and doing it effectively and seeing results, we have other copycat districts that are going to do this as well. So hopefully a district near you is going to come down this path. But until that happens, you're gonna be in a school 40 hours a week and you're not gonna have 40 hours worth of planning time. Not gonna have 40 hours worth of prep time. You know, this district, they were able to get up to 8, 12. Some of you may have three and a half, right? So, how do we use that time effectively? Because what ends up happening is we don't have time for the things I was saying earlier for for uh grading, for planning, for preparation. So, what we end up doing is we cut out things. We cut out things like uh checks for understanding because you know I don't want to grade it, right? Or I don't have time to even think of what the check for understanding is gonna be or prepare the questions, much less collect 170 papers that I gotta breeze through. I don't have students, I'm not collecting their journals, I'm not collecting their workbooks and going through the classwork. So I'm not able to give you know highly effective feedback because I'm not seeing all the work that they're doing. The lack of time is in is hurting our instructional results, and that's why we're not seeing as much student achievement because we don't have enough time to work with the information and data and things like that. So, what we're gonna do is I'm actually going to give you some of my favorite, my top three checks for understanding that are quick to apply, have low resources, and are easy to get the data from. All right, that's the goal. Quick, little resources, and easy to get the data from. So I'm gonna give you those three, and as a matter of fact, I'm going to link seven more in the description. I'm just gonna share my favorite three. Now, these are my favorite, they may not be your favorite, there are seven more. You have a total of ten that you can check out, but these are my three, and I'm going to tell you why. Okay, uh, but the reality is the goal is that we're trying to help you save time. And one of the reasons why some of us don't take the time to think of a creative solution for ours, checks for understanding, is because we don't have time. It's kind of like if you're the other day, my car tire was flat. So I went in the garage, my car tire was flat, and I said, I need I need air in my tire. Well, the gas station two miles away has free air. I was gonna go there, but I can't drive to the gas station because my tire needs air. So I need air, but I need my car to go get the air. But the air is for my car, which needs air. You see what I'm saying? And it's kind of the same thing. We don't have time, but we need time to plan the checks for understanding that are going to help save us time. All right, it's it's like a cycle. So I've done the work for you. I have the plan, I have the checks for understanding that are gonna help save you time. I'm gonna teach them to you right now so that you can just implement them. And again, it's quick, easy, and low resources. Um, but right before we dive into that, make sure that you are subscribed, make sure that you like, make sure that you share this with a teacher that needs to hear it, uh, because we are giving away an impactful educator t-shirt, just like we give away to every other guest of the podcast. And if we get 25 likes, 25 likes on this, then I'll choose somebody who has liked and subscribed and we'll randomly give that to you, okay? So make sure you subscribe, make sure you like it, and if we get to 25 likes, then I'll make sure that we send that out to a lucky subscriber. So here we go. Here are my top three checks for understanding. Teachers are burning out faster than ever. Confidence is dropping, imposter syndrome is rising, and too many classrooms feel like survival instead of transformation. But what if it doesn't have to be this way? Great teaching isn't magic, it's a method. And inside the Impact Playbook, you'll discover the six principles that thousands of teachers are already using to reignite their passion, engage their students, and build classrooms that thrive on. This isn't just another book that collects dust on the shelf. It's a complete system that helps teachers step into their strengths, prevent burnout, and create learning that sticks. So if you're looking to see a drop in teacher turnover and a boost in student engagement, the principles are right here inside the book. So if you're a teacher ready to reclaim your confidence or a district leader ready to transform entire schools, click the link to get the Impact Playbook today. Because when teachers win, students win, and entire communities win, and the world has changed forever. The first one I'm gonna share is called A, B, or Both. And this one's really cool, really simple, again, really low lift, because all you really need is your hands, right? So you can show what you're gonna do is you're gonna put two statements or two strategies there on the board, and students are going to decide whether they agree with A, whether they agree with B, or whether they agree with both. And the way that they're gonna show their responses is you can just show them with your hands in sign language, either A, B, or both. So what you do is put two statements on the board, and throughout these, I'm just gonna give super simple examples so that is really clear, but obviously modify it for your classroom. So let's just say statement A says a triangle has three sides. Statement B says a hexagon has five sides. Either you can let students think about it for a moment independently, or you can have them turn and talk, you can talk to their elbow partner, talk about it with your groups, however you want to do it. Um, but then when time is up, you call them back and you say, all right, A, B, or both. And you let's say one, two, three, look around the classroom and let them choose. Now, hopefully, a lot of them will choose A, a triangle has a triangle has three sides, not B because the hexagon has six sides, not five. Hope nope, nobody got tripped up by that. But you might see some students that say, Oh, both. The triangle has three sides, the hexagon has six, uh, five, right? They might be saying that, which would be they were incorrect. But now you can look around the classrooms quickly and see not which students got it and which students did it, because that's a lot of data to gather all at once, but about how many, right? This might not be the strategy that you want to use if you want specific student data, but if you need a general idea of understanding before you move on, this would be good. I can see boom boom, okay. I had about two people that thought it was both, and um now everybody else got it right, right? So now you can kind of see that that's a quick way to check for understanding, doesn't require any resources, and it still allows students to think and you know make sure that they were internalizing and paying attention. So that's one of them, one that I definitely recommend. Let me know in the comment section what grade level you think that would work for. Is this more of a younger student grade? Don't get caught up on the example, but think about just the movement and responsibility of it. Because a question that you might be asking is, well, what if they just look around the classroom and and choose what somebody else had, right? You know how we do that, or students do that. Sometimes they'll look at the student that always gets the answer right, and I'll just do whatever they do, right? Well, if you're worried about that, maybe early on, you can start with them closing their eyes and doing it. All right, let them turn and talk, or let them do it independently, and then say, all right, on account of three, show me A, B, or both. Everybody close your eyes. One, two, three. All right, hands down, got it, right? Something like that, okay? The reason why we're closing our eyes is so that I can be confident, one, to give my response regardless of who's watching, and two, because I don't want anybody copying off of me. But I will urge you that over time you want to build the capacity for believing that it's okay to be wrong. So I'm gonna choose my answer, and regardless of what everybody else chooses, I'm gonna be confident in my response. But that's something that you can build over time. Here is the second one, and I really, really like this one. It's called true, false, fix it. In this case, what you're gonna do is you're gonna give a statement, students are gonna signal whether it is true or false. If it is true, we'll move on. If it is false, they have to fix it. So this is something that you can do potentially with whiteboards, or maybe they do it on their own paper. Um, but again, maybe they're talking about it in groups or collaborative. Every class is different. This depends on what your goal is. If you want to specifically see what they can do independently, it can definitely be done independently. But if you allow them to turn and talk and challenge each other and you have good peer collaboration, this can definitely be a turn and talk or talk at your table. So again, simple example. I'll put it on the board and maybe the statement will be the Pythagorean theorem works for all scaling triangles. True, false, fix it. Okay, give them some time to think about it and go. Now, whether they're gonna say true or it's gonna say false, uh, then they'll have the chance to fix it. In this case, it's false. It doesn't work for all scalene triangles, it works for right triangles. So the students should say false, and by fixing it, they just say we need to replace the word scalene with right, because the Pythagorean theorem works for all right triangles, and that's how we can find the length of the missing side. If that went over your head, just know that it's true, okay? Just just believe me, believe that it is true. Here we go, number three, and again, the other seven are linked in the description so they can see the full list of 10. But I really wanted to highlight these three so that you can see they are low lift, they are quick and easy to implement, and that they do not have um resources, a lot of resources that go along with it, right? It's super low lift. Here's a third one spot the mistake, and this is one that a lot of us do, but here's a great way that I like to do it, which is to have three different tiers, if you would, or three different segments of a problem. You can have the worked example, and you're gonna have three different segments, and then you're going to show, or and one of them has the error. What students are gonna do is they're going to look at the board, look at the three segments, and they're gonna have to decide which segment the error came in. So we're not just putting one problem up on the board and saying what's the error, but we're putting out the worked problem, all right, and we're having them decide which section the error came in. Was it section one, section two, section three? Let me kind of break it down like this again, using a super broad and simple example. Let's say that you are a science teacher and you are teaching the scientific method, and you say, All right, so first you put on your protective gear, second, you taste all the materials, third, you proceed with the experiment. I know those are not really the steps of the scientific experiment, but of the scientific method, but hopefully you saw where the error was. So the students are looking up at the board. One, um, all right, put on protective gear, two, taste the materials, three, uh, proceed with the experiment. Now we ask students, you know, on a count of three, show me which step the error came in. One, two, three. Hopefully everybody puts up two because we should not be testing and taste testing any materials, right? Don't really use this example because you don't want students to be silly and try to taste some things, but I just wanted to make it really obvious for you. So they should be able to call out, oh, it's step two that has the error, they should hold up two fingers and then you can move on. Obviously, you use this with your content area to see if they can tell where the error was, which shows obviously that they were understanding what it is that you were teaching. We know that pointing out errors and mistakes is a super high level of Bloom's taxonomy, right? Think about it as a teacher. I have to understand something not just enough to be able to get the answer right, but when you get the answer wrong, I have to be able to tell why. So students that understand the content enough to be able to spot the mistake are showing you that they are understanding the lesson objective that you have been teaching. Okay? So there we go. Now, this is again something that you can use that is quickly implemented so that you can still be able to receive student data. Because I always say you have to determine what students know so that you can decide what they need. And they're super quick and don't take a whole lot of time in collecting papers and grading and things like that, because not every school district is like the one that gave their teachers to uh I mean double planning. So you might not have a whole lot of time for planning and grading and all those types of things. So a quick check for understanding can give you the information that you need to determine what students know, so then you can then decide what they need to do next. But what I really want you to encourage you to do, you may be a person who says, Listen, I have tried checks for understanding before, I've tried this, it takes a lot of time. I tried this, I don't have time to grade. I tried this, my students are always silly, they just copy off each other, their answers are not accurate. Like you may be the person that says, I tried this before, I don't necessarily want to try it again, but I just want to encourage you that you know, sometimes giving it another shot can be highly effective. I can remember when I was in middle school, my very first attempt at dating somebody. I was in sixth grade. My very first attempt at dating somebody led to me being embarrassed in the cafeteria. Granted, I probably shouldn't have asked her out publicly in front of everybody, but she said no. I was crushed. I was crushed in the cafeteria. It might have had something to do with the fact that she was in seventh grade and I was sixth grade, and you know how those things go in middle school, but she shut me down in front of the whole cafeteria. I was embarrassed. But in seventh grade, I had that urge again. I gotta go find me a girlfriend. This time I did find a girlfriend. I had my first girlfriend in seventh grade, but then I lost her in a bet on a basketball court. Now, side note, please never do that. Like, please never bet humans. That's not that's not a good thing. We should not have been doing that, but we were dumb 12-year-old boys, right? So this boy said he wanted to date the girl that I was dating, and he said if he beat me in a basketball game, she would be his girlfriend. And the worst part is not the fact that he beat me seven to zero, although that was bad. The worst part is that after he beat me seven to zero, she willingly was like, okay, and just left with him and started dating him, right? I was crushed, heartbroken. In high school now, I went to high school, I remember it was my first day, literally the first day in the high school. I was sitting down in class and the girl behind me, she was talking, and I could turn around. The first day the teacher was going through the syllabus and answering questions and things like that. I turned and talked to the girl behind me, and we were having a good rapport, feeling chemistry. I was making her laugh, she was giggling all those great things. The I was like, after this, I'm gonna get her Instagram, like we're gonna, you know, gonna start something. This first day of high school is going amazing. If you would like for your school district to be empowered as well, you can click the link down below and our team will reach out to you. The bell rang, it was time for us to go to the next class. We stood up. At that point in my life, I was about five foot two or three or so. She was about five foot nine or ten or so, and she stood up, looked down at me, and said these words. Oh, I thought you were normal sized. I thought you were normal sized. That's what she said to me. And that was one of the last conversations we ever had. Although we sat next to each other for the whole rest of the school year. I was crushed. I said, Oh my gosh, I'm never talking to another girl again. And then I got to college and I saw a girl that I could not help but talk to. And I'll give you the long and short of it. Eventually I introduced myself and we formed a relationship and we dated all four years of college, and now we've been married for 12 years. What I need you to understand is sometimes things don't work initially. Sometimes things don't work at first. Sometimes things don't go according to plan, but that doesn't mean that you stop trying. That doesn't mean that you uh say that it's never gonna work for me. It means that didn't work that time, and you are resilient enough to bounce back, to recover, and to stick with it until you find what does. I told myself I would never date again, but eventually I found a love of my life. And what I need you to understand is maybe you tried checks for understanding before and it did not go according to plan. Maybe you look at these list of 10 and you say, I don't know if any of them are gonna work. Try. Try. Right? Because you never know when you find a thing that changes the game for you. You've got this. You've got what it takes, okay? Alright, so you know how we're gonna do this. I've got a question, I've got a question, I've got a question, I'm gonna answer it. Here's a question from a user. This one came from TikTok, actually, and the question is asked what are some good exit tickets if students can't write? I'm assuming that they mean that we have younger students, um uh, but I mean maybe potentially it's students that can't write. Either way, some great exit tickets for students that cannot write. I would definitely look at these checks for understanding that I just mentioned and the 10 that are linked down below. But I would always say to make it fun, if we're talking about younger students, you can incorporate hand signals or facial expressions. So, hand signals again, hold up a one, two, three, maybe hold up A, B, C, um, uh, or facial expressions. I sometimes I'll do this. I would say smile if you think it's A, give me a straight face if you think it's B, or give me a surprise face if you think it's C. Ready, go, right? Things like that, or or using the body. So sometimes you can say, you know, go to this corner if you believe A, if you believe B, B, C, D. That's honestly not one of my favorites. And I think students definitely by the time they get to middle high school are a little bit over it. But maybe in the younger grades, you know, they can still move around, or um, stand, sit, squat. So stand up if you think it's this choice, A, uh, sit down if you think it's B, and squat if you think it's C, whatever it is, right? So just ways that you don't necessarily need them to write down, but based on their actions, you're able to see what their response is. That's that's my go-to for when students can't write because they are younger students and uh they don't they don't write too well just yet, pre-K kindergarten, first grade, things like that. So now's your turn. Exit ticket. I'm gonna give you your exit ticket and you answer this question, and uh it's going to really help solidify the things that we spoke about here today. Which of the 10 check for understandings, the three that I gave and the seven that are linked in the description, which of the 10 check for understandings are you gonna try and why does that one fit your class? Mart, are you gonna try the uh ABC? Are you gonna try the A B both, right? Are you gonna try the the uh true, false, or fix it? Like which one are you gonna try? Which one seems like it would be appropriate for your grade level that you teach and your classroom dynamic and why? Really let me know. But again, I want you to try it because this is going to help you save time. It's not gonna take a whole lot of resources, but it's gonna give you the information you need to inform future instruction. And when we do that, we know that we're helping students grow. And when we help students grow, we can help them reach their full potential. And when they reach their full potential, they can be happy. And when they are happy, that's why we are here doing what we're supposed to do. When you implement these things, I know that not only will you become the teacher you've always wanted to be, but you make the impact your students deserve. I'll see you on the next one. I help new teachers become the teachers they've always wanted to be and make the impact our students deserve. Because I've been there. I know what it's like to struggle, to feel like I'm not enough, but I also know what's on the other side: excitement, fulfillment, and the ability to change lives. Every great teacher was once a new teacher, and new teachers are often excited and eager and anxious, but a lot of times new teachers lack the foundational skills of effective instruction. Every teacher that I work with, I carry them through this journey, helping them master the principles of effective instruction so that they know how capable they are. I can't wait to see these teachers enact. They're 1% amazing and make the difference that only they can. If you would like for your school district to be empowered as well, you can click the link down below and our team will reach out to you.