What an Experienced Teacher Notices in the First 5 Minutes of Class

As students walk into my classroom, I notice who’s talking and who’s silent, who sits down immediately and who lingers by my desk and who is stuck to their phone and who’s furiously trying to complete a Spanish packet. I notice the student who’s usually animated but is quiet today. I notice the table of students who feed off one another’s energy and the group that typically tackles the Wordle—calling out guesses and arguing over letters—but one of them sits silently today while the others play. I notice the student who looks exhausted, the one who is clearly anxious, and the one who wants to tell me something but hasn’t figured out how to approach me yet.

Then, I adjust my plans.

I might give students extra minutes for the opening activity. Maybe I’ll check in with a student instead of calling attention to her missing work. I might change the groups I had planned. Or, maybe I ditch the gallery walk because the room doesn’t have the focus to make that much movement productive.

After more than 20 years in the classroom, I make these decisions quickly. They aren’t magic, and I don’t think they’re simply intuition. They’re the result of years of learning what to notice and how to be flexible. I’ve also learned not to overthink my decisions. I make the best call I can with the information I have, try it, and pay attention to what follows. I don’t need to know with certainty that something will work before I’m willing to try it. If it works, I keep going. If it doesn’t, I adapt.

Notice Changes, Not Just Behaviors

What catches my attention is often a change in students’ behavior: the student who talks every morning but puts their head down today, or the student who normally needs three reminders to get started but has already opened the assignment.

Behavior without context can be misleading, so I’ve become less interested in whether a student appears to be doing what they should and more interested in behavior shifts. That difference gives me data. Sometimes I’ll ask, “What can I do to help?” or “Do you want to step into the hallway and chat?” Sometimes, I’ll just keep an eye on the student. The goal isn’t to interpret every behavior or diagnose every expression, but to notice and to remain responsive.

Notice What the Room Needs

Some days, students walk in ready to talk, argue, question, and participate. Other days—maybe during homecoming week, or on the morning after a major test, or simply on a dark Wisconsin morning in February—the room feels different. The lesson I planned may still be the right lesson, but the way I deliver it may need to change.

If students seem restless, I get them moving sooner. If they’re unusually quiet, I begin with individual writing before asking them to discuss. If I can tell that students need help, I model something rather than sending everyone into independent work.

Early in my career, I was much more adamant about my plans. Experience has taught me that responsiveness isn’t abandoning the plan. Responsiveness is teaching the students who showed up in class rather than who I imagined when I wrote the lesson.

Notice Who Is Doing the Work

One of the quickest ways I assess a classroom is by looking at where the work is happening. Am I doing all the talking? Is one confident student answering every question? Is one person at each table doing all the thinking, talking, or writing while everyone else waits? Are students asking me questions they could answer by talking to one another or rereading the text? These patterns tell me whether (or how) to intervene.

I might redirect a question back to the table or give everyone 30 seconds to find textual evidence. Sometimes, I might ask, “Who hasn’t talked yet?” before accepting another response.

Notice Technological Changes

Teaching has changed dramatically since I began in the early 2000s. I taught before every student carried a smartphone. I taught through the rise of social media, through Covid-19 and virtual learning, and now through generative AI. Each shift has changed the students in my classroom. Students’ attention is pulled in ways it wasn’t when I started teaching. A student staring at a screen means something different today than it did 20 years ago—when we traveled to the library to use computers. Now, a student who hesitates to write may be struggling to generate ideas, organize a response, or compose an opening sentence without relying on a digital tool to do those tasks. This means my shifts aren’t simply a collection of old tricks. They are accommodations made, noticed, and readjusted.

I use more paper than I did a few years ago because I’ve found that limiting screens can remove the distraction or the temptation to use AI. I build in opportunities for students to draw, map, annotate, or create something with their hands. And I’ve learned that I can’t press “play” on a YouTube clip and assume that students will know what deserves their attention. Now, I give students a question to answer, an idea to track, or something specific to notice as they watch.

Notice when students need a different approach

Perhaps the biggest difference between my early teaching and how I teach now is that I’m far less loyal to my lesson plan. I still plan carefully, but I don’t confuse plan-adherence with success.

I’ve also become much more comfortable letting different sections of the same course look different. Early in my career, if I taught the same class three times, I kept each section on the same schedule. Now, my first-block students may need a few quiet minutes to write before they’re ready to talk, while my last block may need to move around before I ask them to sit and focus. One class may need another day with a concept, while another is ready to move on. I no longer see those differences as getting off schedule or creating more work for myself; instead, I see these adjustments as responses to the students in front of me.

Notice Nuance

Twenty years of teaching haven’t given me the ability to walk into a classroom and instantly know what every student needs, but they’ve taught me to look, notice, and name what I see before I decide. That’s the nuance experienced teachers rely on. It isn’t clairvoyance or a magical sixth sense, and it certainly isn’t getting everything right. Instead, it’s thousands of mornings spent watching teenagers enter a room, thousands of lessons that worked (or didn’t), thousands of adjustments followed by the chance to see what happened next. Eventually, each teacher builds a repertoire of things to notice and a larger pool of ways to respond.

So tomorrow, maybe you can take a moment and ask yourself: What do I notice in the first five minutes? Who is quieter than usual? Who is participating when they normally don’t? Which group feels different? Who seems to need a challenge, a check-in, or a little more time? And perhaps most important: What will I do differently because I noticed?