Reviewing the learning goals.  Before students can use their time effectively, they should be reminded of what they are actually trying to accomplish, namely mastering the learning goals.  These goals need to be reiterated by the teacher and should be visible in the classroom as well as described orally.  At the end of the open work time, it is useful to briefly review the list, so that students can assess how well they did in mastering those goals.

Introducing all available contract items.  In order for students to make good choices, they need to know what they are choosing from.  Presenting all the available work at the start of open work time, with a brief description of the purpose of each item, will help give students the clarity they need to decide what to do.

Dealing with excessive noise and chaos.  Students may need to be reminded of one of the basic rules of a community of learners: no one has the right to interfere with anyone else’s ability to learn.  Students often need training in how to be aware of the good of the whole group.  Your task is to help students internalize the understanding that a noisy, chaotic classroom is an impediment to learning, and therefore something each one of them needs to prevent from happening.  The more they own that responsibility, the less you will find yourself in the position of nagging them to be quiet.

Using your time effectively.  Once students are able to truly work independently, you will discover that you have time to work in new ways.  These can include moving around the room to monitor their progress, setting up the next task, having individual conversations with students, or spontaneously organizing a workshop on a topic that some students are struggling with.

Another advantage of open work time is the fact that it makes problems in motivation and execution more visible.  If students are sitting in rows, nominally listening to a lecture, there is no way to truly know how many are mentally engaged.  When everyone is working as individuals or in small groups, it becomes much harder for a student who is unmotivated and disengaged to evade being noticed.  This presents the opportunity to have a nonjudgmental conversation to get to the bottom of whatever issues are interfering with her participation.  This topic is explored in more detail in the chapter on study groups.

Determining the appropriate length of open work time.  Since students, by definition, do different tasks during open work time, it is a challenge to know when everyone has had enough time.  Even in more traditional situations, where every student is working on the same thing at the same time, some students finish much sooner than others and then have nothing to do.  Learning contracts resolve this problem in several ways.  First, stronger students are engaged in more challenging tasks, which take them longer than the one-size-fits-all tasks they typically finish faster than their peers.  Second, the contract structure provides other things for quicker students to work on once they have finished the present work.

Nevertheless, there is a need to find a “Goldilocks” solution to how long open work time should last.  As a rule of thumb, the right amount of time allows the slowest students finish or nearly finishthe work required to master the learning goals.  Depending on the dynamics and motivation of the student body, it is fair to assume that slower students may need to take some of the contract work home.  Of course, the slowest students may also be the ones who historically complete less homework, so that pitfall must be taken into account.

In general, listening carefully to feedback from both the fastest and slowest students is important in steering the duration of open work time.  This requires you to trust that they are reporting their work honestly.  That honesty is a measure of how well the culture of learning has taken root.  

Finally, taking good notes on how long specific contract tasks take will help enormously when you are making plans next year.

Wrapping up open work time.  Near the end of extended open work periods, it is important to remind students of the learning goals they have been working on and have them assess how well they have mastered those goals so that they can use the remaining time effectively.  For longer contracts, you should periodically give them time to look at how many items they have completed compared to the minimum required. Remind them that unfinished work can be completed as homework, if that’s appropriate.  Giving that reminder before the very end of the open work time may help some students from procrastinating, piling up the work and turning it into last-minute busywork.