As our teacher inquiry class started, I was talking with a fellow classmate, Brianna Burt, about what her inquiry was on. Her inquiry got me thinking and made me wonder if this would work for my class. She has been timing her students to keep them focused and taking notes on a few students during each timed session. Starting at 10 minutes and decreasing the time over weeks as the students become more focused. Friday morning came and my students were given one math problem to solve for morning work. They had to look at a bar graph and read through 5 options and choose all that were true about the graph. To set up their math problems, my collaborating teachers, has the students draw their paper into 4 squares. QISC. Question, Information, Solve, Check. We have been noticing our students will write down the question and information and pretend to solve. Some will stare at the board, some will pretend to write, some will wait until the teacher does it. My collaborating teacher and I decided that this wasn't going to slide and when we came back from specials, we had them solve a similar problem again. This problem went better, but it took the students an half hour to solve. Then came time to work out of their iReady workbooks. This book helps students learn test taking skills and strategies to carry with them for future practices. The students have been learning to scan and after teaching the mini lesson, my collaborating teacher had the students read a small passage and answer 5 questions on the story. After a half hour, some students hadn't even figured out the first problem. We told them the key words in the question to scan for and some still had no motivation to do it. My collaborating teacher and I didn't know what to do. Same problem occurred during writing a theme during shared reading. We have about 4 students who have behavioral issues, several that stare off into space when we say get working, and many others who don't have the motivation. I thought back to the previous day, about Brianna's inquiry and how I could incorporate this into my classroom. I told my CT how Brianna started her students off with a certain amount of time, took anecdotal notes on a few students, noting whether they were playing with their shoes, talking, etc. Then after the times up, give the students a concrete grade. Brianna has been able to work the time down because her students have gotten more focused because of the timer. She is now taking notes such as only talked for a couple seconds, staying on task, etc. After discussing this with my CT, she loved the idea and told the students after the long weekend, we would be starting this new strategy because many of us don't like to get to work right away. We are going to create slips to tape onto the student's desk, having each area of the day: Morning work, Science, Math, iReady, Shared Reading, and Independent Reading. During morning work the students will have X amount of time to complete their work and after that time, we will grade their work. During math, there will be one problem we time, after every timed session, the students will receive a 3,2,1,0. After the week, the students will take home their slip and get their parents signature to show their guardian how focused they have been during their school work, but more importantly than that, the student will be able to monitor whether they are focusing and staying on task each day.