Do Now
A short silent task waits on the desks, so learning starts before you speak
What is it?
A Do Now is a short task that students can see as soon as they enter. They begin it silently, as part of a familiar routine, while you greet them and take the register. It needs no explanation. It earns its place in two ways: it creates a calm start by giving students something purposeful to do, and, when it retrieves previous learning, it helps strengthen memory in the first five minutes of every lesson.
The steps
- Use the same place and format every lesson. Put the task on the board or on a printed slip. Use three to five questions that students can answer in under five minutes, either in their books or on the slip. Consistency allows the routine to run without your help.
- Make it self-starting. The task should need no explanation, offer no choices and introduce no new content. If a student could reasonably ask "What do we do?", it is not ready to use.
- Fill it with retrieval. The most valuable Do Nows revisit material from the previous lesson, the previous week and the previous term (see Spaced Review). A few carefully chosen questions can strengthen retention over time.
- Stand at the door, not at the front. Greet students, scan the room and use a brief prompt:Books open, off you go.The class gets started while you continue welcoming students (pairs with Threshold Greeting).
- Review it briefly and consistently. Allow about three minutes. Use cold calling or whiteboards to check the answers. Treat errors as useful information:Half of us dropped the negative. Watch this.If you never review the Do Now, students will quickly treat it as optional.
- Guard the clock. Begin the review at minute five, even if some students have not finished. Keep the entire routine, including the review, under ten minutes. The Do Now should support the lesson, not take it over.
What it looks like
In the classroom
Four questions are already on the board as the 11-year-olds enter Ms Rahman's history classroom: two revisit last week's causes of the fire, one covers source types from September, and one asks for this term's key word ending in -archy. Students pass her at the door, sit down and begin. Two boys start chatting; she looks across, taps the board from the doorway, and they turn to their books.
Once she has taken the register, she moves to the front: "Boards up for question four… monarchy, good. Question three: Priya says 'primary source' and Dev says 'eyewitness account'. Who is right?" "Both, Miss." "Both. Why?" Six minutes after the bell, the new lesson begins.
How you’ll know it’s working
- Students begin without being prompted. Measure the time between sitting down and starting to write: once the routine is established, it should be under thirty seconds.
- The teacher remains at the door or circulates during the task instead of explaining it.
- The review happens every time, stays brisk and checks answers rather than simply collecting them.
- The time from entry to new content remains consistently under ten minutes.
Pitfalls & fixes
- Do Now creep. A ten-minute starter can easily consume a third of the lesson. Limit the number of questions, begin the review on a timer and remember that the task exists to start learning quickly.
- Novelty formats. Word searches, riddles and anything else that needs an explanation undermine the self-starting routine. Keep the format predictable and make the content worthwhile.
- Introducing new material in it. Students cannot work independently on content they have not yet learned. Save new material for direct teaching. Do Nows should look backwards.
- Collecting but never reviewing. Within a couple of weeks, students will match their effort to the attention you give the task. Review it every time, even if you spend only two minutes, or the routine will lose its purpose.
Weigh it up
Why it’s worth it
- It creates calmer entries. Giving students purposeful work helps the room settle without repeated instructions and removes the daily struggle over the opening minutes.
- When it uses retrieval, it puts the testing and spacing effects to work every day. This strengthens long-term retention while making good use of time that might otherwise be lost to settling down.
- It recovers teaching time. Students can move from sitting down to learning in under a minute, and those small gains add up across the year.
- The review provides immediate assessment information: you see gaps in yesterday's learning before building today's lesson on top of them.
- It gives you time at the door. While students begin independently, you can greet them by name, read the mood and address problems at the threshold instead of during the lesson.
The costs
- The routine works because it is consistent, but that consistency can make every lesson begin in the same way. Use an occasional memorable opening after the Do Now, not instead of it.
- It takes planning. Writing five useful retrieval questions for every class each day is real work, although question banks build quickly and last year's exit tickets can become this year's Do Nows.
- Late arrivals can still interrupt the routine. A Do Now reduces the disruption; it cannot remove it completely.
Worth it when
lesson starts are unsettled, the first ten minutes drift, or students are forgetting important prior learning, which is common.Think twice when
a double practical genuinely needs the opening minutes for set-up, or a new class has not yet learned the routine. Rehearse the Routine should come before Do Now, not after.Adaptations
- Early years: use the same principle through "busy fingers" entry tasks, such as patterns or letter tracing, even when children cannot yet read instructions independently.
- Primary: keep one shared format throughout the year. For younger children, picture prompts can replace written questions.
- Secondary / post-16: use highly subject-specific retrieval. In exam years, short past-paper questions allow the Do Now to support exam practice too.
- Practical subjects: try a kit-and-question version: students collect their equipment, then answer two recall questions at the bench while the teacher checks the workstations.
Where this comes from
Strong research
The entry routine is established classroom craft, codified as "Do Now" in Teach Like a Champion. When filled with retrieval, it draws on the well-supported testing and spacing effects: a practical routine carrying evidence-based content.
Sources
Strongwhen a task retrieves prior learning, the testing and spacing effects apply directly. This is why the content matters more than the format.
Craftthe routine itself (silent, immediate, self-starting) is professional wisdom about entries and momentum, consistent with everything known about transitions.
Related techniques
Threshold Greetingthe other half of the same opening: you are at the door while the task is ready inside.Rehearse the Routinehow students learn to begin independently in the first place.The Brain Dumpa more substantial retrieval activity for the end of a topic or a revision period.Spaced Reviewthe schedule that determines which earlier material today's questions revisit.Exit Ticketthe equivalent routine at the end of the lesson. Yesterday's exit ticket can help shape today's Do Now.
classtested.com/techniques/do-now — steps, signs it’s working, and trade-offs on one page. Ratings and discussion online.
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