
New and different ways schools innovate with time - jawns
https://unlockingtime.org/time-strategies-for-schools
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japhyr
Something I didn't see here is allowing students to earn credit for classes by
demonstrating mastery. This is often called _competency-based learning_ , but
that term encompasses a wide variety of approaches. The larger point of this
approach is that students earn credit when they've demonstrated that they have
learned a certain body of knowledge, and developed skills to a certain level
of proficiency.

This can be as simple as testing out of some classes, and can involve more
holistic portfolio-based assessment practices.

The school I most recently taught at implemented an approach along these
lines. It was really interesting that it didn't actually change much for a lot
of students, but the option to go more at your own pace relaxed almost
everyone in a really healthy way. Students were less anxious, but got way more
done and enjoyed their learning much more than they had been previously.

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pavon
We had a 7-period system at my high school, but rather than shortening
classes, or extending the length of the day, we continued to have 6-periods a
day and then had a floating period that occurred at a different time each day.
It was announced over the intercom so there wasn't much confusion about what
class you were going to. For example:

    
    
      Mon 1 2 3 4 5 6
      Tue 7 2 3 4 5 6
      Wed 1 7 3 4 5 6
      Thu 1 2 7 4 5 6
      Fri 1 2 3 7 5 6
      Mon 1 2 3 4 7 6
      Tue 1 2 3 4 5 7
      Repeat
    

I loved it. Keeping classes the full duration was more efficient (especially
for classes with fixed setup/cleanup time, like band or science labs). Since
the floating period was always an elective, it felt you were getting a "break"
when it landed on a class you didn't like.

But most importantly it gave you an extra elective. Over the years, as
requirements have continued to increase the number of electives that students
can take have declined significantly. I think this is a huge loss. We need to
be doing more to help students figure out what they want to do when they
graduate, and providing exposure to things beyond core curriculum is an
essential part of that.

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jedberg
When I was in high school we experimented with block scheduling, which was a
fad at the time. We only had three classes a day, for two hours each, and then
we changed even or odd each day.

The science classes loved it, because we could do longer more involved
experiments that would take more than the usual 50 minutes, and the students
liked it because it meant for example only doing math homework every other
night.

It was extra awesome for me in senior year. I had a normal second period
class, but my 4th period was teaching at the local elementary school and my
6th period was Academic decathlon, which became "at home study hall" in the
Spring after we were eliminated from the competition. So in spring of my
senior year, I'd go to school for two hours, hang out at the elementary school
for two hours teaching kids, which was super fun and didn't have any homework
or stress, and then go home at lunch time and be done. On "even" weeks, it
meant that I did that three times in a week, and was off by noon on Fridays.
It was a pretty sweet deal.

I also like the block schedule because I liked only dealing with half as many
classes for twice as long. I felt the same in college -- I loved doing summer
school because we'd go twice as long each day for only 8 weeks instead of 16.

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OliverJones
Interesting. But the recommendation to limit the number of AP classes a
student may take is unrealistic: with enough AP credits a student can get
through college in 3.5 or even 3 years. This saves lots of tuition, and
potentially relieves students' debt burdens.

If tuition were free/cheap this situation would be different.

~~~
kimberly33
Yes, but at what cost? Students these days have an enormous amount of stress.
There may be reasons to limit the number of AP courses they are "allowed" to
take so that they can maintain a healthy balance in life.

~~~
setr
It's an awkward discussion because really, it's on a per-student basis, based
on

skill (if most AP courses are easy...),

background (if I already get tutored in half my AP courses, before even
starting them..),

home-life (if I'm already anti-social/introverted, being stressed by AP
courses is preferable than being stressed by forced social activities),

hobbies/knowledge (if I have programming as a hobby, then I probably wouldn't
count think of AP programming course as particularly stressful, or even
difficult; that AP statistics course on the other hand...),

quality of the AP course itself (AP stats might be harder for _everyone_ than
AP english, meaning AP english is overvalued (or AP stats undervalued) against
the limit),

etc, so it's to claim there's really an appropriate "limit". And even if you
find that there is an easy limit, and simply override the special cases, you
have the issue/philosophy that the limit might have been increased had you
applied that pressure.

Really, its the same as college; you're free to take as many "difficult" (or
perhaps, interesting) courses as you'd like, and you'll be better off in the
long run for having done more (lower students/teacher ratio, better teachers,
faster/higher quality learning, more interesting/specific subjects, etc)

The main difference is that its the parent who has the responsibility pre-
college, whereas its the student post-college. To determine what's
appropriate, and to judge what can be handled.

Perhaps better than an arbitrary limit is greater fluidity in transitioning -
eg make it easy to drop from AP to normal courses within a semester, when it's
determined the workload is too much. Or better metrics for evaluating workload
as the problem, versus other issues. Or maybe even target the parents for
improvement (if they're failing to detect and react to issue).

That is, the ideal solution would really be that the system can dynamically
re-arrange itself as necessary, based on the input of the
student/teacher/parent, instead of hardcoding arbitrary limitations.

And its not an area that really deserves a simple, good-enough solution,
because as the GP said, the decision can be monetarily significant. And as
I've claimed, the decision can also have significant impact on the student's
future education. It's perhaps too important to impose a limit for "child's
sanity's sake", and be done with matter.

