Sitting around the dinner table a couple of weeks ago, I had a friend ask me what was one thing that we would never have tried had the pandemic not happened. It got me thinking….
For me, the answer was our daily schedule. Our traditional school schedule had students visiting 7 classes for 50 minutes a day with a common period in the middle of the day for lunch and activities. As we started to brainstorm we set out with a clear finish line, knowing what the total number of minutes needed to look like, and began to work backwards.
We did not take our traditional schedule and move it online. Asking students to sit in front of a computer for 7+ hours, as if they were in class was not an option we thought was viable or in the best interest of our students. We sought feedback and ideas and we completely changed how time was allocated. Students had learning experiences designed that ultimately took up the same amount of time, but we organized the time in a completely different way.
For me, the answer was our daily schedule. Our traditional school schedule had students visiting 7 classes for 50 minutes a day with a common period in the middle of the day for lunch and activities. As we started to brainstorm we set out with a clear finish line, knowing what the total number of minutes needed to look like, and began to work backwards.
We did not take our traditional schedule and move it online. Asking students to sit in front of a computer for 7+ hours, as if they were in class was not an option we thought was viable or in the best interest of our students. We sought feedback and ideas and we completely changed how time was allocated. Students had learning experiences designed that ultimately took up the same amount of time, but we organized the time in a completely different way.
Our schedule allowed for synchronous sessions in the morning and then time in the afternoon for students to spend minutes in “the work” of learning, meeting with teachers individually during office hours, or in “Content Hours”. (An idea that came from our teachers.) Content Hours were hour blocks of time that were assigned to departments. In this hour, teachers had the ability to bring all of the students that they taught together at one time. At the high school level, that might mean 180 students or even more if several teachers teamed up together. Our teachers used this time in a variety of ways. Content Hour allowed teachers to bring in professionals and guests that students normally wouldn’t have access to. Students were able to meet authors, scientists, and remotely travel the world led by travel guides that normally are escorting groups in person. Teachers also had the ability to give an assessment all at one time, as opposed to giving it 5 times and taking away from the synchronous time they had with students in the mornings.
Content Hour was one of the biggest “wins” we saw emerge for our students in some courses, but not in all of them. In the beginning, I believe we should have offered additional learning and collaborative time for teachers to share their ideas about content hour with each other. As a school community, I think we also could have established clearer expectations and set norms for the content hours.
Developing the schedule was not easy and involving our stakeholders throughout the process was critical. When I saw the "Stages of Thinking" that Farnam Street published, I found it correlated with the process we went through. During step 2, the tempting thing to do was to just go with a block schedule and spread the time out throughout the day.
Content Hour was one of the biggest “wins” we saw emerge for our students in some courses, but not in all of them. In the beginning, I believe we should have offered additional learning and collaborative time for teachers to share their ideas about content hour with each other. As a school community, I think we also could have established clearer expectations and set norms for the content hours.
Developing the schedule was not easy and involving our stakeholders throughout the process was critical. When I saw the "Stages of Thinking" that Farnam Street published, I found it correlated with the process we went through. During step 2, the tempting thing to do was to just go with a block schedule and spread the time out throughout the day.
Our COVID schedule gave our students more agency and flexibility in their learning than they had ever had. This was a good thing for many but a black hole for other students who just did not have the time management and/or executive functioning skills to navigate the learning landscape. I believe the flexibility in our schedule allowed for families to work around students sharing devices and various household scenarios. The agency that students experienced allowed them to spend more time in some content areas than in others.
Moving forward, I want to continue to work on increasing student agency and giving students flexibility in where they spend their time when they walk through our doors. (And, thank goodness they will be walking back through our doors. Not to mention NEW DOORS!)
What is a leap that your school took during the pandemic, what did you learn from it?
Moving forward, I want to continue to work on increasing student agency and giving students flexibility in where they spend their time when they walk through our doors. (And, thank goodness they will be walking back through our doors. Not to mention NEW DOORS!)
What is a leap that your school took during the pandemic, what did you learn from it?
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