Scheduling: Time on task vs. set amt. of time/subject vs. predetermined assignments

[g1234]

 

For those of you who schedule by designating the length of a school day but not specifying exactly what tasks should be finished (each day, week, year, whatever) or how much time should be spent on each task, how do you cover the amount of material you want to cover in a year? (I'm talking about high school years--mine is in 9th this year.)

 

For instance, if we simply work for x hours in a day, and we're studying US history, what if we end up only making it to WWI by the end of the year? Do we take part of next year to study American history to now? Do we not do it at all? Same question for any other subject. Do we just not worry if we only make it through 2/3 of our physics text?

 

I kind of like the idea of working by overall time and not micromanaging the individual subjects. However, I'm not sure how to work with the consequences at the end of the year of not having achieved preset goals. I know that any learning will always have big “gaps.†Do I just accept that the years between WWI and the present in US history will be one of those gaps (to continue my hypothetical example)?

 

I think in some ways my kid would like this. In other ways, I see her rise with compentence to a preset challenge and feel immense pride when she meets the challenge. She also tends to go very deep very fast with her learning, which is awesome except that it means she could probably spend all year on 100 years of history, or on three chapters of science. She'd be working hard and learning a tremendous amount, but about a very narrow slice of the discipline. At the same time that she's a hard and willing worker, she also does get spacey and a bit inefficient at times if she doesn't have a concrete challenge.

 

She has asked me to give her concrete goals to meet in each subject, and then help her break them down to spread them out over the year. I think this is because she likes that sense of accomplishment and completion that come with finishing predetermined things. Yet when I try to do this, I sometimes find myself at a loss: I have no idea how quickly she'll read through her history text (she has chosen Spielvogel), or how many science questions she can reasonably answer in order to keep moving through all the chapters we have decided to cover, or how much time it will take her to read literature selections. If she can move more quickly, there are other excellent supplemental things I can give her to do--I don't want her just quitting for the day after 3 hours because she's "done." If not, I don't want to overload her sothat she has no time for anything else.

 

So then I start dreaming again about just requiring a certain amount of time spent on work each day and advising her to stop watching the clock so carefully with each subject, but then I remember how inefficient she can get without a concrete goal, and you can see the circles I start to run in.  I have read people's posts in which they write that, for instance, there's no way they could schedule AoPS. However, math is the subject in which we have had the best luck with scheduling--I use a few syllabi I find or that people generously share, make up our own, and stick to it. (We don't use AoPS--last year it was Foerster.) She loves this! And math took a predictable enough amount of time last year that it worked nicely. That's what she wants for all subjects, but I don't know how to provide it.

 

I would love to hear any wisdom any of you have about this. Have you tried one approach or the other, and how did you make it work (or did it not work?). I'm sure the answer is different for different students, but at the moment I'm having trouble coming up with options for us that seem like they might work well.

[TGHEALTHYMOM]

Have you thought about getting your daughter a planner and letting her plan her weeks? Days? Year?

There are many student planners or printable ones. 

 

It is a huge task to plan the year when there is no Boxed curriculum or Teacher Guide for every subject. 

 

As far as History or Science: Are you going to require all chapters to be read? Incorporate writing with these or tests?

 

I am getting ready to order the TC How to become a superstar student to help me, dd14 and ds17 get an idea of how to set their own goals.  

I have not had good results just handing them planners. I always write out the yearly plan and then weekly tweak it.  

 

Even though dd14 is in PS for the first time, she still needs help getting organized and making time to study, do homework, and keep on track.  

 

 

[Penguin]

Bumping this. I hope you get more replies :) I prefer time-on-task myself, but DS prefers a weekly list of tasks to complete. We have a hybrid at the moment (8th). Math, literature and have time. Everything else is a weekly to-do list.

[lewelma]

I struggle with this.  But in the end I think that my son works very well to preset tasks. I have him help me set his goals.  So he wanted to cover the entire physics book in 2 years;  ok, this is how much you have to do per week to meet that goal.  It takes as long as it takes each day.  But when there seems to be an intense week or even month, I have set subjects that we do less in - violin, Mandarin, and English. He does not stop these classes, he just does less violin practice (maybe 3x per week instead of 6x), and I ask the Mandarin tutor for less homework (so 30 min a day rather than 1 hour), and in English I let him write 1 page papers instead of 2 page papers.  This allows him to have more time when his math or physics is particularly intense that week, or if he is feeling unmotivated or sick, etc. 

 

So he has set tasks and I generally expect him to work about 6 hours a day (this excludes his 4 hours of classes and history reading at night). Sometimes he works longer, sometimes shorter.  But because he is a conscientious worker, if he tells me he has too much, I adjust the schedule in the 3 less important (to him) classes.

 

Just some ideas to get you thinking.

 

Ruth in NZ

[Connections]

We have tried both and I wanted time on task to work very, very badly because it would make my job so much easier. I also thought that time on task would fuel a love of learning much more than a preset amount of work to check off. This year, I created my own syllabi for every subject my two oldest boys are doing. It was also the first year we took the summer off and I spent almost the entire summer creating the syllabi. It was a lot of work but I am so glad that I did it. Both of my boys have asked for specific assignments for the very reasons that you outline. They told me that they slack off when they have time on task and they feel a sense of accomplishment when they complete predetermined assignments.

 

We have gone from my syllabi for AoPS to a time on task approach for that subject because it really is so difficult to schedule. They do have an end goal for AoPS. I sit with both boys while they work on math. If they are having trouble and getting the answers wrong it is much easier to correct as they go and not wait until they have completed an entire section. After that, they are on their own to schedule the days as they see fit. My oldest son has weekly assignments and he likes to immerse himself in one subject a day (after completing Latin which is broken down daily- I purchased that syllabus from MODG). My middle son prefers to have daily assignments so that is how his plans are all written. Both boys have planners and they plan out their school work at the beginning of the week, taking into consideration other outside activities.

 

Before writing the syllabi I researched online for high school and college level syllabi to guide me. I tend to expect a lot so if I made an error in the amount of work, it is in assigning too much challenging work. I can always scale back if necessary but I did not want to add things as we went along. That would defeat the purpose of writing the syllabi in advance. Frankly, my oldest son will not let me scale things back at this point. He sees the plans as a challenge and he does not want a moving target. My middle son, on the other hand, is happy to have his work decreased!

 

I fought writing syllabi in advance for years. Turns out that it is a better approach for my boys then time on task. Good luck!

 

[regentrude]

For those of you who schedule by designating the length of a school day but not specifying exactly what tasks should be finished (each day, week, year, whatever) or how much time should be spent on each task, how do you cover the amount of material you want to cover in a year? (I'm talking about high school years--mine is in 9th this year.)

 

For instance, if we simply work for x hours in a day, and we're studying US history, what if we end up only making it to WWI by the end of the year? Do we take part of next year to study American history to now? Do we not do it at all? Same question for any other subject. Do we just not worry if we only make it through 2/3 of our physics text?

 

I would love to hear any wisdom any of you have about this. Have you tried one approach or the other, and how did you make it work (or did it not work?). I'm sure the answer is different for different students, but at the moment I'm having trouble coming up with options for us that seem like they might work well.

 

The above approach worked very well with my DD. I think it requires a student to be intrinsically motivated  - an unmotivated student would slack off and then you'd have to scramble to cover material at the last minute. But for a student who wants to excel academically

and who goes above and beyond anyway, having the freedom to structure her day was a good opportunity to prepare for the independent studying at college where nobody gives you a daily schedule (besides the class times, which comprise only a third of the time that has to be spent on studies.)

 

In subjects where I had clear goals what to cover, I would remind her if the subject got neglected over a longer time.

In other subjects where there is less of a clear-cut canon of mandatory material, I would give her as much freedom as she wanted, because ultimately, it does not matter which literature selections you cover - any choice is but a selection. She ended up completely unschooling English in 11th grade, because she developed a specific literary interest - and as long as time was spent, that was just as good as anything I could have pre-planned.

 

Also, we sometimes readjusted goals. So, for a student who spent a lot of time on earlier history and got "behind" in the time table, I would consider an abbreviated run through the period that got left out, so that a basic knowledge is there - but I would not redirect my student who is immersed in a period she is really interested in, in an effort to achieve a uniform coverage of everything. You can't ever study "everything", and developing the skills necessary to understand history is a goal that can be achieved with any period. For example, DD  was not particularly interested in all of 20th century history - but during that semester, she completed a research project on an aspect of modern French history, which she presented at the undergraduate research conference of the local four year university and won first prize in her division. The work she did on a topic of her choice was excellent, and the experience she gained much more valuable than completely covering the textbook.

 

The approach of demanding time on task will not work for a student who has no interest in academic work, or one who does not hold himself to high standards as a matter of principle. You can't use it with a student who dislikes school and tries to get out of doing work.

Also, sometimes interests and motivations shift. The above approach worked very well with my DS for middle school, but now as a 10th grader, he is balancing school work against several things he is interested in: he wants to work his part time job, and he invests heavily into his athletic training, with 10-12 hours of organized martial arts practice per week, and additional time spent on independent exercising and conditioning. He now wants to be given set assignments for each day, because he realizes that he is more productive if he is rewarded for focused work by getting done earlier and having time for his other pursuits.

So, I have to adjust schooling and assign an appropriate amount of work each day.

[Momto6inIN]

I haven't "been there done that" like many who posted above ... my oldest is in 9th grade so this is my first time with a high schooler ... so please listen to others instead of to me!  :)  But we're kind of doing a combination approach.  I give him an assignment list with everything I *think* he'll be able to complete in a week's time, spending approximately 5 hours/subject/week.  His job is to work as diligently as he can to complete those assignments, and he's chosen a block schedule approach to many of them.  But if the week goes by and he's put in a lot more time than he's supposed to and he's not anywhere near done with the assignments, then he's supposed to just stop where he's at and let me know so I can adjust my expectations.  I tell him he's my guinea pig so I can get it right with my younger kids!  :lol:

[freesia]

I haven't "been there done that" like many who posted above ... my oldest is in 9th grade so this is my first time with a high schooler ... so please listen to others instead of to me!  :)  But we're kind of doing a combination approach.  I give him an assignment list with everything I *think* he'll be able to complete in a week's time, spending approximately 5 hours/subject/week.  His job is to work as diligently as he can to complete those assignments, and he's chosen a block schedule approach to many of them.  But if the week goes by and he's put in a lot more time than he's supposed to and he's not anywhere near done with the assignments, then he's supposed to just stop where he's at and let me know so I can adjust my expectations.  I tell him he's my guinea pig so I can get it right with my younger kids!  :lol:

Similar situation here (down to the 9th grader). If he finishes the checklist early, though, he has other things he can do (watch videos on the Science topics, play Mindsnacks Spanish app, read a book basket book, research something about the subject that interests him, etc.) So, far, one week in, it works for us. LOL

 

When he only had a checklist in eighth grade, he hurried and rushed. When I tried to have him work the hour and fill it, it was hard to get him to give me reasonable feedback as to what he did. This hits the balance. He really is a curious avid learner, but that got lost when he was rushing.

[The Girls' Mom]

Every time I have tried for a more free flowing plan, it has blown up in our faces. For my twins, they just work better with a list to check off. They do get done quickly most days, but they are getting their work finished, and they do it well. They threaten mutiny when I mention going back to letting them plan out how much to do in a day.

 

I'm currently crossing my fingers with my oldest. With her classes at college and her other activities, we have both been forced to let her work on her subjects at home at her own pace. I've given her a loose syllabus for English with the knowledge that she has to been finished by year end. Her government, I told her to be done by December. So far she is handling it well, which is good since she is a senior!

[g1234]

I thank all of you very much for sharing your thoughts.  It's amazing how helpful it is to hear someone say, "Here is our experience with that."  It's also validating to hear other parents say that though they like the idea of "time on task," their kid needed something different.  Yet again I am reminded that my kids know themselves best.  If she is asking for concrete goals rather than time to explore freely, that's probably what's best for her right now, given that she works well and hard.

 

Thank you also for talking about the different needs of different kinds of students.  I can see perfectly why "time on task" worked so well for some kids (like your daughter, Regentrude).  She's so lucky you were able to see that and give it to her!  Mine is also a willing worker and loves research and intellectual inquiry.  At the same time, though, she likes to know when she's done with something and likes to have a specific goal in front of her.  The more I think of it, the more I am guessing I would have been the same way at her age. 

 

I was feeling out to sea about how to start our year, and now I feel a lot better.  I have a good starting point, and of course as always we will adjust from there.  Thanks again, everyone!

[g1234]

 I spent almost the entire summer creating the syllabi.

 

I fought writing syllabi in advance for years. Turns out that it is a better approach for my boys then time on task. Good luck!

 

 

 

I think we have been living parallel lives this summer, Connections!  Both of these describe me exactly.  And like you, I am so glad I did it.  I was losing the courage of my convictions when I wrote that post, but now that you all have restored my courage, I think my work will be very useful.  My kids are both super excited that they are starting the year with a better picture than ever before of what they will be doing.

 

Like Llewelma anda Regentrude and you (and others?) described, I plan to scale back as needed.  Like you describe, though, I think that at least my older kid is not going to let me do that!