How many hours per credit?

[OnMyOwn]

Quite a few of the school profile examples that I am using are stating that a credit equals 120 hours.  I know my son has spends much closer to 180 hours on each class because it's a rare day that he doesn't spend an hour on each subject.  And some years for math, we've probably spent 320 hours, lol!

 

What did you use for your school profile?  I don't want to seem ridiculous to say 180 hours, but really, it is the truth for most of the classes he has taken.  On the other hand, I guess there is some variation as well.  Math - 320 hours, World Religions this year may be closer to 120.  WWYD?

 

 

[MerryAtHope]

I always used 150-180 for core academic courses (we had a few go over that too), and 120 minimum for electives.

[Barb_]

Those profiles aren't including time spent on homework outside of class time. 180 days x 40 minute classes = 120 hours. That really the minimum.

[EKS]

I said 150 hours because that's what the local high school said, but for some courses my son spent well over 200 hours.

[Lori D.]

Just me, but if it took 320 hours to do one level of high school math (say, Algebra 1), I'd give your student TWO credits, one each for Algebra 1a and Algebra 1b. That brings the credits to approximately 160 hours each, and closer in line to the lighter World Religions credit of 120 hours. And if all the other credits are more at 160-180 hours, then I'd consider the possibility of awarding partial credit (say, 0.66 or 0.75 credit) for the World Religions, rather than a full credit, for consistency.

Another possible explanation for having a course run overly high on hours is if the student was doing dual enrollment or AP or highly rigorous Honors course -- then be sure to indicate that in the name of the course ("Honors Algebra 1", or "Calculus, with AP test", or "MAT189: Statistics") on the transcript, and that helps make it clear why it took so many more hours.

As long as you're shooting roughly for consistency -- like the way Merry described of 150-180 hours for academic subjects but 120 hours for electives -- or have a solid reason for the wide variance in hours -- like Honors courses -- then you're fine. 

If you hours are all over the place, then you might want to re-evaluate how you are setting up the requirements for each course, and see if you can slightly tweak them to bring them slightly closer to consistency. And if that's not possible, then you can explain in your course descriptions why course X took so many hours, and course Y took far fewer hours.

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.

[OnMyOwn]

Thanks!  I think I will go with 150 hours for an average credit.  World religions is an elective for him, so if it's a bit less, I think that's okay.  He's already got all the credits he needs -- 27 -- even with spending so much time on math, so I'm just going to stick with one credit for each level.  Part of the reason for the extra time in math was simply because I did multiple programs with him some years to make sure he would be really solid on the concepts.  Plus, we usually did math all summer just so he wouldn't forget.

[JanetC]

I didn't count hours, or mention any amount of hours on my profile.

[katilac]

I didn't count hours, or mention any amount of hours on my profile.

 

Me, either. Zero questions about it. 

[EKS]

Just me, but if it took 320 hours to do one level of high school math (say, Algebra 1), I'd give your student TWO credits, one each for Algebra 1a and Algebra 1b. 

 

I would not do this for a class that has a traditional and fairly fixed scope and sequence as it just makes it look like the student is slow.

[catz]

I didn't count hours, or mention any amount of hours on my profile.

 

Thank goodness.  I don't think I could do this in good conscience. 

[Mom22ns]

We were also typically in the 150-180 hours per credit range per credit, but there were classes that went way over that. Ds was slow at math and spent at least 90 minutes/day, probably between 250-300 hours per year. English was also commonly 2 hours/day, and certainly that long for AP English. I stuck with 1 credit per class.

 

We counted hours because it is required in Missouri, but I didn't report them anywhere and certainly not on transcripts. 

[MerryAtHope]

Yes, I only tracked hours for my benefit (and only roughly)--I didn't write them on my course descriptions or anywhere else, I just used it as a tool during that school year.

[JeanM]

I didn't count hours, or mention any amount of hours on my profile.

 

I also did not count hours. Honestly it varied a lot. My dc are mostly doing math/science at home, and it's pretty well defined for most of what they did at home. We gave 1 credit per year for math and sciences classes.

[dirty ethel rackham]

I didn't count hours, or mention any amount of hours on my profile.

Me neither.  Nobody every questioned it.  My course descriptions gave a good idea of what we did, which was often, pretty ambitious.

 

I would not do this for a class that has a traditional and fairly fixed scope and sequence as it just makes it look like the student is slow.

Me neither.  Dd takes forever to do math.  But, I can't see giving more than one credit for Algebra 2, no matter how long it takes.  My older kids could finish a year's worth of math in a semester with way less work.  I don't think I should short-change them by giving them only a half-credit.

[Lori D.]

No mention of hours anywhere for us as well.

I just roughly tracked hours for my own record-keeping to work to keep credits roughly consistent. While I shot for a rough average of 150 hours, there were obviously outliers -- English took us more like 200 hours. And Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 each took DS#2 1.5 years to complete -- I did not even track hours on those. And then the required "get 'er done" 0.5 credit of Economics was quite light on hours.

Mostly, I found tracking hours useful for ME in making sure that all of our DIY courses (English, History, and Electives) were not too light or too much. :) My attempt at rough equivalence was so that the grades on the transcript would mean something similar, and were not "random".

Edited September 25, 2018 by Lori D.