Do you have an "hours per credit" rule of thumb (jr. high/high school)?

[MamaSheep]

I'm going to start keeping grades and transcripts this year with ds going into 7th grade and I'm still trying to figure a few things out in that regard. For most of the "courses" I'm just working out how much material I think is reasonable to count as a course, and when he's finished it he gets credit for the course. But there's one sticking point (it's never easy, is it). We'll be doing a "consumer sciences" class--why is a long story--that will consist of a unit of sewing, a unit of cooking, a unit of leatherworking, and a unit of basic computer skills. I'm doing the teaching for all of this stuff EXCEPT the computer part, which dh has decided is his purview. The thing is, dh has volunteered to teach ds a computer class before, only to have big projects come up at work which "required" him to put it off indefinitely (read, it never happened). So here's the thing. I don't want to discourage dh from taking this on, if he's willing. He definitely knows a lot more about the subject than I do, and used to teach it at a college level. He and ds have a good computer rapport going when it comes to "extracurricular" computer use, and I think it would be a very good thing for both of them and for their relationship if dh can manage to get a class taught this year. I did discuss my concerns about his past track record with him, and he says he's committing to a once a week class time with ds no matter what comes up at work. (He owns his own company and works from home, so in theory this is highly workable.) I couldn't get him to commit to an actual course of study or list of projects though, he wants to see how fast ds catches on, and whether he's more interested in one aspect or another, etc. Which I can understand. But I still need, in my own mind, to have an idea as to when I call it good and give him his quarter credit for the "computer unit" of consumer sciences. I figure the easiest way for me is to surreptitiously keep track of how much time they spend at it and base it on the amount of time spent rather than the projects completed or whatever they wind up doing in there. But my brain is fried and the prospect of having to figure out how much time I should "count" makes me want to cry. A similar class down at the ps is 45 minutes per day, and the computer chunk lasts 9 weeks, 5 days per week, so that would be one option. Dh's class will theoretically be one day a week for 36 weeks, and I'm not sure how long he thinks they'll work, but I think for an hour per session. I don't know that it'll happen that way in reality.

 

Any thoughts?

[johnandtinagilbert]

If my state requirements note such, then yes; otherwise, finish the text, receive the credit.

[OHGrandma]

Ask your hubby to define the goals for the class. Review them with hubby to see if you both think it's reasonable for your sons age & ability. Give credit when he attains the goals.

[MamaSheep]

Sadly, there won't be a text, just dh's brain wave patterns, and he doesn't have goals other than teaching ds whatever seems like the logical next step at the time. Which is why I thought time spent might be the best way to get a handle on this credit-wise.

 

Frankly, I'm not sure dh the former college professor quite "gets" the homeschool experience despite having lived in the office down the hall from it for three years. I think it'll be good for him to TRY having a class with no goals and see how well it works (or not)--or else good for ME to observe a way for it to happen and be successful--one or the other, and it'll be interesting to see how it shakes out in the end. I've always been the one in the family who works toward having routines and he's always been the one who tries to get us all to lighten up and go with the flow. Usually we can find a good balance between the two, or just say this bit is primarily something that you deal with so we'll do it your way, and that bit is something that primarily I will have to deal with so we'll do this bit my way. In this case, dh sees this as "his" class and doesn't see any reason I should have any more to do with it than admiring the occasional result, and recording the grade at the end. I can understand and respect that position and I would totally just leave it at that if he hadn't said several times in the past that he'd teach ds computers, and then not followed through because something else came up (the problem with not having a plan and then following it, IMO, is that so often the result is NOTHING).

 

I do have a back-up plan, in case computer class fails again to materialize, which is a unit on model building--build a model dino skeleton, car, plane, boat, or whatever--probably four projects or so of increasing difficulty level. I'll just add it on at the end of the sewing, cooking, and leatherwork, if the computer stuff is just not happening. But I need a reasonable gauge to determine whether I need to bring the back-up plan into play, and also to determine whether what they've done is "enough" for a credit. And since there's no text for the computer class, and no goals for the computer class, and no list of projects to be accomplished for the computer class, and pushing the use of any of these tools will just irritate the teacher of the course, I have to come up with something else. Time spent seems reasonable to me, but I'm definitely willing to consider any other alternatives that you can suggest that don't involve me dictating to dh how he will run his class.

[Moni]

Do you have an "hours per credit" rule of thumb

 

No. :)

 

:seeya:

[WTMCassandra]

120 hours is a standard Carnegie unit (used in many states).

 

However, I will be using 150 hours, which is what my state considers one credit. Sigh.

 

One suggestion for making the computer class happen: Schedule it.

 

Seriously. When my DH is supposed to teach something, we schedule it in the family schedule just like any other event.

 

I think you should sit down with your DH, inform him of how many hours in the 120 or 150 or whatever you would like him to fill, and ask him to choose a text (or have you choose it). The text will help define what the goals are. Or, if your DH is a global thinker, you could ask him for 2-3 broad goals and then find a text that fits them.

 

Or, if you're feeling really adventurous, you could just inform DH that you expect his syllabus on xxxx date.;)

 

Then, discuss together when it would fit best into your weekly schedule.

[Brindee]

Will you give him 1 credit for all the things you mentioned above or do you want one credit per each subject mentioned? To me it looks like you have 4 things, so each would need 1/4 of, say, the 120 hours. So each unit would need ~30 hours to be considered a full part of that 1 whole credit. Right? So if your dh did 1 hour per week, you'd do 30 weeks of that. But if ds has work/practice to do outside of that 1 hour of instruction, then wouldn't that be added to that one hour? So if he spent 1 hour with dh, and 2 hours during the rest of the week, that'd be 3 hours a week, which would make it a 10 week class. So your dh would only have to come up with 10 hours of teaching.

 

I'm just throwing out figures here, yours may be a little different, but that's how I would figure it out.

[MamaSheep]

120 hours is a standard Carnegie unit (used in many states).

 

However, I will be using 150 hours, which is what my state considers one credit. Sigh.

 

One suggestion for making the computer class happen: Schedule it.

 

Seriously. When my DH is supposed to teach something, we schedule it in the family schedule just like any other event.

 

I think you should sit down with your DH, inform him of how many hours in the 120 or 150 or whatever you would like him to fill, and ask him to choose a text (or have you choose it). The text will help define what the goals are. Or, if your DH is a global thinker, you could ask him for 2-3 broad goals and then find a text that fits them.

 

Or, if you're feeling really adventurous, you could just inform DH that you expect his syllabus on xxxx date.;)

 

Then, discuss together when it would fit best into your weekly schedule.

 

Yes, this is exactly, EXACTLY how I would do it if I were in charge of the computer class....sigh. I have gotten him to commit to once a week but I haven't yet gotten him to pin down exactly WHEN each week. I'm going to make him do at least that much. I don't know that I'll get much more than that out of him. But once he's committed, I'm going to just leave him alone to follow up on it. If I nag it'll cause problems between the two of us that I don't want to deal with. So I'll leave him alone and just quietly keep tabs on whether I need to bring the back-up plan into play. It'll probably become fairly apparent within the first couple of weeks. No, he's not what you'd call a global thinker. He's more of a one shiny object to the next thinker...lol. But strangely it works out for him pretty well most of the time.

 

Will you give him 1 credit for all the things you mentioned above or do you want one credit per each subject mentioned? To me it looks like you have 4 things, so each would need 1/4 of, say, the 120 hours. So each unit would need ~30 hours to be considered a full part of that 1 whole credit. Right? So if your dh did 1 hour per week, you'd do 30 weeks of that. But if ds has work/practice to do outside of that 1 hour of instruction, then wouldn't that be added to that one hour? So if he spent 1 hour with dh, and 2 hours during the rest of the week, that'd be 3 hours a week, which would make it a 10 week class. So your dh would only have to come up with 10 hours of teaching.

 

I'm just throwing out figures here, yours may be a little different, but that's how I would figure it out.

 

Ok. This makes sense. Yes, the whole shebang will be for one credit. "Consumer sciences" is what they call what used to be home ec and shop classes, and they're required to have one credit in jr high and one credit in high school (and a credit here is equivalent to 1 year, not 1 semester). I could do a half credit this year and a half credit next year, but I don't wanna. :) Down at the ps they split it into sewing, cooking, woodshop, and computers. I told dh I was swapping leather work for wood shop and contemplating whether to do computers, and he jumped all over computers and told me not to worry about it, he'd take care of it. But getting detailed plans out of that man (about much of anything--he likes to be "spontaneous") is a fine art akin to nailing an egg to a wall. I love 'im, but a planner he is not.

 

30 hours. So in a 36 week school year he can miss up to 6 times and still hit the mark. That is good to know.

[Amber in SJ]

For our charter school each class is 5 credits/ semester. (2 semesters of Geometry = 10 credits of math)

 

To receive those 5 units the student must complete 4 hours/ week of course work. These hours can be working on projects, reading course material, lecture time, research, etc. For classes like music, we are required to keep a log sheet of practice time for instruments or rehersal time for theater arts. To (ahem) pad the time sheets for my fast working daughter, the History specialist gave us a list of movies based on history and a film review form. My dd was more than happy to watch movies and pick out the historical inaccuracies.

 

If your Dh is teaching 1/4 of the course work, then 1 hour/ week should do the trick. If 1 hour/ week is not doable for your Dh, then he could "teach" for a certain period of time and then have your ds work on an assignment for the remainder of the time. If your dh has to miss a week here & there, your ds could do research or additional reading. My dd is also doing a basic computer literacy course this year. Have you seen this?

 

http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/index.html

 

It is free and provides a basic framework plus quizzes and assignments. It covers a brief history of the computer plus, Word, Exel, Web Pages, Power Point and Databases. It may be too superficial for some, but it gives my dh (who has never taught a class) a place to start & they can springboard from there.

 

HTH

 

Amber in SJ