Scheduling high school work

[mom31257]

I would love to hear how others plan school work with their high schoolers and how much the student is involved in the process, especially with subjects that are more independent. Do you tell them each day what they should do, or perhaps, tell them what needs to be done for the week and let them plan it themselves? Do you tell them where they need to be by the end of the quarter?

 

Thanks for sharing!

[Pam L in Mid Tenn]

I'm teaching two boys that need to be told exactly what to do each day. My girls were different. I'd set a monthly goal with them and let them pretty much handle the schedule by themselves.

 

Even though my 16 year old son did math lesson 7B yesterday, he still needs to see "7C" written down for today.

 

I try to pencil in a monthly goal, and try to plan two weeks in advance. I'm jotting down 4 days of lessons in most subjects. Fridays are becoming days to catch up, take the test, or do an enrichment activity.

[Nan in Mass]

It depends on the subject. Mine is in 11th grade. For cc classes, I leave it all to my son. For classes in which he isn't as motivated and which involve a textbook, I sit with him while we read the spread and discuss it and then leave him with directions for the written work. For great books, we read the books together, do TWTM questions together, and he writes the paper or does the project. For independent projects, we talk about what he is going to do and what sort of product is going to result and I add the requirements for the academic piece of the project. I make an hourly schedule for our week that we keep for the first few weeks while I am trying to figure out whether the work load is right. This year, we switched to me trying to do all my parts with him and then him going off and doing his part alone, but this is requiring that we write down the specifications for each of the assignments he is supposed to do that day. I insist that he keep working throughout our official "school hours" because when I don't, he puts all the work off until about 8 at night and winds up staying up until 2 to finish. Besides, he needs that time to do his cc work. It isn't an ideal system and it doesn't have him working as independently as I would like, but routine schoolwork gets done, he is able to tackle long projects on his own if he really wants something (like building a powerful laser), and he is able to sit down and work intensively for an hour or two at a time out of my sight at even an unpalatable task, so I am fairly happy with the state of things.

 

Nan

[regentrude]

My DD schedules her own work. She works 6 hours each day and chooses which subjects to spend how much time on. I remind her of neglected subjects when it becomes too lopsided.

In math, we progress at the speed necessary for mastery - we will be done when we are done.

For science, I made a schedule (and we were off schedule by the second week, LOL). We try to get through the book, and I remind her to put in more time if we end up "behind".

In history and literature, we know what we would like to get done. We have a reading list, TC lectures, a history text. She needs to get through the relevant chapters of the text by the end of the year. Depending on how much time we have, we will either add or leave out lectures and modify the reading list. There are some must-reads, and then there are books that would be nice to cover if time permits. But I'd rather spend as much time as necessary on the Divine Comedy and the corresponding Yale lectures than rush to read every book on the list. She gets to decide where she wants to dwell longer.

For French, which she drags her feet on, I have to give specific assignments every single time.

Edited September 27, 2011 by regentrude

[mjbucks1]

Each of my children has a schedule with boxes to check off as they complete the work. This year I am scheduling their work one week at a time (and my son and I look over his schedule together). My oldest is using TOG, so I divide up the assignments for him each week. He works at his own pace with math, whcih is usually a lesson a day. I have made up a chemistry schedule which he refers to each week. He is also taking 2 online classes, so he is responsible for completing those assignments each week (although I put a reminder on his schedule saying "check Latin/computer programming syllabus") My goal is that he will eventually be doing his own scheduling. I check all of his work (math, chemistry, etc) and we meet at the end of the week to go over the TOG assignments.

[mom31257]

I think the general concensus is a mixture, which is what I was thinking. Dd wants to be totally independent with it, but there are things that involve me. I don't want to have to stop what I'm doing because she's ready right then.

 

I'm thinking of giving her a list of what has to be done in each subject for a given time (maybe 2 weeks?), then allowing her to schedule it as she sees fit. I'm going to also try telling her specific times I'm available each day to do work with her.

[Jenny in Florida]

or perhaps, tell them what needs to be done for the week and let them plan it themselves?

 

This.

 

I sit down over the summer and write out goals and assignments by the week for the whole year. (Yes, sometimes life intervenes and I have to adjust. It still works better for us than any alternative I've tried.) Each Monday, my son looks over the week's assignments and types up a day-by-day plan for himself. He e-mails me a copy, and I check in with him periodically during the week to make sure he's on track.

 

We've been doing it this way for a couple of years.

[EKS]

Last year I made a daily checklist. This year I've been giving a weekly checklist and I have my son plan the what to do each day. It was a rocky transition. In fact, I think we're still transitioning.

[FaithManor]

This summer, I made a course syllabus for each subject. This way ds would know the quarterly, semester, and end of year goals as well as the major assignments and projects that would be required and when those were due as well as daily assignments. I think it's very valuable for the student to learn to govern themselves by a course syllabus since this is a vital you're-in-college-know-and-mamma-doesn't-live-here-anymore type skill. I wish more schools did this because high schools rely on teacher lesson plans that only the teacher is privy to. So the student doesn't see the progression and usually can't plan ahead in any appreciable way.

 

I then teach the concepts directly in a sort of lecture style with some Socratic method of answering questions with a question (hints) in order to get the student to divine the right answer without giving the right answer or helping too much. For literature, I make sure I have a daily discussion about the book, poem, or play and answer questions WTM style.

 

He does his readings independently. He works math independently once I have gone through several examples with him on paper or on our big white board. To relieve me of some of the lecturing, I use some of the Great Courses DVD's, Sister Wendy (for Art History), historical documentaries on Netflix net-streaming, and some videotaped lectures from MIT opencourseware or other such online. He is strong in history and english so I do the least amount of direct teaching in those areas.

 

So, it's a mixture of independent work with teacher intensive work. By in large, it is the same way with the other two ds's too. So for me, 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. plus some evening time as well, is pretty much totally devoted teaching/grading/researching and filling empty bellies. But, when the youngers are sitting next to me doing work that I am not needing to be too involved in, I get to chat on the WTM forums! :D

 

When ds is not working on a major paper or research project, he can usually be done by 3:30 p.m. if he is efficient with his time.

 

The one thing I don't do is establish an hr. for this, an hr. for that, etc. Some people count carnegie hrs. by doing this for giving credit. I look at how many days we've schooled, the quality of and breadth/depth of content covered, difficulty of assignments, etc. and award credit that way.

 

Faith

[bugs]

At the beginning of the year I plan each child's workload for the week. For my dd there will be some subjects that I make a daily suggestion and some I require her to schedule out as she sees fit. In a couple of weeks, once we know the general flow of each subject, she'll schedule it all herself (on a weekly/monthly basis). With ds (13), I am s.l.o.w.l.y. teaching him to schedule his work as well. I hope that by next year (9th) he'll be able to follow the same routine as his sister.

[higginszoo]

My kids doing high school work plan it themselves, usually on a weekly basis. Some of their curriculum has it planned out day by day, sometimes they follow that. But I generally set expectations of what I expect to be done weekly, and all work is usually due on Friday. I also go through monthly and set deadlines for the bigger projects. I usually suggest smaller milestone dates, too, but they may or may not take those suggestions.

[Storm Bay]

We did block scheduling when my eldest dd was homeschooling at home in earlier high school, and 4 subjects per semester as this worked better for her. I didn't plan every single subject every day, but did tell her what she had to acccomplish each week and often what that would entail. I gave dates/days for when assignments were due for subjects that didn't have written assignments every day. Math had daily assignments, of course. I did have a plan for each class for the semester and a basic weekly schedule so that we could see how to finish everything on time. I organized science labs with others for her so that she'd get it done & because she learned more that way.