"instructional hours" vs actual hours...how do they stack up?

[Seasider]

Say it takes us 30 minutes to do a Saxon lesson, but we do complete one daily lesson of a curriculum designed to fulfill a year's worth of work. That is, obviously, .5 hrs of actual teaching time. But how many "instructional hours" would you assign it? Would that still be just a half hour, or more?

 

I'm thinking of it like this: if the state requires 600 hours in the core subjects of English, Math, Science & History, that's 150 hours in each area. If there are 150-180 daily lessons in the math curriculum and each lesson takes just half hour, you could earn at most 60 hours of time, not nearly enough for the core hours requirement. So an instructional hour must be something different than actual teaching time.

 

So, how do you define it?

How many instructional hours do you assign a typical elementary level LOF lesson (which takes us about 15 minutes)?

Why are instructional hours as put forth by a state department of education the same for all grade levels? How is that instructional "hour' of math quantified at the 2nd grade level treated at the 8th grade level?

 

 

 

Just curious to see how others think of this and handle it.

[Plateau Mama]

We don't ave to report hours, but when we were in a Virtual Academy they said if you completed the lesson in less time than it was "supposed" to take you gave them credit for the full time. So that was a hour. If we were done in 15 min we still marked an hour. If it took longer you counted the longer time.

[Arcadia]

Why are instructional hours as put forth by a state department of education the same for all grade levels? How is that instructional "hour' of math quantified at the 2nd grade level treated at the 8th grade level?

 

 

At 2nd grade level, the 1hr of math includes homework/practice time. At 6th to 8th grade level, the 1hr of math is for understanding the subject matter. Homework/practice time is separate from instructional time.

 

ETA:

Just for paperwork sake

English - 240 ~ 360 hrs (grammar, writing, spelling, literature)

Math - 180 ~ 240hrs

Science - 90hrs

History - 90hrs (History, Social Studies, Geography)

Edited November 15, 2012 by Arcadia

[missmoe]

That requirement drove me crazy when I lived in your neck of the woods! It does not make any sense for elementary ages.

 

So yes, I counted our math time to be an instructional hour when we completed a lesson. Of course, we completed more math than just our math curriculum with different crafts, games, cooking, ect. So that made me feel better about counting the time we spent as a full hour.

[Barb_]

I think you are overthinking it. Don't contort your homeschool to fit into their little box. If it is educational, it is instructional. In school, passing out papers, shushing the talkers, transition time, etc is all counted as instructional time. Don't get hung up on the clock. It's silly when state government tries to dictate instructional time to homeschoolers. It just doesn't equate! That is something I don't miss about back east.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Barb F. PA in AZ

[ccolopy]

I think you are overthinking it. Don't contort your homeschool to fit into their little box. If it is educational, it is instructional. In school, passing out papers, shushing the talkers, transition time, etc is all counted as instructional time. Don't get hung up on the clock. It's silly when state government tries to dictate instructional time to homeschoolers. It just doesn't equate! That is something I don't miss about back east.

:iagree:Schools are counting read-alouds and "silent reading time" into their English hours. I'm sure you'll find enough.

 

I would count a math lesson as an hour. There are kids in school (my son was one of them) who spend 5 minutes on their math worksheets and then sit there daydreaming or drawing pictures of dinosaurs for the rest of the hour.

[Seasider]

I think you are overthinking it. Don't contort your homeschool to fit into their little box. If it is educational, it is instructional. In school, passing out papers, shushing the talkers, transition time, etc is all counted as instructional time. Don't get hung up on the clock. It's silly when state government tries to dictate instructional time to homeschoolers. It just doesn't equate! That is something I don't miss about back east.

 

Thanks for the reassurance. I'm not really too worried about it, more curious than anything. I've not had to record hours before this year and I just kind of get the feeling that it's arbitrary to the point of meaningless, kwim?!

 

I record actual time spent doing things, but suspect if the need ever arose (probably highly unlikely) to show proof of our school time, what I recorded could be fluffed out to a higher total. I was wondering how others handled it.

[Seasider]

:iagree:Schools are counting read-alouds and "silent reading time" into their English hours. I'm sure you'll find enough.

 

I would count a math lesson as an hour. There are kids in school (my son was one of them) who spend 5 minutes on their math worksheets and then sit there daydreaming or drawing pictures of dinosaurs for the rest of the hour.

 

Okay, as long as we complete it, even in a shorter actual time, it's good to know there's a reasonable justification of assigning an hour to it.

[LisaKinVA]

I don't have to report hours...but like the above poster, I did while with a Virtual Academy, and when we accomplished the lesson, we awarded the full time even if it didn't take that long...and the longer amount of time if it took more. For our own purposes I schedule each subject into blocks of time. I have five children, and I have to do this simply to keep everyone on task and make sure I put independent work opposite teacher-intensive work. I simply can't help oldest DS with Geometry oldest DD with Pre-Algebra and work with my Ker on phonics at the same time... there are things, however that the time set is more or less the time the child will spend, like an hour of reading. As the children have gotten older we also do an hour of math. Some lessons come really easy, and the child will do multiple lessons in a day. Some lessons are more difficult/time consuming and when that hour is up, they are done (so we'll split a lesson into multiple parts). Overall, though, when my kids focus and follow the plan, they can finish the work in substantially less time than I've scheduled. This is less true as they enter Jr./Sr. High, though. The work takes a lot longer, but usually there isn't additional homework on top of the school day.

[LisaKinVA]

Sorry, double post

[zenjenn]

This depends so much on the student, and what materials you are using, doesn't it?

 

In today's day and age, media can replace some instructional time. For example, my kids get probably 80% of their math instruction from the computer - my kids use a combination of Teaching Textbooks, ALEKS, Khan Academy, and Xtramath.org. I hardly instruct at all. I answer questions, clarify things, and review their work. Instead of geography instruction, most of their time learning geography is spent playing a geography board game together, playing with the geography puzzles I have, or playing online geography games that test accuracy and speed.

 

Similarly, students are different. My oldest in math, for example, needs more instruction from me. She asks a lot more questions and needs more of my time and attention to keep her going at solid grade level comprehension and proficiency in math. My youngest, on the other hand, asks virtually nothing of me. She does LoF independently and uses Khan Academy to look up concepts she doesn't understand to work the problems, in addition to doing TT. She is about 2 grade levels ahead in math now and continuing to move farther ahead, with almost no errors on standardized tests.

 

I would say I spend 2 hrs actually instructing my kids a day. Most of that is reading and discussion, and periodic guidance on their independent tasks. Good thing my state doesn't make me report anything, I guess. :)