PA Homeschoolers- Counting hours/credit with dual enrollment

[3in9th]

My kids are now dual enrolled in some classes at university and the 990 hours for secondary are not going to add up with these classes since they are only meeting 3-4 hours a week for 14 weeks. Is there a solution that doesn't mean piling on more work in their non-dual enrollment classes? Should I just count hours?

[justasque]

I'm a little unclear what you are asking.  Are you counting hours to meet state regulations, or are you enrolled in a diploma program (PA Homeschoolers)?  Either way, I'm assuming your kids will be doing a significant amount of homework for their DE classes, all of which can be counted as school hours.  If it's for PAHSers or another diploma program, there are a variety of ways to earn credit - hours is not the only one.  Double-check the list to see if another approach will work.  If it's for the state, then counting days is a much easier way to go for many folks.

[Mom22ns]

Our state requires 1000 hours (no counting days instead). Even with dual enrollment, we have had no trouble making that. The DE classes have homework and we still do some classes at home. If you child is in class 3 hours per week for 14 weeks (that is a short semester, does the school do trimesters?) that is 42 hours of class time per course. If they are doing 5 classes (full time) that is 200 hours. Then repeat for the second semester or for all 3 trimesters. You'll end up with about 400-600 class hours. I would expect at least 2 or 3 hours of homework per week on top of that which exactly doubles your total hour count. 

 

Some classes will take many more hours in homework and if you do home based classes you can rack up some extra hours there. PA Homeschoolers AP classes often take 10+ hours per week and meet for roughly 32 weeks, so just one of those gets 1/3 of your required hours for the year.

 

I think you are just counting instruction time, rather than total time spent on the classes. I wouldn't stress. They should get enough hours in. If not, count some extra reading or interest based learning.

[Corraleno]

The standard is that for every hour of in-class time, a college student will spend 2-3 hours outside of class. So for a 3-credit class that meets for 14 weeks, the total time expected would be a minimum of 126 hours, which equals one "Carnegie unit" of credit. That's why one semester of college work is generally considered equivalent to 1 year of high school work.

[justasque]

My kids are now dual enrolled in some classes at university and the 990 hours for secondary are not going to add up with these classes since they are only meeting 3-4 hours a week for 14 weeks. Is there a solution that doesn't mean piling on more work in their non-dual enrollment classes? Should I just count hours?

 

 

990 hours is 5.5 hours for 180 days (and nothing on the other days),

or 4 hours a day for 36 weeks (7 days/wk, nothing for the other 16 weeks),

or 2 3/4 hours per day for a full year (every single day).

 

You have the entire year to accumulate your hours.  You don't need to count just formal classwork or seat time.  

 

14 weeks x 4 hours/week = 56 hours (presumably for each class).  Add in homework time, and you can easily get to 100-150 hours per class.  7 or 8 classes would cover the year, if you did DE alone - so 4 classes each semester would be sufficient even without all the non-DE work they may be doing at home.  (Or, of course, fewer classes with more work at home.)  And anything you do in the summer will reduce the required Sept-June load.