With outsourcing do you create a weekly schedule?

[momof2cowboys]

Its our first year outsourcing many classes.  Do you create a weekly/daily work schedule for your student to follow - or just make sure the work gets done?  I'm kind of at a loss for which way to proceed.  Only 1 class has a set time/day to meet - the remainder are asynchronous.  Thanks in advance.

[Lucy the Valiant]

My students prefer to do the work themselves (which I wholeheartedly approve of!), so I just check in with them once a week to make sure they are following their syllabus / schedule. I'm available to help them (they are young, and still getting used to reporting to multiple people / places), but they mostly do it themselves, with my "supervision."

[MomOfABunch]

At the beginning of the year, I'm much more involved. I help DS1 put schedules and important dates in his planner and check myself on his online courses to make sure he's reading the syllabus correctly and understands what to do and when it's due. I insist he write every.single.due.date in his planner. Once he's got all that down, I do a daily check in to make sure his work is getting completed. I usually check the online grade book once a week. As the year progresses, I get a little more laid back about this schedule.

ETA: Some classes require me to be more involved than others (I'm looking at you, AP Chem!)

Edited September 4, 2017 by MomOfABunch

[mirabillis]

I just finished next week's schedule for my ds. He has all outsourced, with various live/asynchronous/weekly/twice weekly, etc. Due dates all over the place. I think if I didn't pull it together for him (at least to start), nothing would get done on time - or it would wait until the due date and be done that day. So yes, like AP Chem, I am helping to organize his week so something gets done every day in an organized fashion. (This is not his strong suit, so here's hoping it will improve as the year goes on. I think it will once we get our groove. ESPECIALLY for asynchronous classes where there is just a weekly to-do with all due the same end of week. It's up to you to help delegate it daily, I think.)

[momof2cowboys]

Thanks for the input. I think we will come up with somewhat of a rough idea of what's due when and have him split it up accordingly. At least it would make me feel better when we start off. 😉

[Arcadia]

Some of my kids classes have a daily schedule. Some have a weekly schedule.

 

For those that have weekly due dates instead of daily due dates, whatever is due on Monday gets done by the Friday before. Whatever is due on Friday gets done by Wednesday or my kids will hear me nagging on Thursday.

 

I like buffers and my younger boy procrastinate more than my older boy. Besides what if the website is down for maintenance or we have an internet outage. So we try to submit homework at least 24hrs in advance.

 

My kids have been in outsourced online classes since 2nd grade so I know how much handholding I need to do per child. My oldest is rather independent but he can be a scatterbrain preteen at times and forget to check to make sure assignments were successfully emailed or uploaded.

[RootAnn]

Definitely depends on the kid and possibly how long they have been doing the classes. I help the kids out with a schedule at the beginning and nag/checkup as necessary. Dd#1 has been doing this for so long, this year I just put her live meetings down (plus one block for an at home class she only needs to do once per week) and told her she has to get everything done in the blank spots. I know I will still nag some - especially for at home classes.

[regentrude]

I let my students decide when and how to get the work done.

By the time they were taking outsourced classes, both were adamant that they wanted to handle this themselves, and that I was not to interfere.

[Hilltopmom]

First year, yes. Second year, weekly schedule , but with daily check ins. Third year- Sr year, all DE classes, no....

His professors all use their online portal for assignments & scheduling. I don't log on there at all.

 

He typically spends an hour per day per subject, but will change things around if "on a roll" with a big project.

 

I'm checking in now since it's only the second week, but he's on his own for scheduling.

I'll check in weekly & about big projects his semester, but let him handle it all for the most part.

Second semester Sr year, I plan to stop my check ins, unless necessary.

 

Eta- update: I've been informed by Ds in no uncertain terms this afternoon that since this is his fourth DE semester & he's done great in them ALL, that I am to back off now :)

So, I will & we'll see how it goes.

Edited September 4, 2017 by Hilltopmom

[Clemsondana]

I don't have kids that age yet, but I've been teaching high school biology at our co-op for 5 years and have talked with some of my students about how they schedule. Some say that they sit down every Friday and plan the next week's schedule (we meet on Thursday...depending on when the week's work is posted, Monday might work better for your student). Others say that they plan to spend around an hour per day on each subject, with either a particular day being 'catch-up day' or with certain days being longer for 1-2 subjects to account for bigger projects or studying the week before a test.

 

Parent involvement seems to vary wildly. Some parents log in every Friday and print off all homework and then check in again to make sure that it's being turned in. They check the weekly quiz grades. Other parents check in sporadically and the students handle everything themselves (which usually works wonderfully, and occasionally...doesn't).

[teachermom2834]

Mine do not enjoy my input on their outsourced classes. In fact, I think the threat that I will get involved if they drop the ball is part of what keeps them on track. They really like planning their own time and we have a basic agreement that as long as the are keeping above 90% I will stay hands off. They are also to notify me immediately if they drop below 90%. I also ask general questions about what they have due and when they plan to do it just to make sure they are thinking through the demands on their time.

 

I might check the online portal every couple weeks initially to make sure everything is getting done but then I back off to once a month or so.

 

You know your students though and if they need the structure, then certainly provide it. If you wish to become more hands off you can gradually work toward that goal.

 

I tend to say that I am hands off but can get hands on real quick if necessary. But honestly- no one here wants that!

[The Governess]

Mine are still in middle school, but my oldest juggles a lot of online classes. She still likes me to help her. Once she starts high school I think she will be ready to manage her schedule herself with some oversight at first until I'm confident she's getting it all done.

 

Right now, here is what we do:

 

1) On Sunday, we go online together and look at the assignments for each class. She has a planner with a line for each subject, and together we figure out how she should parcel out the work and any live class meetings over the five weekdays.

 

2) After the work has been parceled out by day, I create a weekly schedule for her in excel. This schedule shows the time she needs to get up, the times she needs to be in class, and suggested time slots to work on each subject. It also has all of her dance classes/appointments on it so she can see all of her activities for each day. I print this out and she keeps it on her desk for the week.

 

I used to do only step 1), but she wanted me to do step 2) so she could see how her days were going to look, when she needed to be ready by, etc. It's helped her to be much more organized with her time.

[Donna]

I gave dd a student planner and she will write what she does each day. Two of her outsourced classes are CC classes and I waited until I thought she could handle the responsibility that comes with taking college classes so I expect her to take care of her work as if she were in college. She has been handling her weekly assignments for her language arts tutor for the past two years so it will simply be a bit more responsibility.

[TracyP]

My 9th grader is doing all the scheduling on her own. This is her first year with online classes, so I would have been willing to offer a lot more support. But she seems to have it all under control.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Depends on the kid--

 

I keep a record for myself of due dates for outsourced courses, then I can remind (or nag depending on who you ask) at the proper times.  I also ask for a copy of my kids' master list of passwords/user names for the various websites.  Not because I'm checking up on them but because it saves time and pain when a password goes missing as something is due.

 

For those kids not inclined to be super organized this is a great opportunity to train them to used a planner/calendar, learn to read a syllabus, have reminder alarms on electronic gizmos-whatever works in your family dynamic and for them.  In most kids (in my experience) this is not an innate talent and takes a bit of instruction.  Use of online submission tools and "classrooms" can also require some assistance in the early stages.  I recommend working with kids who are doing this for the first time-perhaps a weekly meeting, check grades, be sure all assignments submitted properly (this is actually an issue-even for otherwise great kids who are conscious of deadlines, etc.--those computer systems are fussy and each is different).

 

The idea of all this being that before the end of high school they should be able to manage this all for themselves due to early, guided preparation.

 

 

[AK_Mom4]

Last year was DD16's first time taking online courses.  She ran into difficulties with this particular online program figuring out how to find the assignments to plan out her week.  More than once she had a nasty surprise when she found there was a test and a major essay due the next day.

 

So this year, we are doing it a bit differently.  She has 3 online courses that use 3 different online providers.  I go in each Sunday and gather up all the assignments that are due the following week in each course and write them down in her planner with the due dates.   She also has the due dates and assignments for her regular at-home classes in her planner.

 

This has saved us a ton of stress and drama.

[Alice]

Ds is 9th grade. Last year he did Latin I with Lukeion. I was barely involved and he did well. But I think Amy Barr really gives them a lot of structure. It's very clear what is due when and what the consequences will be if it's late. We did go on an overseas trip during the school year and I sat down and helped him figure out how to work ahead to get the work done. I think he would have otherwise been scrambling right before we left rather than starting to think about it weeks before. 

 

This year he has two online classes, plus one other short class with Bravewriter. And two classes at our co-op. So it's a very different feel to our homeschool. We're still kind of figuring out how that will work, only two weeks into the year after all. We've always done a weekly notebook with assignments. For his outsourced classes I write the subject and then a reminder or two but I don't write out all the assignments. Then daily we check in to discuss what he has done. My plan is to check in weekly to see how he is progressing (grades, actual assignments). He might be ready to be more independent but he's a young 9th grader and I'm trying to walk the line between being too overbearing and too uninvolved. 

[dirty ethel rackham]

I sat down with my kids once a week with a weekly planner.  I would give them the weekly assignments for the homegrown classes.  Then I would have them look at their outsourced classes, looking at what was due that week as well as what bigger projects they had coming up.  Then I would have them plan out what they were going to do on which days.  They could take busy days into account, planning less those days and planning more on days where we didn't have other things going on.  When they were just starting, like 9th grade, I was quite a bit more hands on.   When they got older, I didn't micromanage as much.  But I found that, when I didn't make them turn their plan to me, they tended to slack off on some things and get into a bind, which became my problem due to increased stress in the house and having to cancel plans that I was looking forward to. 

 

The weekly planner was just a grid with days of the week across the top and subjects down the side.  The exercise helped them break down their workload into smaller pieces.  They were free to do things when they made sense as long as they got everything done.

[workingmom]

Yes, as more classes got outsourced I created a weekly color coded schedule in excel and print out a page layout for me and DS. He still extensively uses a hand written planner (from office depot) and puts things in during our weekly meeting (so I knoy my chauffeur schedule) and also pencil in hw and when he's working on various smaller subsets of projects.

 

 

[Grantmom]

I am struggling a bit with this.  How much to turn over and how much to still stay in the loop on.  I want a system where I can see what is being done for the outsourced classes and can add in the classes we are doing together.  Maybe instead I should just give him the schedule for our homegrown classes and let him add to his own preferred method of planning.

[mirabillis]

I think when new at outsourcing with various deadlines or young, it's good to hold their hand. Then as they get into the swing of it, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, then you hand more and more over to them.