When I look at the weekly schedule, I think of Stager's talk about the hurried, choppy school day rather than a day of meaningful project base learning. Yet, as a public school teacher with multiple standards to meet, there's no way around a daily routine that is broken up into blocks of learning focused on specific content. With Stager in mind though, I try to establish a flow as much as possible with extended learning opportunities available online in the evenings.
The other frustration with the schedule is that the expectations outnumber the minutes in a day. I hesitate to say that as I fear the longer day. I fear the longer day because if we're working on task with children more, when will we research, reflect, plan, prep, and respond to the learning experiences? As it stands now, our prep and planning time is short in comparison to the lessons we teach. Fortunately there was a 30 minute positive shift for us with regard to more planning time this year, and that has made a wonderful difference.
The schedule reflects the primary objectives of the year including math standards, close reading, reading response, genre writing, read aloud, reading workshop, skills, specials (art, tech, library, music, and physical education), social studies, and science.
Home study is a nightly routine of 15-15-15 or reading, writing, and math for a 45 minute total. There's lots of bonus available for children who want more.
As I think about the choreography of the week, the one glaring omission is time for meaningful student-teacher conferences. Yes, I build them in while the rest of the students read or write, but it is always frustrating as I can't concentrate or give the child the kind of time I really want to. For example, yesterday I had a couple of very meaningful student conferences. Each lasted 20 minutes. The children read me their writing; showed me their writing books, and we discussed the books they are reading. I may find a way to build in that kind of conference on a regular schedule before or after school when there are no interruptions. I think the gain might be substantial and worth it.
What does your weekly schedule look like? How do you choreograph the teaching week to meet the needs of many children? How can we best maximize our combined teaching time so that children are learning with engagement, response, and care? What creative ways do you manage the day to better teach? I'm thinking about this, and look forward to any insights you may have.
