Thursday, June 07, 2018

What Does Your Day Look Like: Chart Your Efforts

I know that in many work places, professionals keep close tabs on the work they do as that work is considered billable hours. I wonder what would happen if teachers did that.

For example, this was my day yesterday:

5am-8am: Editing papers
8:30am-12:00pm: Editing one-to-one with students
12:00-12:45pm: Administrative/Planning Tasks
12:45-1:15: Student supervision, leadership
1:15-2:30: Administrative/Planning Tasks
2:30-3:25: Student Supervision
3:25-5:00: Administrative/Planning Tasks

Now, not all days look the same. But generally I have about one hour a day for planning and prep, 30 minutes a day for lunch, and 5 1/2 hours a day with time-on-task with students. I also generally spend another 3-5 hours a day on reading, research, prep and planning during the five-day work week as well as some time on the weekend.  So generally I spend about 25 hours a week on prep and planning and about 27.5 hours a week with direct service to students generally with about 25 students at a time.

I've wondered about this before and I wonder about it now, what do the ratios of time on task with students and time related to prep look like for the various roles in school? What do the results look like related to those ratios? How can we analyze and use time effectively to develop better results and also respect and acknowledge the time teachers need to do a good job with reasonable expectations?

I'm going to reach out to an expert I know who has been studying this for more information. In the meantime, if you have anything to add, please let me know.