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w^-%, • t * ^ V s£ ' *ss.' Explained For What is Involved in Flexible Scheduling? For years TIME in the school day has been divided like an egg crate into even compartments. Every subject got the same size compartment every day. Every student puts the same amount of time in every class. There was a pigeonhole for student every hour of every day. But the truth is, some subjects need a different size compartment than others. Some students need more time than others and need more time in one course than in another. What really matters is how they PERFORM in a subject, not TIME they put in to it. Furthermore, sooner or later every student needs to get out of that pigeonhole and assume some responsibility for wise use of his own time as he will have to do on the job or in college. Hence a few years ago both Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology began to explore more flexible use of teacher and student time. Their goal was to tailor time as much as possible to the varying needs, interests and capacities of individual students and to the varying requirements of individual courses. Researchers felt the key exists in four major elements;. (1) Laige - f^roup instruction: a chance for one teacher to meet many students to reduce repetitive tasks such as lecturing, showing films, and testing. This would free teachers to give more individualized help. (2) Small - group instruction: an effort to take a limited number of pupils, IS or less, on a one - to - one basis; i.e., one teacher to the needs of a small group of pupils studying one specific topic together. Opportunities of this type are extremely limited under traditional scheduling. (3) Laboratory: a further effort to individualize instruction by giving students and teachers a chance to meet special needs. Example: A writing laboratory with a teacher on hand to help students as they write compositions. (4) Independent Study and Research: an opportunity for pupils to plan a small segment of their own time depending on where their interests and ability lie, Examples: a chance to practice the bass horn or to go to the school resource center to researchCa subject, "Sectionalism and the Civil War." This Spring, teachers in each department; will decide what course pattern they want. These will differ from one field to another. Industrial arts teachers may want three long periods a week to reduce time lost in make-ready and clean-up Social studies teachers may want more small-group sessions than English teachers. These course designs together with pupil groupings and available teachers and rooms will be fed into computers at Iowa City which generate the master schedule and then program students. This is the kind of scheduling that will be initiated in Grades 9 - 12 at the McHenry High School for the fall of 1968 with consultant help from Measurement Center in Iowa City, Iowa. Once a schedule is set up, will it stay that way for a year? Yes, changing more often would be too expensive to consider. (The flexibility of the program is basically a pre-planned factor that gives teachers of different subjects a chance to design the way their course will meet). They do not have this chance under traditional scheduling. However, the most flexible area of the new programming is the independent study time, and this can be utilized differently every day if desired. Won't there be trouble with students who don't know how to use free time? There will be some students who will have their free time restricted because we know they would not be able to use it well. Students differ in ability to use free time just as they do in ability to play football. Hence, some students will be assigned for every period as is true now. However, eventually we hope to give all students a chance at independent study time, for wc think there's a chance that they can handle it. Students will be guided in use of this time. How will you know where a student is during his independent study time? We will not know, but, how important is it that we know? What parent, for example, knows where his own teenager is every minute of non-school time? In case of emergency, we will always be able to reach a student quickly by using the public address system. How much independent study time will a student have? Those who can handle it will get about one-third of their time to use as they think best. What if a student finishes French early and wants to get help in mathematics? Will a math teacher be free? Hopefully, yes. Freeing teachers for more help of this kind is one of the purposes of the program. Teachers will work as teams; a student may get help from one of several. How will this setup affect the grading situation? QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CONCERNING THE NEW SCHEDULE: The teacher who has the most contact with the student in a given course will still be the one who makes out his grade. However, other teachers who work with the student may help in the evaluation. Has this flexible type of setup been tried anywhere else? About 200 school systems scattered from coast to coast are now using a schedule similiar to the McHenry schedule. The nearest are in DeKalb, Homewood- Flossmpor, Evanston, Ridgewood, Delavan, and Madison,Wisconsin. No two schedules are exactly alike since each is designed to fit local needs. Has there been an evaluation of the merits of this type of scheduling? new. (t ^ si.Ul too early for formal, scientific evaluation because the programs are so Thus, there are no studies comparing achievement of students in flexible scheduled schools with that in a control group of traditional schools. There are no follow-up studies as of yet on graduates from the two types of schools to see if the staying power of students on jobs and in colleges differ. However, students are initiating more contacts with teachers where this system is used. Teachers get to know students better than in the past, and early evidence indicates that teachers seem to have more time to teach and students have more time to learn. There appears to be fewer discipline problems in class, though there are more in places like corridors. All of the schools in this type of program indicate a lowering of the drop-out rate. Is Iter© any specified amount of time a student must put in for a cerEasa subject? The North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, one of our accrediting agencies, specifies that schools providing for planned piograms of independent learning may not wish to require all students to attend classes a specific amount of time during a semester. In such instances credit may be granted for satisfactory performance on exams. Actually, each teacher will plan his course so that the average student may spend approximately 3G0 minutes a week in work for that course as he does now, but the student may choose to put in more or less time. The flexible or open schedule being used in McHenry High next year if aimed at making time the servant rather than the master in schools. The schedule does very little in itself; It is a tool for doing something about the school's educational program. We are far more interested in curriculum development than schedule, but we are tired of having the schedule present a major block to educational change. The flexible or open schedule will provide the teachers and administrators of McHenry High School with the opportunity to make the changes they desire to improve the entire high school's educational program. M. J. 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