20 pages of AP US History notes, a 500-word article, a journal and a 10-line autobiography poem. It’s all due tomorrow and I work from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m.I’ve been there, done that.I don’t have time to do half the homework, so I do it all half-heartedly. I stay up late doing my homework and then rush to do my chores, knowing my parents would get angry if I didn’t do them. I finally get to bed at midnight, if I’m lucky, and the next morning I must wake up at 6:00 a.m.I’ve been in this situation numerous times already this year. With the combination of APUSH, Writing II and Creative Writing, I have a load of homework that I just don’t have the time for. At home or at school.Focus is just not what it used to be. For the majority of the time, focuses are focused on club-like meetings. They include activities that disallow students to simply work on homework.There should be more study time offered for students. It is difficult to find time to complete homework when a student has a part-time job and has numerous difficult classes, or even just classes that deal out a lot of homework. It gets overwhelming at times, and instead of having a structured focus period, focus should be used freely for students to ask teachers for help, make-up a test, or work on homework.Next year, the district is incorporating the A/B block schedule in the high school. This would mean more classes at once, which would ultimately mean more homework. It would be better for students to have study time, like the old focus schedule, so they have time to work to get at least some of the homework done.While I think the Moodle system provides numerous opportunities for students, the restriction of study time can be a huge problem for numerous students. If the high school administration were to continue to use the Moodle system, it should consider having a regular study period that students can take during the day, such as a study hall, or they should make the focuses less structured.
20 pages of AP US History notes, a 500-word article, a journal and a 10-line autobiography poem. It’s all due tomorrow and I work from 4 p.m. until 8 p.m.I’ve been there, done that.I don’t have time to do half the homework, so I do it all half-heartedly. I stay up late doing my homework and then rush to do my chores, knowing my parents would get angry if I didn’t do them. I finally get to bed at midnight, if I’m lucky, and the next morning I must wake up at 6:00 a.m.I’ve been in this situation numerous times already this year. With the combination of APUSH, Writing II and Creative Writing, I have a load of homework that I just don’t have the time for. At home or at school.Focus is just not what it used to be. For the majority of the time, focuses are focused on club-like meetings. They include activities that disallow students to simply work on homework.There should be more study time offered for students. It is difficult to find time to complete homework when a student has a part-time job and has numerous difficult classes, or even just classes that deal out a lot of homework. It gets overwhelming at times, and instead of having a structured focus period, focus should be used freely for students to ask teachers for help, make-up a test, or work on homework.Next year, the district is incorporating the A/B block schedule in the high school. This would mean more classes at once, which would ultimately mean more homework. It would be better for students to have study time, like the old focus schedule, so they have time to work to get at least some of the homework done.While I think the Moodle system provides numerous opportunities for students, the restriction of study time can be a huge problem for numerous students. If the high school administration were to continue to use the Moodle system, it should consider having a regular study period that students can take during the day, such as a study hall, or they should make the focuses less structured.
PS Rykken • Dec 14, 2011 at 11:49 am
You’re raising good points here Kristin. I also believe that the trade-off with A/B is that your process time on subjects is increased — something that is hard to understand until we get into it. We’re into our second year of a pilot project with History and English (as you know) and I have yet to hear students complain about it. I realize there will be more classes, but that extra time may be a really big deal.