90 minute classes Search Results

Making the Most of a 90-Minute Block

…talking, singing, and becoming restless all-around as a result of the lengthened class periods.” This letter articulates the concerns some teachers, parents, and even students have about block scheduling, where class periods last 80 to 100 minutes and only four classes are held each day. This type of schedule became popular in middle and high schools in the 1990s as an alternative to the traditional schedule, where students attend the same six to eight classes, 45 to 50 minutes each, every day. The idea behind the change was that with less transition time between classes, fewer instructional minutes would be…

Episode 231 Transcript

…one minute, I waste one minute every day getting going. And I only get this bank of minutes for the school year. GONZALEZ: Yeah. WEATHERS: And I’m trying to squeeze everything I can out of that. Well if I routinely waste one minute, and there’s 180 days, I’ve just lost three hours of teaching and learning time. GONZALEZ: Right. WEATHERS: And if it’s three minutes, that’s nine hours of teaching. So it’s the same cueing, but what I want everyone to hear is how, and that’s why this, and I showed, there’s images of it in the book. You can…

Teaching Corporate English in Kazakhstan

…them, but they’ll surely be a forgotten relic of Soviet enterprise within a generation. The Grand Hotel “Victory,” where Bisodev held classes. It was only a five minute drive into the heart of the city, which consisted of a stretch of newly constructed, gaudy glass-fronted “Business Centers” accented by the odd, vaguely Western restaurant or bar, with names like “Guns and Roses.” Across the street from my office, there was even an Irish Pub called “The Shamrock.” There wasn’t much Irish about it, but it did have Guinness, a relief from the largely flavorless “Baltika” beer that’s on tap at…

Flash Feedback: How to Provide More Meaningful Feedback in Less Time

…Micro-Conferences Conferencing is one of the most celebrated pedagogical tools, and there is good reason for that. It is a rare one-on-one opportunity to offer individualized instruction and feedback, fix misconceptions, build relationships, and give students the opportunity to be heard by a caring adult. Like written feedback though, the logistics of conferences can be daunting in most classes. My classes meet for 210 minutes each week and average 32 students. This means doing a five minute conference with each student takes over 75 percent of the class time that week. While larger conferences are sometimes worth this time investment…

The Apollo School: What 21st Century Learning Looks Like

…blocks, then all three teachers have a common planning period during the 4th block. The amount of planning time is equivalent to all other teachers in the building. With a teacher-to-student ration of about 1:15, yes, other classes can grow in size, but it’s no different than other classes with small numbers that leave others with more students. Classes in our building range in size from 12 students to 30+. While it might be ideal to balance those classes, it’s just not the reality and might not ever be. Apollo isn’t for everyone but everyone is capable, if that makes…

Episode 190 Transcript

…than it’s ever been, I’m so sorry that it’s hard, is there anything that I can do to change that? GONZALEZ: On her third day back in person, Erin was exposed to a co-worker who had Covid. She heard about it through word of mouth, while using her breast pump on her lunch period. ERIN: At this point I was pumping on my lunch, so I had a 30 minute lunch. By the time I went to the restroom, got back, I had 25 minutes to pump and shove some food in my face. They had tried to set us…

Episode 13: Could You Teach Without Grades?

…ridiculous amount of feedback to legitimize the shift. What I’ve learned is that I’m not going to get to every kid in every class. It’s just not going to happen. I am one person. There are thirty of them, I have forty minutes. And if kid needs me in a period and I end up spending five, six, seven minutes with any one kid, I can’t punish myself for not being able to get to two other kids. On this particular day, this kid needed me more. So I started employing other technology to sort of expand my availability, so…

Episode 208 Transcript

…in individual classrooms. It sounded like you especially found it in what you called the periphery in elective classes, in extracurricular activities. And so from all of these observations, you were able to sort of pull out characteristics in the, in the ways that those classes were taught that made it more possible to pursue the deeper learning. So what were some of those things? So what we’re thinking about now is a teacher listening, thinking, “How can I make that happen?” What were those teachers doing that made that deeper learning possible? FINE: You’re so good at talking about…

Episode 242 Transcript

…here’s some key information or vocabulary that you’re going to need to remember for the next text that we read or for the next science exploration that we’re going to do together. GONZALEZ: Okay. SERRAVALLO: That’s sort of the general flow of how the lesson’s going to go. GONZALEZ: Okay. All right. So we’ve got “establish a focus” for a minute. About 8-plus, I think in the book you said 8 to 13 minutes of reading. So we’re not looking for this big 45-minute lesson. And then you clarified the takeaways at the end. And that middle piece has lots…