Today in Social Studies Methods. we had a guest speaker via Zoom. Her name was Susan Waddell, and she is currently a 9th grade teacher at Rainbow Elementary School in Asheville, NC. Susan went through a Prezi talking about strategies that we can use to aid students in our future classrooms. Susan taught a lot of new material that I had never heard of before, such as the see-think-wonder strategy, the Remix strategy, etc. (Those two were my favorite). With Susan's presentation you could see a direct correlation to how you could use these methods in the classroom, and she gave really great examples.
For my blog this week, I read an article from Education. com, titled, 4-Day School Weeks: Headed to Your District?. The title is very catchy in itself. I mean who would not want a 4 day school week! However, being a future teacher, I could not imagine losing a day of contact with my students, this could not be good for test scores and learning. Although, I could see this being a great idea when I was in grade school. This idea all came about from a small town in Georgia, and the county had lost $900,000 in budget cuts that year. The school had to find a way to recover from that devastating blow to the budget. Therefore, they dropped the days of school from 5 to 4, this will decrease the energy bill that the school will have to pay, along with a ton of more benefits. Such as, transportations costs are down 35% in that period, utility costs are down by 8%, student attendance is fractionally lower, and student discipline incidents are down nearly 40%. The 4-day school week, does have its benefits, but what are the downfalls of only going to school four days of the week? Once Peach County in Georgia gets their test results back at the end of the year, we will see how this 4-day school week has effected the students learning and testing average.
What do you think? Do you like the idea of a 4-day school week? Why or why not?
This blog ties into the North Carolina Teaching Standard number one, because teacher are facilitating leadership, and taking charge of this massive budget cut in their county. Meetings are being planned were teachers can talk about the best ways to support their students during this budget cut, and that shows a great deal of leadership, to stand up for your students.
http://www.education.com/magazine/article/4-day-school-week/
Amber,
ReplyDeleteDo you know if the school days will be longer or if the students will be in school further into June than most schools? I understand why they are changing the schedule, but I don't know how they would get around the law that says you must attend school 180 days. I don't think that I would be a fan of 4 day weeks from an instructional perspective because I feel like there is so much information that we must cover and teach and shortening the time in the classroom makes it that much harder to cover everything that our students will need to know. I am interested to see the test scores for this school.
-Leslea
Amber,
ReplyDeleteIf we had a four day school week, it would be nice to have a longer weekend, of course. It would make the school days probably longer and this could make teachers and students burnt out a lot faster. I also don't know how you would be able to keep your class on pace to meet all of the curriculum requirements for that particular grade. I would have to research more before making a decision. It sounds very appealing, but the reality of this idea may not be in our best interest.
Amber,
ReplyDeleteI kind of like the idea of a four day school week. I would give us a longer weekend. However, the four days would be longer. I know of some people who attend schools that only go for four days out of the week and they all seem to like it. I can also see it from the other side as well. Having only four days out of the week to teach seems like a short amount of time. I know that there is so much material to get through that four days might be more stress on the students and teachers to get through all of the material. Great blog, Am.
Amber,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of a four day school week! I think any student and teacher would! At home we have a Global Magnet school where, I believe, they go to school 9 weeks and then are off four! I love that and I wish all schools would follow that schedule because research has proven that it is very beneficial! It is beneficial because it gives students resting time as well as they do not have a long summer so they do not forget stuff over that long break instead they keep going with shorter breaks so they feel more refreshed.