March 6, 2008
The Students 2.0 blog is turning out to be one of my most valuable feeds. Anthony Chivetta’s recent post about a school’s experiment with Mini-Term is no exception. Here at the Paideia School, we have two month-long short terms each year with a similar philosophy but implemented very differently. (Our short terms last a month, with several different classes each day; the mini-term described in the article is four days long, and each student has one class that lasts all day, everyday.) Reading a student’s perspective on his experience in Mini-Term has given me some ideas to think about in trying to make the most of my short term classes.
Chivetta writes, “By giving students one overarching project, learning was able to happen through experience. . . There was no grade, there was no homework, there was no test — the assessments were thrown out of the window. But, it was a stronger experience because of that. Students didn’t fear failure, they weren’t scared to learn something for the experience of learning. There was however a final product, and one that the students could be proud of.” This is the type of environment I’ve tried to set up in my short-term Robotics classes and in my current long-term Computer Science class. While I’ve seen positive results in my own classes, it’s nice to see the approach supported by a thoughtful student perspective.
The idea of having one group of students all day for a week is an intriguing one. It didn’t surprise me to read Chivetta’s observation that the mini-term classes that consisted primarily of traditional classroom instruction were less successful. “Students simply can’t sit at a desk for 6 hours a day learning about the same subject matter.”–in fact most have as much trouble (or more) sitting at a desk to learn 6 different subjects. The total immersion he describes is something that students in my short-term classes don’t experience. At best, they get two hours a day of one class. I’d love to see first-hand how their experience would change if they were no longer confined by the daily schedule.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I am somewhat frustrated by the time limits that are arbitrarily assigned to classes. I teach multiple grades. a kindergarten student needs a different time frame than a third grader. A certain topic needs more time than another. Some topics need to be worked on everyday. How can learning be authentic if the setting is not.
April 1st, 2008 at 9:52 am
# learning is fun
Monkey Hunter, Paidea’s use of two month-long short terms is an interesting one. As I am the environmental director at Trinity, I’m not in a classroom on a regular basis; however, our 6th graders have a time at the end of the year when they pursue independent projects while the entire grade level is involved with the production of a large-scale opera (for an elementary school). Perhaps they will find your blog of interest…I’ll pass it along.