Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My co-worker in Loudon County felt that block scheduling was terrible for math. Some weeks his kid only had math 2x. It was not enough to keep it fresh.

Every other day for double the time was not that fresh? I guess college will be really hard for them.

Kid was 11..he has a while to prepare for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My co-worker in Loudon County felt that block scheduling was terrible for math. Some weeks his kid only had math 2x. It was not enough to keep it fresh.

Every other day for double the time was not that fresh? I guess college will be really hard for them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About an hour freshman/sophomore year.

Less than a half an hour junior year.

About an hour and a half senior year.

All honors classes except for required classes. 1 AP freshman, 2 AP sophomore, 5 AP junior, 5 AP + 2 post AP senior

AP History and social studies classes have a lot of homework, generally, because there is a lot of material to cover. DS was very lucky in that he liked history enough to know enough to just not do the reading in AP US/Euro/World (and got a 5 on all of them). If he had done the readings junior year he easily would have had as much homework as yours.

Weirdly enough, I've seen that as the classes transition from honors to AP, the homework turns into unchecked suggested studying. So it's easier to avoid doing it.

My DS is the same-- very good at estimating what needs to be done and skipping what doesn't. He is also a very aural learner, so he gets a lot out of lectures and class discussions. He's also very well-read and has a strong and long-standing interest in history, geography, government, politics, economics, so he has a strong base of knowledge from which to draw. And he's a good, fast writer. These attributes really pay off in social sciences, english, languages.

1 AP freshman year (score=4), 1 AP soph year (score=5), now a junior taking 3 APs and 5th year of language. I'd say he spends 1.5 hours per day on homework.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason why these schedules are so rough and the kids work so much is because they generally have classes every day. Think about it. In college, you have a class usually 3 times per week for 50 minutes or maybe only 2 times per week for an hour and 20 minutes. You don't take a bus to and from school in most colleges, you roll out of bed and walk. You just have more free time. The trouble with the AP world is that we are layering supposedly college level work on top of essentially a high school style schedule in 11th and 12th grade. For 9th and 10th, the trouble is often that many kids in APs aren't really ready for them. They need to learn how to handle a more rigorous high school class after middle school before jumping into college.

The reason is because of the grade inflation.

They should stop bumping grades of AP courses. Let kids take them but stop the grade inflation.

Most of these families are doing this to game the grades.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason why these schedules are so rough and the kids work so much is because they generally have classes every day. Think about it. In college, you have a class usually 3 times per week for 50 minutes or maybe only 2 times per week for an hour and 20 minutes. You don't take a bus to and from school in most colleges, you roll out of bed and walk. You just have more free time. The trouble with the AP world is that we are layering supposedly college level work on top of essentially a high school style schedule in 11th and 12th grade. For 9th and 10th, the trouble is often that many kids in APs aren't really ready for them. They need to learn how to handle a more rigorous high school class after middle school before jumping into college.

The reason is because of the grade inflation.

They should stop bumping grades of AP courses. Let kids take them but stop the grade inflation.

Most of these families are doing this to game the grades.

Anonymous wrote:The reason why these schedules are so rough and the kids work so much is because they generally have classes every day. Think about it. In college, you have a class usually 3 times per week for 50 minutes or maybe only 2 times per week for an hour and 20 minutes. You don't take a bus to and from school in most colleges, you roll out of bed and walk. You just have more free time. The trouble with the AP world is that we are layering supposedly college level work on top of essentially a high school style schedule in 11th and 12th grade. For 9th and 10th, the trouble is often that many kids in APs aren't really ready for them. They need to learn how to handle a more rigorous high school class after middle school before jumping into college.

Anonymous wrote:My co-worker in Loudon County felt that block scheduling was terrible for math. Some weeks his kid only had math 2x. It was not enough to keep it fresh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so - so far one school (Blair) out of how many use them? Not impressed

Not impressed with what? Block scheduling doesn't work for everyone. My kid hated it, and much preferred the 45 minute periods. Is there underlying research that proves that block scheduling is better for HS students? Some classes like languages, even in college, meet 4-5 times a week because the continually focus is thought to be better for knowledge acquisition.

I never had a class in college that was more than twice a week. Most AP classes like Chem, Physics, Statistics need more than 45min to teach, study, labs etc.. I think the reason there is so much HW is the teachers can't get it all in during that time frame. A 45min class is really 35-40min tops considering unpacking and getting ready. It isn't enough and the HW is piled on.