Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by jamescostian on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:44AM (#16717041)

> There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day

Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second job or see their own kids) and complain about having to stay at school because there isn't enough time between similar classes that are spread across different times of day.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by olympus on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:52AM (#16717122)

Because a single PE teacher can manage five rotating classes of twenty kids throughout the day. If kids didn't rotate periods, then all 100 kids would take PE at the same time. That would require extra PE teachers, because one teacher cannot manage 100 kids. Multiply this effect by every different area (music teachers, art teachers, etc.) and you have to hire a bunch of extra teachers which is a waste of money. Plus, those teachers would only be busy for part of the day, so their wasting a lot of their time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by greenyoda on Friday March 30, 2018 @05:03PM (#16719775)

> That would require extra PE teachers

It would also require a much larger gym and much more equipment. Same for all other subjects: many more musical instruments for music class, etc.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by exelius on Friday March 30, 2018 @02:33PM (#16718632)

These specialized teachers are non-existent in many schools. You may have a PE teacher, but they may or may not already be full time. Art teacher? LOL

Many school districts around the country are far too broken to worry about start times. The republicans have done a very good job of starving education for money over the last 20 years, and rampant corruption within the teachers unions and school/district administrations doesn’t help the situation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by Jemmeh on Friday March 30, 2018 @03:22PM (#16719022)

Everyone keeps saying PE but imagine 1 math teacher trying to teach 150 kids at once. Not effective with traditional teaching. We already struggle with overly large class sizes making it harder to teach.

I got to go to a fancy school where there were like 12 kids in the class. It was amazing, I learned so much during my time there. Conversely, I went to some pretty shoddy city schools as well and the teacher could barely get the students to just be quiet.

I will say in yet another school (I moved A LOT) for my final semester of high school I went to an alternative school where you did all your coursework on the computers. You could work as fast or as slow as you wanted. It didn't take very many teachers to run that at all. The computer took care of most of it, including hints and letting you rewatch how to solve the problem. I loved this-- school was always kind of boring and I was always one of the first to finish and just end up reading a book...but I was able to finish up my whole class extremely quickly (I think a month or so, it's been a few years).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biol... by war1025 on Friday March 30, 2018 @11:49AM (#16717103)

At least where I went to school, teachers generally had full schedules with maybe one period empty for prep. If they are teaching multiple sections of the same class, it isn't feasible to lump all classes of a certain kind into one part of the day. The same person can't teach multiple classes at once.

[ Parent | on HN ]