On Scheduling What to Study Day by Day/Semester by Semester

Just read a post about students doing several lessons a day of one or two subjects. I think this is great! I advocate an "OPEN SCHEDULE" approach as a rule, unless a student needs an unusual amount of structure. By "open schedule", I mean: -SEMESTER-LONG TARGETS are established and agreed upon by parents/tutors and students. These targets could even be year long, and might include a year of math, x number of history courses, science courses, writing courses, current event courses, books to read, etc. The goals should be REASONABLE AND REAL, but STEEP ENOUGH TO CHALLENGE.

-On a DAILY basis, the student determines what they wish to study. (They do NOT decide how long they wish to study as a rule. There are usually legal requirements. i.e. - in California, it's 4 hours per day, 180 days a year, plus some other requirements.) This allows students to focus on subjects they're winning at, and make excellent progress. So long as ALL the semester or yearly targets are met, this freedom provides the student a higher responsibility level, and a sense of ownership in their studies. So long as the student is learning and progress is made each study day, it's all good. (Don't forget to get a lot of physical activity in there, like sports, dance, whatever! It's generally required to some degree.) I discuss this in the free document on currclick entitled How To Do Connect The Thoughts Courses Course . You can see that document here , and I'm going to post all it's contents shortly on the CTT site as well. Anyway, bottom line, STUDYING IS FOR THE STUDENT, NOT THE SCHOOL SYSTEM, PARENT, TUTOR, OR ANYONE ELSE. If the student has some control over the process, they will enjoy it more and invest more easily into the work, just as I or you would.

     Steven Horwich
     Connect The Thoughts