Do teachers really know what students go through? To find out, one teacher followed two students for two days and was amazed at what she found. Her report is in following post, which appeared on the blog of Grant Wiggins, the co-author of “Understanding by Design” and the author of “Educative Assessment” and numerous articles on education. A high school teacher for 14 years, he is now the president of Authentic Education, in Hopewell, New Jersey, which provides professional development and other services to schools aimed at improving student learning. You can read more about him and his work at the AE site.
Wiggins initially posted the piece without revealing the author. But the post became popular on his blog and he decided to write a followup piece revealing that the author was his daughter, Alexis Wiggins, a 15-year teaching veteran now working in a private American International School overseas. Wiggins noted in his follow-up that his daughter’s experiences mirrored his own and aligned well with the the responses on surveys that his organization gives to students.
From our UK perspective, much here rings true, but I should add that the 90 minute lesson blocks seem to us to be unbelievably long. We would usually schedule 45-50 minute lessons, with the rest being time given to allow moving from one class to another. Double classes do happen, especially in sciences, but usually only in final years when important exams loom.
By ‘the rest’ I mean 10-15 minutes, so that the sessions are effectively an hour long. Apologies for vagueness.