What is working with our current advisory system (advisory embedded in small learning communities)? What is not working? What is important about advisory? Should advisory remain embedded? Meet daily? Weekly? Monthly? Would you advocate for moving to a six-period day with a daily advisory?
http://www.essentialschools.org/cs/resources/view/ces_res/8#sidebar1
ReplyDeleteThis is a link to an excellent CES article about advisories. I would highly recommend it as a starting point for discussion.
In the Visual Art and Drama SLCs, many of our regular classroom activities naturally do double-duty as advisory activities. Debates, journal-writing, cooperative group work, and in-depth exploration of essential questions all seem to fulfill many of the goals of a typical advisory program. A strong community feeling develops, and students in the Drama block have repeatedly remarked that our class feels like a family. In the Visual Art block, we have had at least one formal individual meeting with each student to discuss academic and personal progress.
But there are many other important aspects of advisory that I think need to be worked into our curriculum, and it may be that we do need a separate class. I am looking forward to exploring options with all of you!
--Jacqui
One of the problems that I think we have with our current system is that those of us who are not SLC teachers and whose content doesn't easily lend itself to discussing/writing about personal thoughts and dreams, are left out. I would like to see both the time burden and the personal satisfaction shared across the staff.
ReplyDeleteCarol
WOW! This is a huge topic. Seems to be strongly attached to what our philosophy is on advisory and then the "funtion" of Advisory. What is it's purpose? What are the specific needs that it will meet for our students? Then, it seems we could answer some of the specific questions of who, how often to meet, etc. When we had advisory every day, it seemed as though we had too much time. Maybe Late start days once a week would be good for....well, depends on what we decide our Advisory does. During that time we also had an extra prep to work with our Advisory students for calls home, scheduling, etc. Merri
ReplyDeleteJeez, I need a post with spell check! That would be "function" and not "funtion". Mer
ReplyDelete