Hours For Senior Courses

Planning an NCEA Course.

It is really great to see that Kamar has an accurate record of all the entered credits for our senior academic students in NCEA.  I can see that all of our year 11 students (bar Alt Education and Memphis students) have over 100 credits that they're eligible for this year.

I thought that it would be a timely thing to look globally at our calendar of learning for the entire senior school.  Here is my analysis of the amount of time each subject/line has for the entire year.

Going from these numbers and the atypical credit count for courses.  I can see that courses that offer 20 credits (which is the modal number of credits at level one) have approximately five lessons for every credit.  So if you have a four credit standard that you're teaching then you should be allocating twenty lessons of time (this equates with our timetable to be thirty school days or six weeks of learning).

NZQA has some information on the guidelines around time and credit value (click here for the link)...

"Credits allocated to unit standards reflect the notional learning time expected for learners to meet the outcomes in those unit standards.  (Actual learning time will, of course, vary from learner to learner.)  Notional learning time includes time spent in structured tuition and self paced learning and practice; time taken to gather and provide evidence for assessment purposes; and time taken to be assessed in all the outcomes and contexts.   One credit represents a notional 10 hours of learning, practice, and assessment time."

I think that it is very important that all teachers are cognitive of the pressures of time for NCEA qualifications.  This needs to be thought of when considering the strengths of the cohort, the amount of credits you hope to cover in any course, the pressures of the time of the year (not much point in having internal assessments around the school exam week).FYI we are going to change the name of the school exam week to "compassionate consideration exam" to highlight the importance of getting the best possible grade.

All of this inherently links to study and homework.  That time where students can consolidate their learning from class.  With the above "10 hours" (which is very generous) there is a clear need for staff to plan on students learning at home.

Further to the idea of study is the increasingly common practice of posting learning online.  This can be achieved through a classroom blog or website.  Similarly the trend into 'flipped' classrooms will also add to the readiness of students to learn at home.

This post is related to RTC#  6. "Conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme." and RTC# 7. "Promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment. i. demonstrate effective management of the learning setting which incorporates successful strategies to engage and motivate ākonga."