Time/effort/energy

Students often want to know how much time they will need to devote to T.E.A.M. We use the New York State guideline of 8 hours of homework for every six credits of in-person classes. But, it's not really 8 hours of homework tacked onto someone's already busy life. It's something else.

In T.E.A.M., faculty mentors and students rethink time/effort/energy in our lives, trying to clarify our deepest and most cherished goals and value and what part of ourselves we give to them. We seek a learning world in which what's important is continually nourished with time/effort/energy in ways that loop and fold tasks into one another rather than piling them on top of one another.

Of course, if we look at the 8 hours we suggest, we have not tackled the quality and outcomes of those 8 hours. Eight hours "playing" at the computer in a graphic software program, changing shapes and colors, or eight hours conducting google search, is quite different from the kind of 8 hours we have in mind. We seek 8 hours (a combined EEV, technology, and PG & S with assignments in each area) of high quality work that either produces outcomes or sets the stage for outcomes to be produced in the future. As all students are not equal in their knowledge and skills and we do not seek to make them equal, 8 hours for one person, stretching and learning may look very different from an equally successful 8 hours for another.

And... our most engaged students usually spend far more than 8 hours. We are starting to think about "base" and "depth." If 8 hours can yield success, that, perhaps, is the base. For each step we take, though, if we offer greater depth (optionally), we better model the kind of deep, deep learning we respect and seek for some. We see this as quite different from an "optional" reading list. We see it as more and more sunk into the world we are creating together with facets that may seek greater knowledge and skills on the one hand but simultaneously build the learning place in more meaningful and transformational ways.

So... time that is not time as we might traditionally think of it, eight hours that is of varying quality, eight hours as base but offerings of more. Mostly... time/effort/energy as concepts to consider while seeking to create purposeful learning and the building of learning environments we most want to build.

A new year

Planning with mentors in a team teaching environment requires us all to rethink what we value and why before we create our contributions to our semester plans. This year has some new dimensions. We have four teams in all. I teach in two of them but am planning for all four. Here's how.

The East End (EE) and Half Hollow Hills (HHH) teams enter their second year in the program. The teaching teams for the EE (of which I am a member) and HHH are constructing their plans in wikis. We are sharing ideas across the EE and HHH wikis, envisioning similarities in ways we never did before. It's quite exciting. Of special note is that students in the two teams are seasoned students in the program. What we hope to accomplish and what they hope to accomplish is already grounded with the work in Year One. Now... we can build leadership into Year Two, asking each Year Two student to lead across all four teams in some ways.

The two new teams are being conceptualized together. One, Monday nights in Herricks, will have 10 team nights. The other, in the Town of Huntington, Tuesday nights, will hold 5 sessions in-person and 5 online. What the teams do, though, will be parallel for the first time. I am a mentor in Herricks but actively planning for and with the mentors in Herricks and those in the Town of Huntington.

So... we move into greater clarity and great unity across all four teams.