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.