Submitted by Guest Blogger on
This is one in a series of blog posts about the recent Midwest High School SIG Conference, held May 18-19, in Chicago.
During the opening remarks of the session, Organizing for High School Change: Increased Learning Time, I cited research indicating that the number of instructional hours or days per year has not changed dramatically over the past few decades, but that increasing time has become a popular school improvement strategy—a strategy required under SIG regulations. The idea is that increasing time will result in increased learning. However, the research testing this hypothesis is merely suggestive and weak overall. This is not especially surprising because more is not necessarily better; what matters is how time is used. During the session, panelist Claire Kaplan, from the National Center on Time & Learning, described ways that effective “expanded time high schools” used time:
To view Claire’s presentation, go to http://www.betterhighschools.org/MidwestSIG/agenda2pm.asp#Session4d.
Guest Author: Becky Smerdon is founder and Managing Director at Quill Research Associates, LLC and a member of the National High School Center’s Blog Editorial Team.
Note: This blog post was originally authored under the auspices of the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR). The National High School Center’s blog, High School Matters, which ran until March 2013, provided an objective perspective on the latest research, issues, and events that affected high school improvement. The CCRS Center plans to continue relevant work originally developed under the National High School Center grant. National High School Center blog posts that pertain to CCRS Center issues are included on this website as a resource to our stakeholders.
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