Productive Advisory Groups

What is with advisory groups being unproductive? It might be because there isn't enough time to get everything accomplished that needs to be. I have experienced a few different types of "advisory" groups. I have found the ones that meet for 5-7 minutes in the morning do not have time to accomplish anything because this is also the same time that the school wide announcements are being held.

My personal opinion is that there needs to be more time each day for home base or an advisory group. And why does this need to be in the beginning of the day? Taking 15-20 minutes in the middle of the day for home base allows the students to take breaks and pay more attention to the information that is being presented to them during this time period. In the morning students are dragging their feet through the hallway and have not had time to wake their brain up. At the end of the day students are anxious to get home or off to whatever they might have going on after school. In the middle of the day students are still in school mode but are still focused and their brains are more than likely not sleeping.

Not Just a Math Teacher ....

One of the ideas of this week was being responsible for something other than their own subject area. When I was doing work at the James F. Doughty Middle School all teachers had a study hall and a free reading class. These allowed the students to have class with a teacher that wasn't part of their core group of teachers. It also allowed the teachers to interact with a group of students they might not have had the opportunity to interact with. This gave the school a much more connected feeling because teachers were exposed to new things and new students outside of their area.

I worked closely with a French teacher and she loved having an English Prep class once a day because it allowed her brain to change gears and focus on something other than what she was doing all day long. She said it refreshed her brain for the rest of the day because she was able to do something other than her normal subject.