Are you looking for ideas to schedule your advisory class more effectively?
About Advisory Class
Advisory class is meant to be a more flexible time where teachers can connect with students, monitor school success and check students school work.
Most elementary school teachers are used to having a scheduled time in the day for homeroom.
It is relatively new that all middle schools and high schools have advisory class with one teacher who is their academic advisor for the school year.
The problem is when and how the advisory or homeroom class is scheduled by the school.
The Possible Difficulty in Planning for Advisory Class in High School and Middle School
Here are some common scenarios:
- Some schools have a more flexible schedule. Others have advisory every single day! And some schools…like mine…change their advisory schedule every single year! This makes it very difficult for both teachers and students to get into a routine!
- If advisory class happened too often in the week, it simply becomes too much!
- Some school districts are still figuring out what they want out of the advisory classes, leaving the teachers to improvise in the classroom.
- Some advisory classes have prescribed cirriculum that is redundant and gets boring to the students.
- The advisory classes are often scheduled without consistency- they either meet at irregular times, or they meet too often.
My advisory class story? My school has been changing advisory class schedules almost every year. Last year we had advisory once a month. This year we have it every single day. The teachers simply don’t have that much to plan for every day…
As frustrated as I am, I know I am not the only one.
Here is the one thing that I started that is proved very successful with students and with administration. So this is what I came up with instead.
My Advisory Class Lesson Planning
I give students in my advisory class ONE assignment every Monday. The assignment is usually a writing assignment asking them to think about their school work, what they are doing well and what they are yet to accomplish. Many of them are meant to prepare the students for their student-led conferences in the Fall.
Then during the week students need to complete this one goal. When they are done- they may do HW or have free time toward the end of the week.
Students LOVE it! They still do the work but there is some flexibility.
This accomplishes a few things:
- Students have an assignment but also a bit of a looser schedule. This way you plan once a week instead of once a day.
- The students feel good that they can earn free time as long as they have accomplished their goal for the week
- Students feel a sense of ownership as they can plan for their own time during the week.
- It relates to common core as there is quite a bit of writing and using LA as a part of my subject.
- It saves me a lot of time planning!
- It is easy to explain the system once the principal walks in.
High School and Middle School Advisory Activities
It is important to get to know your students and for them form form a community. Games and icebreakers can be of great help in achieving this goal. This booklet with fun games will be a great help in your advisory class.
Ready Advisory Lesson Plans
Sometimes the school year gets so busy that creating new materials and handouts adds a lot of stress. Using already created materials that other experiences teachers have used is always a smart idea. This is exactly why one of the articles on this blog on how to collect and use TpT materials became so popular! So if you need ready materials that you can use right away with your students, here are two great finds from Teachers Pay Teachers site.
How is Advisory or Homeroom Scheduled at Your School?
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