Tick Tock

Many people have a stack of novels beside their bed, but don't read them.  Aspiring artists have canvasses and watercolours in a spare room but don't use them.  New moms load up on scrapbooking materials, never to take them out of the packages.  And teachers have heads full of great new ideas and best practice strategies for use with their students but end up falling back on what they always have done. The missing ingredient for all of these good intentions to be more successful? 

Time.

Time is definitely a resource.  A commodity.  While it might not seem like something a person can just "pack in their toolkit", this blog post serves to outline different ways time can be structured within a school day or calendar in order for a few of the OTHER tools in a teacher's UDL kit to be fully realized.  Granted, some of these suggestions (although not all) are at the mercy of an administrator's discretion to implement - but that is my context and is therefore what makes this ToolKit Resource a relevant choice for me.  Being that we are a Rocky View cohort I will reference current RVS examples and calendars, sometimes in comparison to other jurisdictions.

Did you know not all school jurisdictions have common professional learning days?  I was shocked to hear that in some places, schools individually choose their PD Days and, understandably, this drives families crazy as kids in three schools could have all different days off!   I bring this up so that we can be thankful for our calendar committee who coordinates this for us.  Not only is it more civilized for families but it allows us to connect with colleagues across the division.  It also allows our Community of Practice Days to function as they do.  I recognize we may know of colleagues who do not fully appreciate or participate in these days but what a gift of collaborative time they are. That, plus we get to choose what we work on and who we work with.

Further to our common calendar is the creation of our new, self-directed professional learning days. This is another true gift of time built into our professional lives that I hope all staff is benefitting from.  Readers unfamiliar with these, our Board has approved two full work days where staff can focus on advancing their professional goals, independently or with colleagues.  I personally appreciate that one of these days follows convention as this will be time to consolidate and prepare to implement new things we've learned at the conference.

Teachers' Convention is further time we need to ensure we are fully utilizing.  Where else can we find such a multitude of professional offerings for less that $75 (our portion of ATA dues paying for the event)?!  Teachers who say. "There is nothing for me" or who skip more than one (lunch) session each day are not fully capitalizing what is being offered during these valuable two days.  Spend the time well!  There are many session related to inclusion, differentiation and other effective teaching practices in the 2015 program.

At a school level, of course prep time is sacred.  (Although Rocky View would no longer like us to call it "prep time" but rather, "non-instructional time".)  Although RVS teachers had the article in prior collective agreements, at least the province has now recognized and mandated the maximum 907 instructional hours for all teachers.  With 1000 (minimum) instructional hours required for secondary students and 950 for elementary students, although we might not feel like we have have enough non-instructional time, the easy math suggests we be thankful we have what we do.  What people do during this time is up to them, except where some of the upcoming models to be mentioned may also be in play.

Common prep time - for teachers within the same department or grade team, or sometimes for learning support teachers to meet with individuals to differentiate curriculums - is a little more structured in terms of agenda but a valuable way for teams to meet during their work day and not before or after.  Principals must be able to timetable effectively and creatively in order to facilitate these common meeting times, however.  And it isn't free!  Similarly, embedded blocks of meeting time (I have heard of hours up to half days) are other ways to schedule professionals together.  The difference between true common prep time and the embedded suggestion is the necessity for teachers to create sub plans for the larger blocks, which subtracts some of the benefit.  I have heard of certain school hiring fractional teachers (0.1fte or even less) who come in for consistent subject delivery and then, being an "official" staff member, are required to do the planning and assessing, etc.  But again, not cheap!

Purchasing occasional sub time is another common option in schools and was utilized widely back in the "AISI Days".  With the extinction of AISI, many schools have adopted a coaching lead instead and now time might be purchased to work with coaches on researching, planning and implementing new practices.  If a reader here has access to time with a ULE coach, book it!  What better, focused way to collaboratively advance UDL practice?

When timetabling, not only does prep time factor is but so should the schedules of the students and how to support them.  Schools with common literacy times or opportunities to implement Response to Intervention models in Language Arts or Math facilitate a teacher's practice.  Thought can be put in to maximizing instructional time, for the benefit of all learners, too.

Money will always be the most common constraint against time being purchased for teachers’ benefit.    And the size of a school dictates how freely such funds flow.  There is already great disparity in Rocky View regarding some of these suggestions, not because an administrator doesn't think it'd be a great idea, but because the size of their community is just too small to generate the budget required.  In my current situation, administration "gifted" free prep and supervision time as a small token of thanks.  Staff members can ask one of their administrators to cover a class or a supervision block if they need a bit of time back in a day.  This is basically free. And, while the token itself was enthusiastically received, it is interesting that next to no one has cashed it in yet (and, based on past experience, will not.)  

A further constraint can be with teams who lack cohesion in either how to spend their common time or who balk at meeting together during it.  This isn't a constraint of the time, however.  Related is the entitled attitude of some staff that no one should now ever have to meet at any time other than an embedded opportunity.  Generally though, people recognize the job extends well beyond (or before) the times students are in our midst and therefore it is "normal" to spend non-instructional hours working on our practice as well.

How do we access all the tools in our kit and advance all the UDL possibilities?  By maximizing one of the most valuable teaching resources there is.  It is out there and it is accessible.  It is up to US what we do with it when it is provided.