The Organizing Object

Since I started my career, I have been fascinated with master schedules. I know it is not the most glamorous part of school, but I see the potential in a master schedule to serve so many purposes in a school. The math of it all is a nice little challenge, trying to take the priorities of a school and match that up with their full time teacher allotment, finding possibilities for common prep - all of these factors are interesting to me. Economy, efficiency, balance, equity were all considerations in the dance of getting the master to 'make'. One of the underlying assumptions of every master schedule I have ever helped to craft is that the classroom is the organizing object.I've been working with some schools in Henry County, Georgia and we have started trying to craft a master schedule that uses the student as the organizing object. As I was sitting around the table with the team of teachers and admin, it occurred to me that the organizing object of the master schedule is another one of those structures that needs to be re-evaluated in modern schools, not just a rethink of the minutes and blocks of time.This weekend I am going to lead a conversation at EduCon 2.7 titled, Personalized, not Individualized. I plan to spend a bit of time around this idea of the organizing object of schools as a part of that conversation. I think there are such interesting ways to make our schools and the learning more personal to the students. Can't wait to kick off the conversation!