Over the past seven months, in addition to my duties and responsibilities as the Director of Academic Technology, I have had the opportunity to become the Scheduler for our High School. I really do enjoy the intellectual challenge of fitting the pieces of student requests and faculty desires into the puzzle and come out with something that works.

Today, while meeting with the Upper School division head, he threw out an interesting challenge. Based upon the following three objectives, each on their merit are worthy projects:

1. The desire to create time for faculty to collaborate with each other and provide built-in opportunities for professional growth, professional development, and curricular review.
2. The desire to create time for groups of students to work and support each other, both students working collaboratively on a shared project and experienced students working with those who may be struggling.
3. The desire to create time for groups of faculty and students to have more in-depth and immersive projects, including service-learning initiatives and focused research by groups around areas of passion.

How can we change:

1. The weekly timetable to accommodate time in school, since it is finite.

   and

2.  How can the changes be managed by teachers who are used to teaching their subject area in discrete 50 or 70 minute blocks four times a week.

These are interesting questions whose answers I will be developing over the next few weeks. These are timely, especially in light of the  Time magazine cover story.

I know that several people have had these conversations and I will be seeking them out.