Study Approach Option for Homeschooling Highschool

There is such freedom in homeschooling, just one of the many things I love about it! One such freedom is all the options we have to decide what our kids study and how they study it. An option that many who homeschool highschool students may not be aware of is the “block plan” also nick-named the “Colorado Plan“.

As you might guess, this concept took root in Colorado at Colorado College in 1968. Their motto: “one thing at a time.” At a committee meeting, professors were discussing their concern that students were feeing pulled in too many directions at a time, i.e., spread too thin, depleting them of both time and energy. As a result, they felt that students were spending more time juggling schedules than learning. (Kind of sounds like public highschool students, doesn’t it?)

They wanted their students to have the time to be able to deeply grasp the subject they were studying, rather than doing only what had to be done in order to meet the requirements of all their other classes.

And so the Colorado Plan, which has come to be known as the Block Plan was born. 40 years later it is still used and considered a great success. As listed on the Colorado College site, these are the benefits they believe the Block Plan offers:

Complete immersion in one subject
No predetermined length for class discussions
Flexibility in scheduling class times and locations
Extended field trips and on-site learning
More hands-on, experiential learning
Creative research and extended field work opportunities
No cramming for four or five midterms or finals
Block breaks between each block, for relaxing and rejuvenating

Sounds pretty good to me.

So…How do we translate this to our homeschooled high school student? And will it work for every child?

How do we implement the Colorado/Block plan at home with our highschool kids? In a nutshell:

Focus on ONE subject at a time, preferably one of the academic subjects like science, math, english, etc.
- For example: my 17 year old granddaughter began using this approach several months ago and it is working very well for her. She choose to immerse herself in math, because it is her least favorite subject and she wants to get it over with.
- However, she continues to work on other “non-major” subjects like Current Events and cooking.

Decide how long you will work on that subject and divide the time to finish by your chosen date.
- Again, using my granddaughter – she thought she could handle working on math for 3-4 hours per day, because her time and attention weren’t divided with other subjects
- We then looked at the remaining work and hours needed to complete the course and could come up with incremental “deadlines” and a final finish date.
Determine what work will need to be done for a portfolio or however you choose to document work and keep track of it. Also keep track of the hours spent.
When that subject is finished, take a few days off to relax and then begin the next one. Rinse & repeat

Will this work for every child?

No. Being able to use this study option requires a student who can focus for long stretches and, while not necessary, it is also very helpful if they are self-motivated to stay on schedule.

Working on many subjects all at once left my granddaughter feeling like she was accomplishing very little and that she would never be able to get everything done – in a word, discouraged. With this plan, she can see her accomplishments and light at the end of the tunnel.

On the other hand, once we saw how well this option was working for my granddaughter, I discussed it with my grandson to see if he would like to give it a try. Not surprisingly, he said without much hesitation, “No way.”

He is not a student who can focus on one thing at a time for long stretches unless it’s something that really, really interests him & then he can focus for hours! His preference is to work on each subject in smaller chunks, every day or what ever schedule we’ve determined. So, the Block Plan is not a good study option for him.

If you think you have a highschool student that could benefit from this type of study option, give it a try & let the rest of us know how it works for you.

Sue

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 10:55 am and is filed under Home Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.