Initial Thoughts

 

Sept. 30, 2021

The social program I will be evaluating is called the Personal Learning Time (PLT) model. There are variations of this initiative found in schools across our district and around the province. As well, there seem to be some similarities in more formalized, concretized practices in the United States: our PLT is kind of like the idea of "advisory period," only it is not built into the timetable as a consistent course with a designated teacher. PLT in our context, as I see it, adapts from this concept of advisory, but derives more from the after-school tutorial programs that run in our community. Pacific Community Resources Society offered one of these programs, which had an initiative called Learning Is First (LIFT) that ran for many years, through the early decades of the 2000's, where teachers and volunteers offered after-school academic and mentoring/ socioemotional support to at-risk students in the school as a drop-in program. With the PLT program, however, the entire staff is involved and all students are included. It occurs during school hours such that all students participate (as after-school hours may bar those with work and other commitments). It should be noted that our students are highly involved in their communities, and many partake in sports, volunteer, part-time work, and clubs after school. Teachers wish to encourage this involvement in the community, as this promotes social skills, connection to people and places, and confidence.

Twice a month for an hour each session, forty-one teachers open their classroom doors and prepare workshops or offer tutorials in their subject areas, for some roughly 600 students. While there is not necessarily additional funding for this program, teachers are resourceful and use the materials and lesson extensions that they have already been compiling. Teachers may choose their session to focus on a particular grade and subject (e.g. preparation for next week's Kinetic Molecular Theory quiz for the Grade 8's), or be a multi-grade session on a given topic (e.g. quote integration skills for English 9-10; MLA citation workshop for all grades). Sometimes, these PLT sessions are used for grade-wide workshops, however, and in the event a guest speaker is brought in, the teachers work with their department and administration to see about possible budget usage.