#6. Student Flex Days

What Are Flex Days?

Updated Information:  Flex days are days in which the student may not be required to attend AP Psychology.   They can choose instead to work on their digital assignment or go to approved locations in the school building.  The days are determined based on the curriculum and can vary in number from week to week.  The students are notified as to when they occur at the beginning of the unit.  Reminders are also posted in Canvas.  

Student Attendance: They will be required to attend class five days a week if their AP Psychology grade drops below a C- or if they are asked to attend for additional instruction, remediation or extension activities.  However, they are more than welcome to come to our classroom every day day if they wish!

Some possible uses for flex days include;

1. Test Corrections - Students are required to complete test corrections.  The AP Psychology exam is cumulative and the students are responsible for all material covered in the course.  If they did not master the learning objective at the time of the unit exam, re-teaching is necessary.  I provide class time for the students to complete test corrections because so many of them have little or no free time during their academic day.  My test correction form for Unit 6 can be found here.

2. Remediation - Students who earn a C- or lower are required to attend class every day of the week.  This will allow me to better assess their needs as a learner and help them become successful through targeted interventions. Typically, a student who is struggling has not completed the formative assessments necessary to master the content.  This could include classroom demos, notes or reading assignments.  Another common problem that students experience is poor test taking skills.  The wording of the unit exams closely mirror the college board's exam.  The wording of the questions can be complex and the questions require the students to apply the terms, not just to identify them.  Meeting individually with students will allow us to identify what the root of the problem is, develop a system to overcome it and help to ensure each student's success.

3. Small Group Discussion - Flex days will allow for more in-depth discussions.  The smaller number of students will allow for all of the student's voices to be heard.  The study of psychology lends itself to discussion strategies like Socratic Seminars & Philosopher Chairs, as well as informal debates and discussions.

4. Cognitive-Based Learning Strategies - I cannot recommend highly enough the work of the Learning Scientists. They offer a variety of research-based strategies designed to improve student learning including retrieval practice, spaced practice, elaboration, interleaving, developing concrete examples and dual-coding.  My time with the students on Tuesday and Thursday will utilize all of these strategies to improve their long-term comprehension of our course material.  For example, as a review for our Unit 10 exam the students could create concepts maps demonstrating what they learned.  They would first create the concept notes without their notes or books, they could then fill in the missing information, provide concrete examples and add in visuals (dual coding).  The Effortful Educator added an interesting twist to this by requiring the students to highlight the information that they could easily retrieve in one color and information that they needed to look up in another color.  As they repeat the process, they should see a progression in their learning the more times they access the information.

5. Crafting Test Questions - We will use this time to write test questions to quiz each other. Requiring the students to write their own test questions requires true mastery of the content - including examples and non-examples - and synthesis of the information.  We can use the questions for retrieval practice using interactive quizzing platforms Kahoot or through the development of practice quizzes.

6. Test review -Students will be required to attend a review session on the Tuesday or Thursday before the exam if they did not pass the previous unit's exam with a C- or better.  This would be open to all students.  I do not typically spend a full class period reviewing for a test in the traditional model.

7. AP Psychology Exam - During 2nd semester, the flex days can also be used to prepare for the AP Exam in May.  This time will be used to practice writing and grading free response questions as well as taking practice exams from previous units.  Our district goal is that 90% of students enrolled in an AP course sit for the exam.  I believe that more students will feel confident in their ability to take and pass the exam when additional review opportunities are provided.

What will the students do if they are not in my class on a flex day?  What will they be doing if they are not scheduled for a Tuesday or Thursday?

A question that I am commonly asked is "what will the students be doing on the flex days that they are not scheduled to be in class?" In regards to my course, this time can be used to complete the digital assignments that they were assigned for the week.  The blended and traditional model will be completing comparable activities.  The difference lies in the format, location and transmission of the content.  In the blended model, they can choose to complete the assignments in or out of school

I see a number of other possible uses for this time.  They can go to our Math and Lit center to receive additional support in English or Math, they can complete test corrections or revisions for other courses, they can meet with other teachers for tutoring, they can peer tutor other students, volunteer as a teacher assistant or take some time for themselves and decompress.

I will not know for sure how these days will shape up until I am in the trenches next year.  I will be documenting my uses of these days throughout the year and the students will be self-reporting their uses for flex days as part of our data collection process. I would love to hear any ideas that you have for this time as well.  Please feel free to share your suggestions and experiences in the comment section below.