Woodside High School is currently testing out a possible replacement to SSR – tutorials – and students have reacted positively to the change. [satisfying, but not engaging]
“Tutorials” are a thirty-five minute chunk of time in between lunch and sixth/seventh period for students to get a head-start on their homework. This idea is similar to Sustained Silent Reading – the twenty minutes a day set aside for reading every day – and will be at the same time the students are used to having SSR. Students are allowed to read, do homework, or even go to another teacher to make-up work or get clarification on something they were confused about instead of only being allowed to read. Another difference is that this independent work time is an increase from the time students received in SSR should help lesser the amount of homework students will have to complete outside of school.
“I like tutorials much better than SSR because in tutorials you have access to a lot more resources and have more options of how to spend this time,” Daniel Sochoux, a junior at Woodside explained. “I know that a lot of students attempt to work on homework during SSR but when they pull out their work they end up getting in trouble because that is against what the time is supposed to be used for. By changing permanently to tutorials this problem will be eliminated and create much less conflict throughout classrooms”.
Currently Woodside High School is only testing out tutorials for two weeks but based on the feedback from students and teachers it could very likely replace SSR in the future.
“I think tutorials are a lot more helpful than SSR because of the many options students have,” Johnathan Czarnecki, a Woodside High School junior stated. “I think that permanently switching to tutorials would be a very good idea.”
I like tutorials much better than SSR because in tutorials you have access to a lot more resources and have more options of how to spend this time.
— Daniel Sochoux
Thirty-five minutes added onto the ninety minutes classes already are seems like a lot of time for students to be sitting with no break it seems that the upside of having less work to do at home cancels out this negative.
“I think the tutorials are pretty great,” Vianne Nickel a Woodside High School junior exclaimed. “Some of my teachers would let me do homework besides reading in SSR but during tutorial every teacher allows me to do homework and I have more time which means I can get a lot more work done.”
Students have the option to leave their classroom and go to another classroom to makeup a test, get clarification from a teacher, make- up work, or even to get access to more resources. All they need to do is get a pass filled out by both the teacher they will be going to and the teacher whos tutorial they are missing and they will be free to go.
“Getting a pass wasn’t difficult at all”, Sochoux explained. “I just went to the classroom I wanted to spend SSR in during brunch and asked for a tutorial pass, then during lunch I went to the class I would be leaving and told the teacher how I where I would be and she just signed my pass and then I was free to get my work done in the other class.”
Depending on the feedback from all the Woodside staff, students, and parents tutorials could permanently replace SSR.
“In SSR we were only allowed to read which I didn’t think was as productive as tutorials have been because we get so many more opportunities in tutorials”, Czarnecki stated, “I just wish we had tested tutorials out earlier.”
While most students seem to be fans of the tutorials the experience in every classroom is different and not everyone is a fan of them.
“I was a little bit disappointed when tutorials started because I was optimistic about them, but now I don’t see the point in them”, Morrise Law a senior at Woodside stated his opinion on tutorials. I just think students should just go to office hours when they need help.”
