This commentary describes the limitations of 40-minute class period times. The forty-minute system makes hash of the lives of teachers, especially in small schools, and about 80 percent of high schools have fewer than two hundred pupils. These small schools crowd their forty-minute periods with as many diverse and unrelated activities as possible,…

Jo-Anne Kerr relies on teacher-research practices to discover insights for making her classes more beneficial to "resistant learners." She shares her experience of observing two previously struggling male vocational-technical students, conducting informal and formal interviews with them throughout the year, and collecting data from their…

More and more high schools are implementing Advisory programs for a variety of reasons: personalization, academics & study skills, life success skills, self-knowledge, addressing the concern about students feeling "lost" in the high school setting, first line of contact for the parents, and portfolios. But finding a way to schedule advisory can…