Tip: Setting Up a Weekly Schedule
Helping students set reasonable expectations for what their semester will look like.
I’ve shared this activity in various forms for several years now, including a version for instructors. It remains one of the best “getting started” pieces to help students, whether new to college or not, set reasonable expectations for what their semester will look like. I’m sharing it here as part of the “back to school” series. If you find it helpful, please consider sharing it with a colleague!
As the semester gets started, I wanted to share an activity I use with every new group of students I teach: creating a comprehensive weekly schedule. This schedule is intentionally thorough, prompting students to document as completely as possible their weekly commitments and obligations. I ask them to consider various dimensions of their lives, including class schedules, dedicated time slots for online assignments, anticipated hours dedicated to homework, as well as work commitments, family responsibilities, exercise routines, and sleep patterns.
The primary aim of this activity is to encourage students to develop a practical and insightful view of their schedules. It invites them to engage in a realistic assessment of their available time and the academic demands of the courses they are taking. This approach to setting student expectations serves several fundamental purposes:
Time Management: The process of crafting a comprehensive schedule equips students with a heightened awareness of the time commitments associated with their academic journey. This heightened awareness empowers them to effectively prioritize tasks, cultivating strong time management skills.
Realistic Goal Setting: This practice encourages students to establish academic and personal objectives grounded in the context of their existing commitments and available time.
Self-Reflection: Constructing a weekly schedule prompts students to engage in introspection, encouraging them to evaluate their strengths, weaknesses, and potential hurdles.
Enhanced Communication: The requirement for students to present their schedules during our initial meeting fosters open lines of communication between the instructor and the student. This dialogue serves as an opportunity to identify potential scheduling conflicts, explore available support resources, and lay the foundation for a supportive and productive learning environment.
Personal Accountability: Encouraging students to take ownership of their schedules reinforces personal responsibility and autonomy. This practice underscores that academic success is a product of choices and actions, emphasizing the importance of active engagement in the learning process.
When possible, I invite students to a one-on-one meeting with me, where we discuss their schedules, assess their time management choices, anticipate potential challenges, and explore avenues for improvement. As the semester progresses, this schedule serves as a recurring point of reference that I revisit whenever I engage with a student who might be facing academic challenges.
Link to the shareable spreadsheet
I hope you find this useful - please let me know if you have any questions!
I've just added a week-level planning assignment for my intro course. I'm basically piloting it as extra credit for now, but I may make it a regular assignment once the kinks are worked out.
I have two questions about your implementation. First, do students ever push back against handing you their full personal schedule? For the time being, I've only asked them to plan their work for my course and, while they should work around obligations like jobs, family, etc., they don't need to identify those for me. Your activity is more comprehensive and I could imagine a student feeling it was intrusive.
Second, a plan needs review, so I've included an activity where they reflect on the week's plan, how well the plan fit the work they needed to do, how well it fit the other things that had priority in their lives, and how well they stuck to the plan (and if they didn't, why not). It sounds like you bring them back to the plan if they're having problems, but do you have them do other assessments of the plan anyway?
Thanks for this, and I'm definitely adding a link to your spreadsheet for any students who are interested in the more detailed work!
Very helpful. ❤️