Example: Scheduling / Calendaring
What’s the purpose of scheduling/calendaring?
(why does this skill matter?)
● Scheduling requires the important skill of prioritization, which is necessary so that you
spend your time doing what’s most important
● Scheduling is an effective process for breaking down tasks - essential in all skilled
professions
● Scheduling helps with self-awareness and self-management: it lets you know if you’re
on or off track, and gives you information to adjust plans accordingly
● Scheduling is important for stress management: instead of procrastinating, which
causes high stress and leads to unhealthy behaviors, managing time is a way to be
successful and emotionally healthy
● Scheduling forces planning ahead, which means that issues and questions can be
addressed and answered before they become urgent. This is helpful for creating quality
work by clarifying expectations.
● People who schedule are able to get more done, and to make conscious choices about
focusing time, energy, and quality work
● Scheduling/calendaring is important because it triggers strategy shifting and responding
to setbacks: if you don’t have a plan, you can’t adjust your work. If you do have a plan,
you can adapt quickly and consciously to changing circumstances.
● Helps people stay well-rounded
● Aids effective reflection
● Helps us, as people, complete tasks when they are important but not yet urgent
● Allows us more free time
● Builds trust - if others see you as a good scheduler, they offer you more autonomy
because of it
● Builds a feeling of success that enables you to continue: you have small benchmarks of
progress
● Backwards planning: starting with the end in mind is important in all fields
● Goal orientation, an important quality for professionals, is emphasized by scheduling
● Makes communication with other interested people effective and efficient.
What does mastery look like?
(a person is college/career ready if they...)
● Know what to do next
● Physical calendar, with benchmarks written clearly
○ Or multi-tabbed google docs
● Know if on, ahead of, or behind pace
● Know how long tasks take, approximately
● Set realistic deadlines
● Predict where stumbling blocks may be
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Seek help appropriately when problems arise
Prioritize
Realistic with time
Can visualize the use of time
Understand variables around space, composition of group, context of work, etc. Can
choose the right environments for different tasks.
Manage distractions to stay on track
Can make the right trade-offs
When they miss deadlines, they do so consciously and know how to confidently coursecorrect
Regulate emotions when it comes to calendaring and carrying out a plan
Communicate clearly when priorities and tasks change
Learning from failures (reflective) rather than frustrated/overwhelmed by failures
What does scheduling/calendaring look like at different levels of
autonomy?
(feel free to break down further - this is a basic framework)
Incoming 9th
Grade
Low Autonomy, Highly Scaffolded
● Student is initially given a project calendar with due dates for each
step in the learning module.
○ The project calendar is introduced as a model, and time is
given to the introduction of “purpose” and “mastery.” Thus,
students understand that the calendar is a scaffold that will
be removed, and that the point is for them to be selfdirected schedulers, since this is an essential skill for
college and career readiness.
● Teacher provides a list of all CAs associated with a project,
including optional CAs that are advisable at a particular time of the
year. Teacher also provides a space on the project calendar for
students to write in which CAs they will have passed by when.
The class goes through the process of scheduling together, with
the understanding that while some of the calendars may look
slightly different, they will be 95% similar.
○ Even in this process, which leads to every student having
essentially the same pacing towards content completion,
purpose is emphasized and scheduling is treated as an
important skill for students to be able to demonstrate on
their own.
● Mentor checks in with student about progress towards completion
of the content assessments and project, emphasizing the
importance (purpose) of scheduling.
● Students reflect upon their progress with scheduling their time.
End of 9th Grade
Increased Autonomy, Some Scaffolds Removed
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Students are given a list of learning module steps and content
assessments, along with a blank calendar, on the first day of a
project.
Students calendar their own work, given their individual needs and
pace. Teachers support students in this work, which is made
public (either online or physically).
Students provide feedback to one another on their scheduling.
Students are asked to articulate why they have calendared as
they have (with mentor, and with teachers when necessary).
End of 10th
Grade
Additional Scaffolds Removed; Student Remains Successful Although
Challenged
● Students are able to plan for the 11th grade by looking at all work
to be completed and calendaring their year.
● Students reflect upon their own abilities to schedule their time and
explain their strengths, weaknesses, and challenges in
scheduling.
● Teachers provide no explicit materials to facilitate
scheduling/calendaring, but do provide time at the beginning of
each project for students to calendar.
● All projects are submitted with a written reflection by students on
how effectively they scheduled their time.
● Mentors check in monthly with all students (more with some, of
course) with the express purpose of discussing prioritization, time
management, and calendaring skills and behaviors.
● Students are expected to have a defensible
calendaring/scheduling system that they can share at any point
with a teacher or mentor.
End of 11th
Grade
Students are Moving Close to High Autonomy
● Students can, at all points in school, explain how what they are
doing is contributing to their learning plan, and to their learning
goals.
● Students are provided no materials beyond the PLP Tool to
calendar their time, but are expected to have a defensible system
of scheduling that effectively prioritizes work and appropriately
manages time.
● Projects continue to have ordered learning module steps, although
there are fewer steps for assignments such as lab reports and
essays than in earlier years.
● Power content assessments continue to be overtly linked to
projects.
● Revision and redemption remains the ongoing policy.
● Students lead check-ins with mentors around scheduling.
College Ready
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Projects do not have steps in the learning module. Students are
expected to schedule interim deadlines to break up projects.
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Power content assessments continue to be linked to projects.
Student can work effectively and efficiently within both self-created
and other-created calendars, although other-created calendars
are often inclusive of only the final deadline.
Student can break down a project into checkpoints/milestones and
follow through on that plan (student is given a project deadline, but
the steps from beginning to completion are managed by the
student)
Student uses check-ins to effectively support time management
and prioritization
Student can handle this direction: “You need to demonstrate
competence on x, y, and z, and you have a, b, c resources. Now
you decide how to schedule.”
Student has time management and prioritization goals for college.