DOCUMENT LIBRARY
Taking Center Stage, California Department of Education, 2001, p.154.
Designing the Master Schedule as a Mosaic
Very few resources provide scheduling strategies and examples of finished products. One reason for this lack is that each school is based on a unique configuration of time, talent, and teaching. Someone has suggested that the most likely source of help in designing a school schedule is a good book on creating mosaics. That suggestion is not far off the mark because a good school schedule is much like a mosaic.
Like a finished mosaic, a school schedule should reflect a logical process and an end product that is aesthetically pleasing rather than a random juxtaposition of pieces with no apparent definition. Unfortunately, many school schedules appear to be made randomly rather than being produced by an artful process.
The metaphor of the mosaic has proved to be helpful for principals and teachers in designing school schedules. The artist who designs a mosaic begins by identifying the pieces of material that are to be incorporated into the work and assigns them their relative prominence in the finished design. Likewise, those responsible for the school master schedule begin by identifying the program features they want to include and assigning them relative priorities. Time is defined in terms of equal intervals of instruction or in blocks of multiple intervals. Time for professional planning and collaboration is identified as another piece. It is specified for advisory programs, service-learning, tutoring and mentoring, independent study, lunch, any unique instructional features, and every desired program.
All identified program features are seen as pieces of the completed schedule mosaic. Like the artist who refuses to leave any piece out of the mosaic for fear of compromising the completed work, the designers of the school schedule strive to include every significant program variable.
This is the moment for specifying and defending every proposed feature of the school program. All features are then represented by individual squares of cardboard with different colors to represent each one. The pieces are moved about on a tabletop or attached to a vertical surface with Velcro.™ Principal and staff collaborate in arranging program elements in various designs as consensus builds as to the most attractive and inclusive schedule. An instant camera is available for keeping track of potential designs while others are being examined.
The scheduling process takes time. It involves commitment and collaboration. The task cannot be rushed any more than an artist rushes a finished work of art and is not complete until the majority of those affected are able to step back and say, “Aha!”
Document Library Index