Hacking the SAT by Jason Breitkopf

Author:Jason Breitkopf
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631585104
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2020-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-HOUR BOOT CAMP

One customization that you can make is to remove the essay instruction in favor of either more reading, math, and writing section practice or some content review. Since the essay is optional, and many colleges have chosen not to include an essay score in their standardized testing requirements, some students have de-emphasized the essay in their preparations. From my conversations with college admissions, I still recommend including essay instruction in most programs, since admissions officers will review SAT and ACT essays, sometimes going so far as to consider them as supplemental writing samples. Completing the SAT or ACT essay can also be a valuable submission from students interested in writing, whether creative or academic.

A weekly class offers many of the same benefits as a boot camp in terms of allowing for longer class sessions to ensure plenty of instructional and practice time but opens up the entire school year for scheduling. Rather than requiring several consecutive days’ worth of availability from students, a weekly class can be taught over the weekend or on weekday evenings. Additionally, rather than fitting courses into a holiday week that may occur several weeks before a targeted test date, a weekly course can begin whenever convenient for the staff or students and run on consecutive weeks right up to the targeted test date.

Once again, you have the option of crafting a course that fits your and your students’ schedule and availability. I have taught weekly classes of varying lengths at different institutions and in different situations. A thirty-hour course is usually the longest class I teach, which tends to run for ten weeks, with each class session lasting three hours. The shortest class I would recommend would be the fifteen-hour version.

The primary reason I recommend class sessions of three hours in length is that the biggest hurdle to successful student completion of a program is attendance. It is often an easier path to success to expect students to attend ten three-hour sessions than fifteen two-hour sessions or twenty one-and-a-half-hour sessions when building a thirty-hour program. Fewer sessions mean fewer opportunities for students to miss and a shorter period of a student’s life during which you are asking for their commitment to your program. You know your student population in a way I cannot, so use your best judgment in building out your schedule and setting up your syllabus.

Whether you choose to hold a holiday week boot camp or a weekly class, please include break time in your class schedule. Most adults have difficulty maintaining focus for more than an hour at a time. Expecting a high school student to do the same is folly. Depending on the student population, holding a three- to five-minute break every hour or every forty-five minutes gives students a chance to use the bathroom without disrupting or missing class, grab a snack, and generally refresh and reset their focus. Some populations require more frequent breaks. Further, breaks not only benefit the students, but they help instructors as well.

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