What is WIN Time? For those who may not be aware, Win Time is a newly implemented system designed to help students catch up in their classes or receive the extra help they may need. The designated time for this help is between the 5th and 6th hour, twice a week, on every Tuesday and Thursday, for 30 minutes. Students are required to sign up for the classes they want to attend for next week’s WIN Time sessions on the Friday of the previous week.
Though many people do not like WIN time as it stands, a lot of people feel that it could be beneficial in the future if a few minor adjustments were made. For instance, if the school were to take an equal amount of time of roughly 10 minutes from every class period (excluding 4th hour so that students still have the same amount of time to eat), instead of taking a disproportionate amount of time from various hours. This way, there would be a full hour of WIN time, which would drastically help out more than just the 30 minutes, even if WIN time were reduced to only once a week.
Giving teachers more time to review material would help students have a better comprehension of what is going on and would increase their overall scores in classes, achieving the same result while also allowing students who are all caught up to have an entire uninterrupted hour to do work independently and not at home. As WIN Time is now, it is mostly good for students who are behind on work. However, the students who have a lot of work piled on are generally struggling with the course material itself, not just simply getting the work done. Allocating more time for slower-paced lectures and more assistance is assignments would prove to pay greater dividends for the school’s average grades and students all around, and not just a marginalized group.
While some believe that WIN time is not being utilized to its full potential, some teachers seem to disagree. Mrs Garagavlia, one of Woodhaven High School’s chemistry teachers, believes that “it has great potential. It’s not fair to judge something in its early stages, but I am very hopeful about where it is going and I am already seeing improvements.”
While her optimism is very much encouraging to continue the newly implemented system, the concerns raised by the students are not that of the idea of WIN Time, but more so, how it is being implemented. Many students agree that it has potential, just as Mrs. G mentioned, but without some needed adjustment,s that potential may never be fully utilized.
As student Cater Medere states, “I feel like it’s a good IDEA, but I personally just don’t find it super useful.” His comments highlight a feeling that the majority of the student body feels, recognizing the concept and seeing how it could be beneficial for everyone with just a few changes. Showing the disconnect between the intentions and the impact further proves the need for improvement upon WIN Time to make the greatest impact.
Mrs G later adds, “I think that our attitude towards WIN time can be huge in determining how successful it can be. The more we put into it, the more we can get out of it!” While that may be true, many students would argue that effort alone isn’t enough if the system in and of itself is not structurally sound enough for that effort to be fully shown. A longer, more evenly distributed WIN Time, even once a week, would allow teachers and students to engage more fully and meaningfully, as well as have a greater impact across the board
With a few tweaks to the way that WIN Time is currently being implemented, it could have drastically different results and help everyone not just a marginalized amount of people who simply need more time to get assignments done but everyone even the students who are excelling could excel even further with better understating while the students who may be struggling could have time to get actual help and not just more time for assignments thus helping them get their assignments done even faster and potentially boost their individual test scores paying dividends to the schools averages. Thus, if the suggestions made in this article are adopted, then the outcome of it would be substantially larger than the current ways WIN Time is being utilized.
