How many different classes do most high school teachers teach?

teach science or something wrote:

I'm not talking about how many periods per day, but how many different classes/courses, like a teacher might teach two periods of biology and two periods of chemistry for example. I'm currently subbing at a small rural school, and the teacher I'm subbing for teaches FIVE different courses. This seems outrageous to me, and I don't know how the hell she can keep things straight and plan for that many different classes. I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but I'm wondering if that is the norm or if most teacher's just teach 1 or 2 courses each semester. I think at my high school most teachers only taught 2 courses per semester, maybe 3 tops. This seems much more reasonable to me.

Your experiences?

It varies greatly. I teach the same class 5x per day and have for the past few years; I have colleagues who teach 2-4 different classes per day.

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Our high school recently went through some scheduling changes and increased preps. I teach three blocks of English II (I have anywhere from 20-25 students per block) and six journalism subjects--21st Century Journalism, Photo Imaging, Video Fundamentals, Video Production, Newspaper, and Yearbook. Yep, seven preps! Four of the journalism courses are "doubled-up," which means I'm teaching two subjects to two groups of students during the same block. We also have a seminar period, which is a combination of building student-teacher relationships, student group meetings, study hall, one-on-one help--you name it, we do it during seminar.

stressed out wrote:

Our high school recently went through some scheduling changes and increased preps. I teach three blocks of English II (I have anywhere from 20-25 students per block) and six journalism subjects--21st Century Journalism, Photo Imaging, Video Fundamentals, Video Production, Newspaper, and Yearbook. Yep, seven preps! Four of the journalism courses are "doubled-up," which means I'm teaching two subjects to two groups of students during the same block. We also have a seminar period, which is a combination of building student-teacher relationships, student group meetings, study hall, one-on-one help--you name it, we do it during seminar.

It's going to get worse as the teachers' union weakens even more.

I'm at a small rural private school and teach 4 different subjects, 5 different classes.

I don't think all the sciences count as the same subject. It's still a lot of prep. If I'm teaching balancing equations in chem, that's no use for planning a mitosis lesson in biology and then getting over the concepts of Special relativity in Physics, and then radioactive dating to 2 earth science classes (which are of different grades), so don't progress at the same speed.

I think 5 different classes is a lot. It's 5 different sets of grading, 5 different sets of assessments to create. Also I teach grade 6 to grade 11/12 which requires very different teaching styles.

In my old school, large state comp, I taught 4 classes, 2 honors and 2 standard of the same subject for all, so 4, essentially 2 different courses but Lesson preps were very similar. We didn't always progress at the same speed but similar. My out of class work load was a quarter easy. The curriculum was set out, labs created, general notes provided.

When I came to my new school I had the text books they used but nothing else, no funding either. I had to create the Earth Science Curriculum from scratch.

5 preps, each with a lab, 2 are dual credit college courses, so rules change again for those two.

DC Biology

DC A and P

Honors A and P

Medical Microbiology

Pathophysiology

Each of these classes has a lab component so that adds to the prep. So, 10 preps total.

I don't understand the point of having people teach so many different subjects. If my school's science department has 20 sections each of earth science, bio I, chem I, and physics, it seems like some of the schools represented here would divide up the work by having a bunch of teachers all take 1-2 sections of each of those courses. How is that preferable to just having 4-5 teachers per subject who just teach that one subject?

Variety is the spice of life and all, but it can be taken too far.

Blount wrote:

never heard of that wrote:

I've never heard of a teacher teaching multiple subjects (eg bio and chemistry). Teachers at my school would sometimes teach different courses within their subject, though. An English teacher might teach both regular and advanced 10th grade English, or a bio teacher might teach standard bio along with an elective like botany or zoology. But I've never heard of a teacher teaching multiple courses in different disciplines.

Uh, Chem and Bio are both sciences and therefore the same discipline. It's no different than a math teacher teaching Algebra and Geometry.

Wrong. Bio, chem, and physics are all 3 completely different departments and have nothing to do with each other.

Chem 1 and chem 2 are related.

Biology and zoology are related.

Physics and astronomy are related.

I hope you are still in junior high if you don't understand this.

why so many subjects? wrote:

I don't understand the point of having people teach so many different subjects. If my school's science department has 20 sections each of earth science, bio I, chem I, and physics, it seems like some of the schools represented here would divide up the work by having a bunch of teachers all take 1-2 sections of each of those courses. How is that preferable to just having 4-5 teachers per subject who just teach that one subject?

Variety is the spice of life and all, but it can be taken too far.

My small public school in rural CA has 9 subjects under the science department umbrella. We had 3 teachers. Due to declining enrollment, we just laid off a teacher. That leaves 2 guys to cover 9 subjects

Flounder wrote:

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I thought those deadbeats were all in strike? Something about .. I don't know what.

Blount wrote:

never heard of that wrote:

I've never heard of a teacher teaching multiple subjects (eg bio and chemistry). Teachers at my school would sometimes teach different courses within their subject, though. An English teacher might teach both regular and advanced 10th grade English, or a bio teacher might teach standard bio along with an elective like botany or zoology. But I've never heard of a teacher teaching multiple courses in different disciplines.

Uh, Chem and Bio are both sciences and therefore the same discipline. It's no different than a math teacher teaching Algebra and Geometry.

Since you clearly know nothing, you shouldn't be opining about what teachers should and shouldn't do. Algebra and geometry are parts of mathematics. Chemistry and biology are interrelated disciplines, but what is taught in school about them is quite different. Someone trained in biology alone would generally be incompetent to teach high school chemistry.

I teach two- 9th grade and 10th grade, it's one, two year course in NY State- Global History.

I have colleagues who teach three (they prefer that).

Math often teaches multiple "preps". Science often one. Language could teach three levels.

Last year, my schedule consisted of Advanced Placement Calculus AB, Calculus, Pre-Calculus, Statistics and SAT Preparation. Next year, my schedule consists of Advanced Placement Calculus BC, Advanced Placement Calculus AB, Pre-Calculus, Statistics, Algebra III and SAT Preparation. The minimum number of preparations that I typically get is four, but I more often than not get five and sometimes 6. A few years ago I had Advanced Placement Calculus AB, Calculus, Statistics, Pre-Calculus, Algebra III, Pre-Algebra and SAT Preparation. I'm not afraid to admit that due to the limited number of hours in a day, inevitably one class suffers from my inability to adequately prepare for all of these courses. I usually ask my supervisor which class on my course load is least important so that she gets the idea that assigning a schedule like I get is absurd. As a side note, one other member of my department usually gets a similar course load of four or five preparations, while the others get schedules with two to at most three preparations.

This is a trick question...good one OP.

The answer is: "As few as possible."

teach science or something wrote:

I'm not talking about how many periods per day, but how many different classes/courses, like a teacher might teach two periods of biology and two periods of chemistry for example. I'm currently subbing at a small rural school, and the teacher I'm subbing for teaches FIVE different courses. This seems outrageous to me, and I don't know how the hell she can keep things straight and plan for that many different classes. I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but I'm wondering if that is the norm or if most teacher's just teach 1 or 2 courses each semester. I think at my high school most teachers only taught 2 courses per semester, maybe 3 tops. This seems much more reasonable to me.

Your experiences?

You think planning for multiple classes a day is outrageous? Elementary school teachers do this every day.

High school is cake comparatively.

I teach 5 periods of the same science class.

You are looking at a rural school. Movebto the city. Teach at a big school.

Different problems you’ll have there tho. Good luck.

I teach biology1 biology 2 sociology 1 and political science 1. It means 12 full hours each week

GBohannon wrote:

It varies greatly. I teach the same class 5x per day and have for the past few years; I have colleagues who teach 2-4 different classes per day.

1 year later and I just accepted a position in a different (higher performing, but smaller) school that is closer to home. No more cushy schedule for me. I will teach 4 different classes next year. Personal Finance, Computer Science Principles (coding 101 pretty much), Algebra 1, and Functions/Trig. I’m actually kind of excited. We will see how I feel in another year. Will bump then.

Last year 5x English IV AP and an integrated Dual Credit.

The upcoming year I'll have 4xEnglish IV AP and 2XEnglish IV (senior grade level English) with Dual Credit.