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Pope: Change the pace of the school day

Sr. Lecturer Denise Pope
Sr. Lecturer Denise Pope

Pope: Change the pace of the school day

Changing the daily schedule and school calendar have the greatest effect on increasing student engagement, says Denise Pope.

Room for Debate: Stress and the High School Student

Denise Pope is senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and co-founder of Challenge Success, a research and student intervention project.

Schools tend to blame parents for putting too much pressure on kids, parents tend to blame the schools, and students are often left out of the dialogue altogether. At Challenge Success, the project I co-founded with Madeline Levine and Jim Lobdell at the Stanford University School of Education, we aim to bring these groups together to facilitate changes in families and schools.

Some schools have added tutorials, later starting times and more free periods to slow the pace of the day.

In working with more than 100 schools across the U.S., we have seen many effective policies and practices to turn down the heat for students and foster healthy child development while maintaining a rigorous, high-quality curriculum.

Our research has found that students who believe their teachers listen to them, want to get to know them and are willing to help with homework, are more engaged with learning, less likely to cheat, and show fewer signs of stress and health problems.

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