Ding. Ding.

After first period bell on a select Thursday, students arrive to their respective Quad QTs. Attendance is taken and soon after students learn he/she will be re-hashing the same scholarship PowerPoint from the previous month.

Yawn.

Most students tuned out, playing on their phones while others struggled to keep their eyes open.

It is not just seniors who are bored with Quad QTs. The freshmen worked on “trust exercises” while juniors sat and checked Naviance to see past career surveys.  

This is the level of “learning” that goes on during Quad Quality Time. Does this seem like a productive use of time?

The purpose of Quad Quality times is to break up normal QTs into grade specific groups and go over priorities that are specially designed for each grade level.

The problem is there have been some issues because students are not learning anything they do not already know.

In a recent Twitter poll conducted by the Catalyst, of the 54 responses, 41 percent strongly dislike Quad QTs and 30 percent found them useless. Twenty percent of the respondents were neutral while only nine percent had a favorable opinion

A possible reason for these polling numbers is Quad QTs are painfully stale. I have yet to personally meet anyone who likes or looks forward to the 30 minute meetings each month.

The reason behind the lack of popularity is partially the dry content. Dated resources and cliche activities is not a way to inspire interest.

Seniors will pursue scholarship opportunities regardless. If students are not interested, showing a PowerPoint most likely will not change their minds.

Building on that, spending two QTs on the same subject is redundant. The equivalent outcome would be achieved just sending the information to students and letting them evaluate it on their own time.

If one of the purposes of these QTs was to get better acquainted with members of the same grade level and other teachers, then it would make sense. At the start of the year, the agendas were more centered around interacting rather than playing watching cheesy videos.

Quad QTs only meet once a month. This means there is a lack of community among the students and teacher. Students cannot learn much about each other when they’re only around for 30 minutes a month.

Likewise, teachers cannot make a meaningful connection and get to know students in this miniscule amount of time. It can turn into teachers just reading content students which they may end up tuning out.

Some possible solutions to better Quad QTs could be to have more engaging and possibly interject more energy into the agenda. Another possible idea to spice things up could be implementing more Kahoot games and make the information more interactive.

Three years ago Monday extended QTs where abolished because they were perceived to be a waste of time. Action was taken because of the backlash from students and teachers. This should be no different. Quad QTs were a nice idea that just has not worked out.