This chapter has shown that learners spend more time at learning and use that time well, then they will learn more effectively. It's as simple as that.
Effective learning time (ELT) has been defined as the amount of time a student spends attending to relevant effective tasks while performing those tasks with a high rate of success (Caldwell, Huitt, and Graeber, 1982; Berliner, 1984).
Whatever the subject area, effective learning time is often likely to be more strongly related to effective success than any other variable over which the teacher can exercise control.
It is not sensible or useful to turn the concept of ELT into a mathematical equation that can prescribe instructional activities. The purpose of the concept is to get across the idea that the quality of educational time is extremely important. Brophy (1992) has pointed out that teachers who elicit greater achievement gains among their students do not merely maximize "time on task" (allocated or engaged time). They also spend a great deal of time actively instructing their students through interactive lessons that feature teacher-student discourse and relatively little time working without guidance. They stimulate their students to react to the curriculum in a thoughtful and successful manner. For the most successful teachers, instruction occurs during interactive discourse with students rather than during extended lectures, presentations, or demonstrations. It is this combination of quantity and quality that defines effective learning time.
Finally, note that the concept of effective learning time is valid even in unstructured settings. For example, imagine a successful classroom in which learners are given complete freedom to choose what they want to study. In this setting, the scheduling would occur informally and the students rather than the teacher would determine how much time they would allocate to any topic. However, students would master any topic only to the extent that they would allocate time to that topic and spend that time successfully engaged in coming to an understanding of it. The major strength of extremely unstructured approaches is that learners are likely to be highly engaged and successful during whatever time they themselves have chosen to allocate to a given topic; the major weakness is that they may fail to allocate enough time to important topics.
The Topic of ELT has been discussed in detail on the previous pages and in the main section of Chapter 1 of the hardcopy version of the textbook. The following are some branches of instruction that might help you understand this concept and its applications to education. What would you like to do now?