Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What is an "honors" course?

What is an "honors" course? I'm talking about a course where there is a "regular" version, and an "honors" version.

What are the good ways an honors course can be different from a regular course?

What are the bad ways an honors course can be different from a regular course?

Typically, in my experience, an honors course is similar, if not the same as, a "gifted" course. Honors courses were usually geared at high achievers, though, and I realize that not all of these students may necessarily be gifted. I suppose this could be a drawback in some peoples' eyes. In my experience, an honors course should be more challenging, covering more advanced material, at a quicker pace. Honestly, most of the "honors" courses I took in high school and college were also more often taught by teachers passionate about the subject.

Actually I hadn't thought of whether an "honors" course was aimed necessarily at "gifted" students. So I guess a course could differ in being aimed at the top 0.1%, or the top 3%, or the top 20%, and that would be something you'd want to know about a course.

But then I'd phrase my question; for a course that is supposed to be aimed at the top X% of students, what are the ways it can do that well, and what are the ways it can do that badly?

for a course that is supposed to be aimed at the top X% of students, what are the ways it can do that well, and what are the ways it can do that badly?


In my experience, MOSTLY the modern incarnation of "honors" coursework accomplishes this badly. These courses have been modified over time so that they are more "accessible" to all students, and in the process, they have been given short shrift in terms of resources, thoughtful development, curriculum, and staffing. They tend to be afterthoughts, administratively, and are often just the regular course with a few "bonus" items added on. They do come with grade weighting-- which is both a good thing and a bad one, frankly. It's good in that yes, it IS harder to earn top marks in one of these courses, and they ARE more work, which should certainly earn some kind of differentiated reward-- but on the other hand, this grade weighting makes them more appealing to TigerParents, which then often includes ever-more-strident appeals to administrators and teachers to make the courses "not so crazily hard." It's not too difficult to see where that particular train goes from there.


Honors courses in a virtual high school tend to be about:

MORE* coverage, more** work, differentiated*** assessment.

* often one or two units not included in the "standard" course-- which may meet with the honors class for instruction, let me also add, which means that the INSTRUCTION that accompanies the class may have huge gaps that the student is expected to fill on his/her own with nothing but the textbook and a few badly assembled slides for support... this is how my daughter learned organic chemical nomenclature and advanced grammar, for whatever that is worth-- neither of which was covered at all in the "regular" English or physical science course that was taught in tandem with the honors offering. So the regular class got instruction that aligned with the syllabus, and the honors kids didn't-- they got instruction on about 75% of what they were expected to learn.

** extra projects, extra lab exercises, extra research papers, extra writing, extra problems in homework sets, basically-- you'll do EXACTLY what the "basic/regular" class does, and then you'll do the more appropriate work as well. Without instruction, as noted above, since these are "bonus" items for the "honors" courses only. No additional materials are really provided, though-- the student is on his/her own for much of that.

*** think-- more writing, and more "critical thinking" questions on assessments-- but the problem is often that those assessments are written by (and graded by, as well) those who simply have little understanding of the differences in "higher order" thinking skills. So expect that some of this is going to be aimed at things like eidectic memory, which is apparently a proxy for "advanced learner" in someone's mind. The assessments often align VERY poorly with the curriculum that honors students have seen, btw.


OFTEN: the differentiation is in content coverage (there may be the extra one-off topic here and there) and in the number/extent of assignments, not in the depth/breadth of content, assignments, or instruction.

If you want genuinely more DEPTH/BREADTH in coverage, you'll probably be much happier with AP offerings. That's been our experience, anyway. They are genuinely faster paced and cover more material with less repetition. I do think that this is a function of the self-apparent reality that "Honors" coursework isn't really intended for the most able of students, but those who are willing to WORK the longest hours at relatively simple tasks. Unfortunately, differentiation aimed toward that goal has eroded their suitability for many GT students, who are not really served very well by "more-more-more" as a differentiation strategy.


We have definitely worked out some tricks/tips to making this kind of course more suitable for truly GT learners-- and IMO, most of the parents on this board will need to use that kind of strategy.


Let me end by saying-- PM me if you want the nitty gritty details of how this seems to work with the public virtual school providers. (I'm recalling that you also use a virtual school, yes?)

Okay-- that's the bad and the ugly-- that is, instances in which the regular and honors classes are "blended" and in which a single teacher may have charge of a class comprised of (for example) 35 "regular" students, and 2 or 4 other students who are in the "honors" section (at least on paper-- in reality, they sit with their "regular" classmates during class time).

The GOOD mostly revolves around teacher implementation of a rather sorry or shabby beginning framework. DD has experienced a few of those:

1. Additional instructional time devoted to those "extra" topics that the honors class covers.

2. Grouping the honors students with one another for in-class work that is a group effort (discussion, games/thought exercises/labs).

3. Letting the honors students do BOTH the "regular" exercises (and participate with those classmates who are in the majority, say, to discuss a particular novel or topic) and ALSO to meet/work as a smaller group in breakout sessions on the more advanced material TOO.

4. Allowing students to come up with more open-ended assignments that still meet instructional goals, and/or allowing the honors students to out and out SKIP some of the more inane "regular" assignments so as to devote more time/energy to the more meaty honors assignments like term papers and student-inquiry based labs, etc.

Thanks HowlerKarma for the detailed analysis. I am interested in the virtual school situation. I'm also interested in all other school types, since we may not always be in virtual school (and it's an interesting general topic). I am interested in experiences of what honors courses are and aren't, and opinions about what they should be or shouldn't be. I want to fine tune my radar to help look out for a quality high level education.

I didn't understand the comment about choosing between honors and AP. From what I see, all the high school courses (and some middle school courses) have honors versions, but AP courses only appear at the end of the sequence. So as you move through the sequence you choose regular or honors. Then if you get far enough you can take an AP course. I don't see honors or AP as a choice that arises.

In my own schooldays, we didn't have courses called "honors" but we had ability tracking, so I was always in the top class which would typically be top 20% or so. So these were not "gifted" classes, but the difference between top 20% and bottom 20% class was absolutely gigantic. I do not remember homework or voluminous work at all. I did feel that I was learning.

The only honors like class available when I was in school was Advanced English, the biggest difference discussing with regular track students was significantly more student driven discussions. And tests always had open-ended bonus credit questions.

I'd be looking for a significantly higher proportion of whys versus whats.

I think this is very much a YMMV situation. My experiences are limited to B&M schools. In H.S., "honors course" A's had a higher G.P.A. than "regular" A's, you had to be "invited" (and you could opt for "regular" and say "no thanks"), and yes, they probably were more work. There were also AP Classes, but these were supposed to be less challenging (at this particular school), and the honors classes did an excellent job preparing a student for the AP exams.

In college, there was no such perk (G.P.A.-wise), but grad schools seemed interested in the fact that my "Honors Degree" meant I'd taken grad-level courses as an undergrad - something I believe you could only do if you were in the Honors Program at this particular university.

Overall, I enjoyed the challenge of most of these classes and felt the reward was having smaller classes with absolutely excellent teachers.

Back in my day there were Basic, Regular, and Advanced (or sometimes called Honors), and AP classes.

My son just finished middle school. They wiped out Basic classes because no one wanted to teach them and no one wanted their kids in Basic. So they renamed the classes to Advanced and Honors (advanced now has all the Basic and Regular kids in it and was supposed to be a more rigorous Regular class). And Honors became what used to be Advanced. Then this school had for each grade level one class of gifted that moved from class to class together (rather than the other kids that had randomized schedules). They were also considered Honors but they were a special honors group.

In my district "honors" classes start at the junior high level. In 6-8th something labeled honors would be for gifted &/or high achieving kids.

At the high school you have to earn your way into the class. Ie.. get certain grades on per-requisites including 8th grade clases.

It depends on subject manner how they are different. But the one big difference is the honors classes have a lot more homework. In math for example, the same text book will be used. But the grade is bases more on testing, homework will often not be graded just checked for completion. And the teacher will assign more of the hard problems, expect the student to do what I call 2 or 3 step problems, and learn to write proofs. Science is similar. In English/Social Studies students are expected to be writing well without much help or direction, more complex texts are used, and more class time is spend on class disscusion rather than teacher lectures. An example of the text is that the 9th grade non-honors class read the Abridged version of Tale of Two Cities and the honors the regular one.

There are pro's and con's on the honors vs. non-honors classes. Basically those labeled "honors" are really prep for taking AP classes in 10th,11th, 12th. There is a LOT more homework in the honors classes at my school, but the homework is less busywork. The teachers expect that the honors kids can keep track of their homework, turn it in on time, and in general don't need a lot of babysitting.