Abstract: All those with a stake in education must work to improve a scheduling format that offers great potential for student success. Mr. Queen provides some guidelines. IN THE October 1997 Kappan, Kim Gaskey and I outlined the major steps for improving school climate through block scheduling, and these steps remain imperative for schools examining the possibility of moving to a block schedule. However, for schools that have been using some form of block scheduling, it is time to revisit the intention and direction of these alternative models. From my own observations and analyses, I believe that a number of principals and teachers have limited the effectiveness of block schedules. While I find a majority of educators using block schedules remain loyal to the basic tenets of the model, some principals have limited understanding of the science of scheduling and lack specific skills in evaluating effective teaching practices. Moreover, a growing percentage of teachers do not follow pacing guides. And those same teachers tend to use lecture and teacher-directed discussion extensively and to limit the 90-minute class to approximately 60 minutes of actual instruction. Such problems have been exacerbated both by poor monitoring of teachers who are failing to implement the block model and by a grave lack of training for teachers new to the field and the model. In order to make this reexamination of block scheduling most useful, I will look at why schools moved to block scheduling, analyze the benefits and pitfalls that educators have experienced, compare rates of student achievement, scrutinize the overuse of the lecture approach, and review effective instructional strategies. I will conclude with some specific recommendations to maximize the benefits of block scheduling in the future. Why Schools Moved To Block Scheduling The traditional high school structure remained essentially the same for most of the 20th century, with the exception of some experimentation with flexible class periods during the open education period in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1959, just prior to this period of experimentation, J. Lloyd Trump proposed eliminating the traditional high school schedule and instituting classes of varying lengths in accordance with the instructional needs of students. The Trump Plan allowed for a class to meet for a 40-minute lecture, a 100-minute lab, and a 20-minute help session each week, whereas other classes could be short periods of 20 or 30 minutes. Trump encouraged teachers using his design to experiment with a variety of instructional strategies. Student schedules have often been based on tradition rather than on proven educational merit. In 1990, Michael Fullan reiterated the idea that the traditional high school schedule had become a powerful myth, ceremonially adopted whether or not it was efficient or effective.1 Even today, despite awareness of problems with the traditional schedule, the power it exerts causes some educators to resist any change in the schedule and others to choose to return to an unblocked format. Of course, traditions in education are deeply embedded in our national experience, and generations of Americans have graduated from high schools that required the successful completion of a prescribed number of Carnegie units. Unfortunately, the essence of the Carnegie unit is accumulated seat time.2 This high school tradition was called into question in 1983, when A Nation at Risk reported that American students were academically lagging behind their counterparts in a number of other industrialized nations. In response, educators began to examine alternatives that might result in higher student achievement. Many educators came to see the restructuring of schools, including their schedules, as a central way of seeking improvement. In 1993 Tom Donahoe argued that restructuring should include the formal rearranging of the use of time in schools in order to promote an active culture that would improve student learning. …
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 55
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