Block Scheduling

[CaptainAmerica]

We didn't go to full block, but they cut us from 7 periods to 6 to slightly lengthen each period. You had three courses that rotated in the mornings, three courses that rotated in the afternoons, and one course that cut through the whole day.

It was extraordinarily confusing for about two weeks but it worked well once everyone got used to it.

 

[amylevan]

I don’t know all the details yet as the presentation is tonight. They are planning on a 4+4 where AP classes will go 2/3 of the year? I have no idea how they plan on scheduling that nightmare but I guess I’ll see this evevning.

 

[amylevan]

I'm a long time teacher and have designed new school schedules in the past. Block scheduling does not require more teachers or require more training. It actually simplifies scheduling.

There's no teacher shortage. There's a teacher salary shortage.

How could it not require training? There’s no way you can teach a class for 90 min the same way you would for 45?

As for cost and teacher requirements, I’m only regurgitating the research I read this weekend. All of the studies I read seem to imply no difference to student learning either way, but due to reduced teacher utilization it does usually cost more. (Ie a 90 minute planning period versus a 45 minute planning period.)

 

[K and K's Mommy]

My three kids have gone or are going to a high school that does block scheduling. It is the A/B kind, so the kids have 4 classes on A day and then the next four classes on B day. It goes the entire year. I think there may be some electives that are only a semester, but my kids never took them.

I can't imagine it differently because I have never known different. It gives science classes longer for lab. My kids have had no trouble.

 

[Kestryl]

Way back in the day, my high school did six classes a day, every day. There were some classes offered as “0 hour” or “7th hour” to make up for vocational studies or to catch up on credits or specialty classes. (Like jazz band was 7th hour, after the normal school day, and twice a week, because no one would have been able to fit it in otherwise.) They still do that.

My husband has taught at three schools in three states. One was the shorter class period style (I think they had seven classes), one was on trimesters, and the current one is “block” with four classes a semester. He teaches math. Most math classes are a semester long. For the highly motivated and math-positive students, the block scheduling works out well, because they can cram in more upper level math courses. But for the majority of students, block scheduling seems to make math harder. There are cases where a student goes a year without a math course, which kills continuity.

The failure rate seems to be pretty high here relative to his previous two schools, but I’m unsure how much- if any- is the block scheduling vs. Covid vs. regional differences. In theory block scheduling gives them an extra chance to retake the class without going to summer school or falling behind relative to their hypothetical graduating class, but in practice, half the students won’t take math until their second semester- you can’t automatically have everyone take math the first semester of their year.

 

[HopperFan]

My son taught in a block school where kids took 4 classes per day completing a year's worth in one semester. There was NO training for teachers. He taught history so the plus was that they could really have good discussions, do interactive work to bring the subject to life and relevant. The reason the school went to this was it is a Title 1 school and most the kids struggle. They felt giving the kids more time each day would be better in long run. His subject was one that requires State End of Course Tests so they were literally trying to cram a year into a semester with kids who already struggled. He is a creative teacher so his kids did relatively well compared to others. Interesting was that his scores were closing in on AP scores because AP had that much more to get done in the semester rather than the year. For them I don't think it's a plus. The system has decided to go back to regular scheduling with one reason mentioned failure rate.

He is now at a school with traditional scheduling where kids take 6 classes per day. Movement keeps them refreshed. Less info each day allows for more discussion and absorption rather than rushing through some topics. More time allows for more time for outside projects (3 weeks for something as opposed to 1). More time allows for more catching up on items that might need more review. More classes allows them to build on each day rather than filling a day and simply moving on the next day with no time for review. He seems less stressed about cramming in, even though classes are shorter. And he is teaching two subjects this year with half the planning time. But he has the ebb and flow of a full school year to focus more time on important aspects and less time on less important. With block it was just plow through a year.

I do think student dynamics can also make a huge impact. DD wanted to graduate early which on top of added classes during the year she took a FULL year of Finance, a FULL year of English in 7 weeks in online summer school. It was brutal but she was motivated. Not sure enough kids have that kind of motivation to see a benefit of the block work but if they are very school motivated it can be their thing.

I think in a small school it will be much more difficult. Hopefully you get some good answers at your meeting. I would be very interested in to WHY are they making this change? What was failing that they think will succeed with this? Good luck.

 

[tvguy]

I graduated from High School in 1975 and block scheduling was the norm then, and my kids graduated in 2005 and 2009 and it hasn't changed here.
Now, my JUNIOR High School did experiment with what they called Modular Scheduling in the late 1960's. Each module was 20 minutes. You had what they called a CORE class, it was the only class that was just one module. The rest were two modules, but to me anything less than an hour for a class is just too short. By the time you get everyone settled in, class is over.
I would think Block scheduling would be far superior for AP classes.

 

[sam_gordon]

We didn't go to full block, but they cut us from 7 periods to 6 to slightly lengthen each period. You had three courses that rotated in the mornings, three courses that rotated in the afternoons, and one course that cut through the whole day.

It was extraordinarily confusing for about two weeks but it worked well once everyone got used to it.

View attachment 694396

They have classes seven days a week?

To me, your chart would get confusing as hell.

Block scheduling is how we did college classes (if I understand it correctly). Thinking back to when I was in HS (we didn't have block scheduling, just six periods a day), block scheduling would be great for the classes I liked/enjoyed, and never ending for the classes I hated.

 

[lanejudy]

I’m not sure switching to a scheduling format that generally requires more teachers and at a minimum training on teaching strategies for a 90 minute class is the best idea coming out of a pandemic in the worst teacher shortage in history.

How could it not require training? There’s no way you can teach a class for 90 min the same way you would for 45?

I don't see why extra teachers or extra training would be required. We have 2 days a week of block schedule; 3 days of a regular "full" schedule. The teachers and students enjoy the block days because it gives more time for longer or more in-depth teaching/learning. It is essentially 2 classes; sometimes they may teach half and allow homework or project work in the other half; sometimes they go more in-depth on a topic that might have been cut short on a regular 45-50 minute period. Block days are also when labs are held.

But you could technically have math the first half of 1 year and not have it again until the second half of the following year right? That doesn’t make sense to me. My college clases built on each other and I took them one after another with no breaks.

My son taught in a block school where kids took 4 classes per day completing a year's worth in one semester. There was NO training for teachers.

We did this style in 2020/2021 during the pandemic. It definitely has it's plusses and minuses. Plus was less homework (or fewer classes for homework). Minuses definitely include the time "off" between courses such as math unless you schedule them in such a way to run back-to-back.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

They have classes seven days a week?

No, it was just a 7 day cycle. If Friday was a Day 3, the following Monday would pick up with Day 4.

 

[Moliphino]

No, it was just a 7 day cycle. If Friday was a Day 3, the following Monday would pick up with Day 4.

Didn't that get super confusing? We only had a 2 day cycle (first and last blocks swapped) and I'd still forget sometimes.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Didn't that get super confusing? We only had a 2 day cycle (first and last blocks swapped) and I'd still forget sometimes.

Nope, everyone hated it when they rolled it out but we were used to it after about two weeks. For the most part, you only had to remember where you started and then things followed one another in sequence. B always came after A, C always came after B.

 

[HopperFan]

I don't see why extra teachers or extra training would be required. We have 2 days a week of block schedule; 3 days of a regular "full" schedule. The teachers and students enjoy the block days because it gives more time for longer or more in-depth teaching/learning. It is essentially 2 classes; sometimes they may teach half and allow homework or project work in the other half; sometimes they go more in-depth on a topic that might have been cut short on a regular 45-50 minute period. Block days are also when labs are held.


We did this style in 2020/2021 during the pandemic. It definitely has it's plusses and minuses. Plus was less homework (or fewer classes for homework). Minuses definitely include the time "off" between courses such as math unless you schedule them in such a way to run back-to-back.

My son's previous school is switching back to standard scheduling and is not replacing teachers who left. Classroom sizes are restricted so in block you needed more teachers. He had 3 classes average 30 each = 90 students. This year he has 5 classes average 25 each = 125 students. Block needed more teachers. Even if at capacity of 35 per class, block would be 105 students, traditional would be 175 students. In equally sized schools, block would need more teachers. NOTE: This year he has 1 class with 34 students unless they move some out. He also has classes with less than 20.

I agree that teachers who are flexible, fine with creative teaching & lesson planning would have no issue with shifting. There are teachers who have taught the same plans for years and now have to figure out a compressed lesson plan. At my son's school they did way more "meetings" than normal for teachers to share ideas how to shrink the curriculum. I get there are the same minutes overall but it has to be taught in a way to keep students engaged for a period of time that has never been normal for them. You have to change the lesson plan to keep them tuned in. This was harder for some.

During pandemic the huge plus was this way less students and teachers were interacting each day. Outbreaks were common but tended to stay contained to less classrooms. Luckily son was history and other than kids being oblivious to basic history/geography concepts his was a fresh subject each semester for students.

 

[amcnj]

If I remember correctly, we had periods (maybe 46 minutes long?) and mods (half a period). It seemed we had every class every day except for gym (was that every other day?) and health (once a week?). The only mod length I recall was the lunch period. Most everything else was a period long. I am thinking there were fifteen mods, so basically seven classes and lunch made up the day.

Now you have me wondering if longer periods would have been more beneficial. I guess the shorter ones did have more continuity, as mentioned by others.

 

[NotUrsula]

DD is at a private college-prep girls' school. They do a variation on the rotating block that CaptainAmerica posted above, but they don't restrict the rotation to a particular half of the day. Core classes that have a state requirement for 3 or 4 credits are taught every quarter and continue through the year, but electives and single-credit classes such as health or personal money mgmt are taught on a semester basis. (The exception is foreign language; the state only requires 2 credits, but there is a rule that once you start your language class, you have to take it every term until you have done 4 contiguous semesters; if you wish to continue after that you can schedule it however you wish.) They have 6 class periods per day except Wednesdays, which are late-start and have only five. All students normally have one free period each semester (except on Wed), but if you schedule 2 free periods in a term, there is no free period the term following. (Students are not permitted to leave campus during free period. It's supposed to be used for library research time, for meetings with guidance counselors and/or special-needs tutors, for student govt. duties, or to catch up on homework.)

I have to say that I find it HORRENDOUSLY confusing because I'm not living it, but the kids get used to it very quickly. They do the daily rotation because of studies about adolescents' chronic lack of sleep. Rotating classes to different times of day helps to even out the effect of that; no being half-asleep through the same class in first period all semester and falling badly behind. (This school really goes out of their way to let girls sleep every chance they get; there are couches all over the building, and napping during free period or lunch break is allowed. ((No getting too comfy, though; pillows and blankets are NOT allowed, LOL.))

College rotational scheduling (MWF 60" and TTh 90") was MUCH simpler in comparison, but college classes run for a lot more hours of the day. I could start classes at 9 or 9:30, take a break in the afternoon for my P/T campus job, then do another class starting at 3:30, plus a 3 hour night class starting at 7 once a week.

 

[DisneyOma]

There are different ways to do block scheduling. Some schools do the same 4 classes every day for a semester and then switch. Others do an A/B block schedule, where they have 4 classes on M/W, 4 different classes T/TH, and a modified schedule of all classes on Friday (or a variation of this).

Test scores take a nosedive if a school does the 4 classes every day for a semester and then switch at semester. Can you imagine taking state math tests when you've only had that grade level math for a few months or if you haven't had math in a few months? If your principal is pushing for this model, push back.

A/B schedule is a better choice if you have to do block scheduling because at least you will see the students every other day. It does stink for planning because you then only get a planning period every other day. Yes, it's 90 minutes, but if you have to cover classes during your planning period due to lack of subs, it's hard to catch up on planning.

We had year long classes for the freshmen, year long math and English for the sophomores, and our test scores did not take a dive. Actually, they took a dive when we switched from 4 classes to 7 classes a day.

My son's previous school is switching back to standard scheduling and is not replacing teachers who left. Classroom sizes are restricted so in block you needed more teachers. He had 3 classes average 30 each = 90 students. This year he has 5 classes average 25 each = 125 students. Block needed more teachers. Even if at capacity of 35 per class, block would be 105 students, traditional would be 175 students. In equally sized schools, block would need more teachers. NOTE: This year he has 1 class with 34 students unless they move some out. He also has classes with less than 20.

I agree that teachers who are flexible, fine with creative teaching & lesson planning would have no issue with shifting. There are teachers who have taught the same plans for years and now have to figure out a compressed lesson plan. At my son's school they did way more "meetings" than normal for teachers to share ideas how to shrink the curriculum. I get there are the same minutes overall but it has to be taught in a way to keep students engaged for a period of time that has never been normal for them. You have to change the lesson plan to keep them tuned in. This was harder for some.

During pandemic the huge plus was this way less students and teachers were interacting each day. Outbreaks were common but tended to stay contained to less classrooms. Luckily son was history and other than kids being oblivious to basic history/geography concepts his was a fresh subject each semester for students.

While your son had 3 classes, there would be other teachers teaching the same class with another set of students. Unless they had a huge fluctuation of students, the same number of teachers are needed to teach the students in the different grades. The only issue we had was coming up with enough classes to fill 3 more blocks a day.

 

[Skippy918]

College rotational scheduling (MWF 60" and TTh 90") was MUCH simpler in comparison, but college classes run for a lot more hours of the day. I could start classes at 9 or 9:30, take a break in the afternoon for my P/T campus job, then do another class starting at 3:30, plus a 3 hour night class starting at 7 once a week.

my college was like this except MWF was 50 min classes. I much preferred the 50 min classes. I found myself daydreaming during the latter half of the 90 min classes.

 

[tcufrog]

I think Block is great for classes like science where you can teach a concept during the first half and then go straight to the lab to practice what you learned for the second. I also think it would be useful for a class like theater because you practice longer scenes during a single class period. I don't think I'd like it for PE though or history, even though history is my favorite subject. My son has AB block scheduling for the first two hours of school and regular 1-hour classes for the rest of the day. The reason he has that is because B day class, engineering, is at another campus and he has to take a bus to get there. His A class is Spanish at his regular campus. He likes the block for engineering because it's very hands-on and group-oriented. They get a lot done during the 2 hours. He doesn't like it for Spanish though because he thinks it drags too much and his teacher doesn't seem to know how to teach for such a long period at once.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

When I was teaching I was in a small school. I liked block scheduling just fine. I think my favorite was the "modified block" in which we did block Mon-Thurs and then "traditional" on Fri. That got scrapped after one year because people were complaining that everybody was giving tests on Friday. When I first started, it was the "traditional" schedule. At some point they switched to block. I was a bit skeptical, but I ended up liking it better. I know that at least where I was, the students liked the block scheduling better. I remember there was talk of going back to the other format at some point, and it caused an uproar.

 

[hhisc16]

We have new administrators at our high school, and their first new business is to make a change to block scheduling starting with the 23/24 school year. I’m not sure switching to a scheduling format that generally requires more teachers and at a minimum training on teaching strategies for a 90 minute class is the best idea coming out of a pandemic in the worst teacher shortage in history.

We are a small school, graduating classes right around 100 and the schools around us that are block are all 2-3 times the size of us. Anyone successfully implement block in a small school with limited resources/teachers?

I have also heard all the negative impacts on AP classes. Anyone have insight?

Public high school in SC, 1500 population and call ourselves an AP Academy.
New administration wanted to try block scheduling, but was blocked by our current school board and community members.
I am interested to see how your school plans out, since our school may attempt again in the future.