Scheduling Snafus?

A recent Washington Post article, Class Schedulers Think Outside the Blocks, examines the pros and cons of block scheduling.

In most public high schools in the Washington area, classes last as long as 90 minutes apiece and course lineups for each student alternate every day under the block-scheduling innovation that took root a decade ago.

Block scheduling replaced the more traditional 45-minute classes found at many area middle and high schools. As an alum of the Montgomery County school system I spent 6th through 8th grades attending seven 45-minute classes per day, while in high school a block schedule was followed for the entire four years. Experiencing both scheduling systems I can say with certainty that there are pros and cons and that, all things being said, one was no better or worse for me as a student.

Taking a double period of AP Chemistry was certainly daunting in high school as a double period meant that my school day opened with 90 minutes of AP Chemistry each and every day my junior year. Daunting as it was, the block schedule allowed ample time to prep and perform a lab, and nary an experiment was ruined for having to stop midway through.

Block scheduling also allowed me to participate in the Cross-Age Teaching of Science (CATS) program without interfering with my other courses. Students in the CATS program designed interactive experiments to awe and amaze elementary school students and took the experiments on the road to local elementary schools to try and build enthusiasm for science. Without block scheduling participating in the CATS program would have been nearly impossible and would have certainly had a detrimental effect on my other classes.

Outside of science and the arts however, block scheduling led to boredom and ennui in language arts and math courses. My grasp of Spanish also faltered as instead of meeting everyday, on the block scheduling, Spanish met every other day. (Perhaps some of that was my own fault. I tried to complete homework the same day it was assigned, meaning there was nary a word of Spanish on the days between class meetings.)

Now, being an instructor instead of a student I have a greater appreciation for longer classes. Block scheduling is no longer an "innovation" and many curricula and instructors have adapted to the lengthier sessions by providing a greater variety of activities during the longer sessions to harness the students' attention and continued focus. Here at Mindworks our Telos Academy programs consist of 75 minutes of instruction. Personally, I find this to be a good compromise as it usually takes approximately 5 minutes for students to get settled in and working diligently and the class length allows us to complete a warm-up, discuss the activities that will be completed, do the activities, and then follow-up with a wrap up discussion to answer any lingering questions and to build connections between activities and skills that have been built.

We've posted a link to the Washington Post article on our message boards and we invite you to participate in the discussion on the forums, or here in the comments of our blog. We look forward to reading your thoughts and responses to the article as well as your own or your student's experiences that you would like to share.