Does Block Scheduling Help?
By Christopher MooreRobert Tai, a science education assistant professor at the University of Virginia recently published a study that claims students subjected to block scheduling in high-school science classes performed worse in college-level science. Tai along with high-school biology teacher Kirsten Dexter looked at a national sample of 8,000 introductory college science students from 31 states, many of whom went to high schools that use block scheduling.
Here is the UVA press release. From Ascribe:
Block scheduling is a way of structuring the school day so that students have fewer classes for longer periods of time. The most common type comprises classes that last for 90 minutes alternating two or three days a week, in contrast with the traditional schedule of classes that run 45-55 minutes and are held every day. Increasingly adopted over the past 15 years, the schedule remains a subject of debate. Claimed as a way to help prepare students better for college, Tai found that was not the case when students in introductory biology, chemistry and physics courses were surveyed.
“Final college course grades are a real-world measure with long-term impacts,” Tai said. “Even when students had teachers who used instruction methods specifically geared toward block scheduling, the students who had a traditional schedule had better grades in college.”
Block scheduling has been all the rage over the last few years. I have taught both block and traditional formats, and as a young teacher, I actually preferred the block scheduling. I never noticed any difference in performance or learning that I could attribute to how many days during the week a student saw me. But I also tried to be very efficient and I have very few “data points”, so my preference is just that. I preferred block scheduling mainly because it was easier for me to prepare for class.
Block scheduling has come under fire recently. Jeff Lindsay maintains a site called “The Case Against Block Scheduling” that details its problems. School administrations like it because it is cost-effective and some studies show that it helps student performance. So obviously the jury seems to still be out.
I had traditional classes in high-school. And when I got to college, my first-year physics and calculus classes were 50 minutes a day, 5 days a week as well. Today, most colleges and university classes meet longer and fewer times a week, with the exception of language classes.
Which brings up a pretty good point: foreign language teachers have successfully argued that daily exposure to the language increases retention. That’s why college Spanish classes usually meet daily. Shouldn’t the same be true for math and science?
Colleges have block-like schedules because of logistics. There is no academic reason for classes to be arranged the way they are at the university level. But it’s understandable, because it’s the only way to make it work. So high-schools are moving to what may be a poor scheduling scheme to get kids used to college schedules?! That’s the main argument for block, but that logic doesn’t make sense.
Either block scheduling helps student performance or it doesn’t. That should be administrators only concern. I don’t know the answer to this one. But Tai believes he does.
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