I'm toying with block scheduling

[Jean in Newcastle]

Ds15's subjects will be chemistry, geometry, Latin (or German), Medieval History/Lit., Trad. Logic 2, Classical Guitar. Do all of these have to be done every day? Or could I schedule a couple of them for longer times a couple of times a week?

[regentrude]

My kids never work on every subject every day. They find it much more effective to spend larger consecutive portions of time on one subject, particulatly in high school.

I do not schedule anything, but simply let them choose what they want to work on and for how long. They keep track of time spent, so we can quickly detect if a subject becomes neglected. They tend to go on binges and have weeks where they focus heavily on math, or on history, or science.

(This semester, with two four hours courses that demand 8 hours of outside work each week, it seems all DD is ever doing is French and Physics anyway...)

[Geo]

nm

Edited August 30, 2012 by Geo

[shanvan]

Ds15's subjects will be chemistry, geometry, Latin (or German), Medieval History/Lit., Trad. Logic 2, Classical Guitar. Do all of these have to be done every day? Or could I schedule a couple of them for longer times a couple of times a week?

 

Jean, I am toying with this idea for my Ds too. I'm interested to hear what others have done. :bigear:

[bobbeym]

My kids never work on every subject every day. They find it much more effective to spend larger consecutive portions of time on one subject, particulatly in high school.

I do not schedule anything, but simply let them choose what they want to work on and for how long. They keep track of time spent, so we can quickly detect if a subject becomes neglected. They tend to go on binges and have weeks where they focus heavily on math, or on history, or science.

(This semester, with two four hours courses that demand 8 hours of outside work each week, it seems all DD is ever doing is French and Physics anyway...)

 

I love the idea of block scheduling and think DS would prefer it but we're still working up to it. I think I'll have to suggest focusing on one-two subjects a week and see what he might think of that. If nothing else, maybe we'll get done with Algebra 1 more quickly.

[kiana]

You could always try it and see how he responds.

 

Some people do better doing every subject every day and other people would do better doing every subject once a week or racing through logic in a month.

 

The caveat I'd advise is that if a skill-based subject (math, writing, foreign language) is 'done' early in the year, regular practice should be scheduled through the rest of the year to increase retention for next year. This does not have to be super-hard, just (for example) cumulative review problems once every week or two, something like that.

[southcarolinamom]

We like block scheduling at our house for high schoolers! Having my dd, who struggles with math, do block scheduling for Algebra doesn't work, but for all her other school subjects -- we like it!

 

The first year my son was in college, he realized how much he really, really likes the block scheduling method of class :001_smile:

 

I pretty much put my lesson plan book in front of the kids with everything written out for the week, and let them "go at it." They mark off the days they have completed, and I check the finished work as we progress through the week. The kids know if they have completed everything on my list, they are done with school for the week! (Which self-motivates one of my children, but the other one really doesn't care. :D )

[regentrude]

The caveat I'd advise is that if a skill-based subject (math, writing, foreign language) is 'done' early in the year, regular practice should be scheduled through the rest of the year to increase retention for next year. This does not have to be super-hard, just (for example) cumulative review problems once every week or two, something like that.

 

:iagree:

I was more thinking of blocks of several hours, not blocks of several weeks. I do not find these particularly effective for long term retention (even if there are schools that have adopted this as a model for their college classes). Often, I observe that students need to sit on abstract concepts of skills for a while; even if they take a few days hiatus, the material is being processed in the subconscious, and they emerge with stronger skills even though they have not actively worked on the subject for a few days. A very compressed block schedule (a year of math in three months of non-stop work) not only has the obvious disadvantage kiana mentions (forgetting stuff in the non-subject time), but it also does not allow for these processing periods.

That is also one problem I have with summer courses that compress the material of a whole semester into 8 weeks.

 

Of course, extremely compressed blocks would be good for get-it-done-subjects that do not require any long term retention, just checking the box. I have no personal experience with that, because we do no such subjects in our homeschooling.

[Leanna Tomlinson]

Jean,

 

My high school kids usually drift to block scheduling on their own, but not in all subjects.

 

Math and Foreign Language seem to be best to continue on a daily basis. Our Spanish co-op teacher even requested this after the work of some students started slipping and she found out they were doing ALL their Spanish on Monday and then coming to class on Friday without having heard Spanish in three days. (We use a computer program for listening to Spanish during the week.) Teacher wanted the audio exposure every day, and she was right.

 

My current 9th grader and my older three all were successful in block scheduling writing, literature, history, and science. Since we have co-op on Friday which involves class discussion, ds14 and I have it planned this way:

 

M & T - do all your science and writing - these classes don't depend on discussion, but more on the work being handed in or lab experience.

 

W& Th - do all history and lit.- since these classes require discussion it's best for the material to be fresh for Friday's class.

 

In the past, if one of my older dc "block scheduled" a subject and completed the material several days before class, we built in a 20 minute review time on the day before class.

 

I have taught history in our co-op for several years, and I've watched several families move through with various scheduling methods. The ones that don't work well are those that only approach one subject a day. I can always tell during class discussions that these kids haven't looked at the material in days. It was really bad when our co-op was on Tuesday and one family had "history day" on Wednesday, by the next Tuesday these students were completely unprepared for class.

 

HTH

[plansrme]

The STEM magnet my daughter entered this year uses straight block scheduling--4 one-credit classes per semester. Supposedly, there is research that block scheduling increases retetion for gifted students. One of the speakers at the Cinci convention mentioned this as well, though I have no idea where my notes are that would either identify this speaker or back her up. I do remember that she was one of the speakers grouped with Zaccaro and MCT.

 

Anyway, my daughter has each of four classes for 1.5 hours per day, 5 days a week. She likes it very much so far and finds four classes easier to juggle than 7 or 8. She scheduled her AP classes for the second semester, though for students who take APs the first semester, the school has review sessions in the weeks leading up to the exams. Many students also just go on to the next level of the class second semester to increase retention. For example, if you are taking Calc AB this semester, you would take BC second semester. If you take honors bio first, you could take AP bio second semester.

 

Terri

[Luckymama]

 

Anyway, my daughter has each of four classes for 1.5 hours per day, 5 days a week. She likes it very much so far and finds four classes easier to juggle than 7 or 8. She scheduled her AP classes for the second semester, though for students who take APs the first semester, the school has review sessions in the weeks leading up to the exams. Many students also just go on to the next level of the class second semester to increase retention. For example, if you are taking Calc AB this semester, you would take BC second semester. If you take honors bio first, you could take AP bio second semester.

 

Terri

 

What an intriguing idea for a STEM focus! Thanks for sharing :001_smile:

[happygrrl]

We are doing this, inspired by posts made by Regentrude in the past. We start today!

[Jean in Newcastle]

OK - this is sounding more and more like the route we'll take. I'll probably mostly leave it up to ds. We can make changes as needed.

[angela in ohio]

We meet for each subject 1-3 times per week, depending on what it is, and then dc are free to schedule their work in between those days. It basically works like college classes. They usually end up not touching every subject every day, but instead working once or twice a week for along period of time.

[Lori D.]

Ds15's subjects will be chemistry, geometry, Latin (or German), Medieval History/Lit., Trad. Logic 2, Classical Guitar. Do all of these have to be done every day? Or could I schedule a couple of them for longer times a couple of times a week?

 

 

It really depends on the student and how the student best learns/retains information. Also, some subjects are better suited for "blocks" than others. For the type of scheduling you are asking about (longer class but fewer meeting times over the week), these subjects are easier to schedule that way: history/social studies, science, logic, fine arts, computer, PE. In contrast, some subjects tend to do better with daily exposure: writing, math, foreign language, music practice, driving practice (driver's ed).

 

 

We did a very modified "block" throughout high school. Of the core classes, we did Math, Literature, Writing every day. Subjects we did as modified blocks: 2 days/week of Science and 2 days/week of History. That allowed us a block of about 2 hours for Science or History at one sitting; we could get through a lot more material, plus the science labs. Fridays we used as "catch-up/finish-up" of whatever did not get done on the "block" days.

 

We also did several 0.5 credit courses in either a 1.5 to 2 hour block just one day a week OR about 45-60 min. two days a week for the whole school year of 36 weeks (Gov't and Economonics, for example).

 

That really did work for us -- more time to go deep and concentrate, so we felt like we accomplished more in fewer days per week. Also, that is the way the community college scheduled the foreign language classes DSs took as dual enrollment -- two 2-hour classes per week, and then they did work at homework and studied on the in-between days. Because they were already used to some "block" scheduling at home, the transition to the college class scheduling was not difficult at all for them.

 

In the end, do what works best for YOU and for your DS -- YOU dictate the schedule; don't let the schedule dictate you. ;) Below are more threads on various types of schedules. BEST of luck in your scheduling! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

Block scheduling at home -- anyone tried this (the college method of long class/fewer meetings/week)

Block scheduling, can we discuss it

Block scheduling (the ps method of 4 100-minute classes per semester)

Block scheduling in public high schools

Block scheduling for math and science… does anyone else do this?

 

Scheduling high school work

Scheduling schoolwork with breaks

Planning: 4 or 5 days/week? Some other method?

How many days per week do you do history?