Link: NYT : At Elite Schools, longer classes to go deeper

[HejKatt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/education/02calhoun.html

 

Excerpt:

Instead of the traditional schedule of eight 45-minute classes each day, with courses broken into two semesters, high school students at Calhoun intensively study three to five subjects in each of five terms, or modules, that are 32 to 36 days long. Classes are in blocks of 65 or 130 minutes each day. Every day, students have 45 minutes of “community time,†an intentionally unstructured period for the students.

 

It's a thoughtfully written piece, but I questioned if it is really new? I had been under the impression that the "old ways" taught fewer subjects, but deeper.

[In The Great White North]

One of our local schools does this (but never gets to the multivariable calculus and chemistry mentioned.) The problem is that you don't have long term continuity. Picture math first semester freshman year, and second semester sophomore year, with a whole year of no math! The school is not known for its superior academics.:tongue_smilie:

 

The school in the article breaks the year into 5 "semesters" so presumably they would have a whole year inbetween, but it would still be more disjointed than continuous math courses.

 

Finally, their examples of the wonderful things they get to do with the extra long classes don't sound that wonderful to me.

 

Teachers interviewed said they enjoyed the flexibility of longer classes, which allowed them to take students out of the classroom and collaborate more, both with other teachers and students.

Advanced biology students, for example, trekked to the Black Rock Forest, in Orange County, N.Y., to measure snow depth,

Measure the snow?!?! in Advanced Biology?!?!! Sounds like the teacher had no clue what to do for the two hours and was looking for ways to use up time.

[nrg]

This is how Waldorf schools use blocks and schedules beginning in grade 1. Very interesting.

[In The Great White North]

No, it's not. Waldorf schools use a Main Lesson period first thing in the morning. It is only for history and new concepts in math and English.

 

The rest of the classes are about 45 minutes. They have other math, English, language, music and art periods that happen no matter what Main Lesson block they are in.

 

There are no "finals" so that doesn't happen 5 times a year.

[Rosie_0801]

We used to have double periods in high school. They were about 100mins long. They were most useful for art, PE, drama and science pracs. For everything else, it was too long.

 

Rosie

[gingersmom]

From the description of some of the classes they sounded way too long.

 

Other parts of the article reminded me of homeschooling. Without the $40,000 tuition. :001_smile:

[stripe]

There are schools that have alternate schedules. Such as a longer period, three times a week, instead of shorter, five times a week. More like college.

 

I went to a public school like this and liked it.

 

Then again, Charlotte Mason thought you should have short periods to keep interest and pique the imagination.

[Teachin'Mine]

How on earth do you cover multivariable calculus or chemistry in 36 days or less??? :confused: To me it sounds like a very expensive way to torture your children. :tongue_smilie:

[fairfarmhand]

How on earth do you cover multivariable calculus or chemistry in 36 days or less??? :confused: To me it sounds like a very expensive way to torture your children. :tongue_smilie:

:iagree:

[Dana]

How on earth do you cover multivariable calculus or chemistry in 36 days or less??? :confused: To me it sounds like a very expensive way to torture your children. :tongue_smilie:

 

Poorly.

 

Many schools here have been on a block schedule for a while. Some have A/B days that alternate through the school year. Others are 4x4 where you do daily courses for a semester. Everything I've read on the block schedules says it's dreadful for math retention.

 

When I did my student teaching, we didn't cover as much in the block schedule as you would have in a traditional schedule.

 

I think in theory, block scheduling can be good.

From what I saw in practice, it's awful. Wish we'd move away from it.

[HejKatt]

Thanks for the responses, everyone! It helped me see how different schools are. The impression I had from the writer was that regular schedules are chopped-up, and move quickly between disparate subjects, and no connections in between.

 

From the description of some of the classes they sounded way too long.

 

Other parts of the article reminded me of homeschooling. Without the $40,000 tuition. :001_smile:

 

That's what I was thinking too..:tongue_smilie: delight-directed study except the students aren't necessarily delighted (if that makes any sense).

[HejKatt]

We used to have double periods in high school. They were about 100mins long. They were most useful for art, PE, drama and science pracs. For everything else, it was too long.

 

Rosie

 

Good point! PPs (if I understood them correctly) also mentioned that math was better covered long-term, but in shorter sessions before the student reached the EGO (eyes-glazed-over) stage.

 

Trying to summarize here, it seems: Longer sessions are good, but they cannot crowd out the repetition needed for subjects which build on earlier knowledge (math, physics come to mind).

[JumpyTheFrog]

There are schools that have alternate schedules. Such as a longer period, three times a week, instead of shorter, five times a week.

 

In 6th grade, my middle school was on a regular schedule of having class every day at the same time. Chorus, band, and orchestra were done during the 25 minute home room period. In 7th grade, we switched to a rotating schedule, although I don't remember how it worked.

 

In high school, each day we had 6 one hour blocks for class. The classes rotated time periods, which was nice, because then if you had a certain time of day that your brain didn't work as well, you didn't have it always harming your grade in the same class. Taking tests at 7:30 am after not getting enough sleep wasn't fun, so it was nice to only have, say, calculus first thing once a week instead of every day.

 

There were slots for 8 classes available, although taking 6-7 was more normal. One day per week your science lab would be back-to-back with class, giving a 2 hour block to work on longer labs. I don't know how labs could be squeezed into a 45 minute class at other schools.

 

PE was twice a week, science labs we're twice a week, and everything else was three days per week. I had only 2 study halls per week, from the blocks not needed for PE or labs.

 

Overall, I liked this schedule because it made labs easier, it allowed us to take more classes, and the longer time period made it easier to actually get something done in class (especially if it took 10 minutes for everyone to settle down).

[JumpyTheFrog]

In college, one quarter I took three graduate statistics courses that met once a week for three hours. It was awful. I definitely agree that there is only so much math you can absorb at one time.

[Whereneverever]

I'm not a fan of big chunks that are infrequently revisited. I think it's an interesting premise, but probably not very effective.

[katilac]

It seems like schools might be missing what seems to be an obvious alternative, one often discussed and recommended on these boards: daily or near daily classes for skill areas, block scheduling for content areas.

 

You could even treat the same subject both ways. For example, the typical math skills could be taught on a daily basis, but there's no reason you couldn't also offer a short term math module that explored more in-depth or hands-on math concepts, projects, and challenges.

 

I could see rotating science and English to an extent, certainly the skill areas (ie, in English, grammar, essay form, etc). Students would never have to be more than a semester away from either a skill or content course in core subjects.

[Pink Fairy]

My dh taught in a school with block scheduling. The idea was great on paper, but the attention spans of the children made it a challenge. His students were unable to focus on one subject for that length of time and actually learned less than under a normal schedule.