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April 28, 2006 -- Students who had block scheduling
enjoyed no advantage in
college science compared to peers
who had traditional class schedules
in high school, according to Robert
Tai, assistant professor of science
education at the University of Virginia’s
Curry School
of Education. In
fact, they performed worse, he said.
In an article published in the
April/May issue of High School
Journal, Tai and co-authors Kirsten
Dexter, a biology teacher in Greene
County who earned her master’s
degree at the Curry School, and
Philip Sadler of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics,
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.
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 to 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 longterm
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.”
“With the additional pressure of
the No Child left Behind Act,
schools are trying to help all students
graduate and pursue an education
beyond high school,” Dexter
said. “We need to create an educational
environment that helps facilitate
success in college, and if
something is inhibiting the preparation,
it needs to be fixed.”
Block scheduling was sold as a
way that students would learn
much better, especially in the sciences,
Tai said, but they’re doing
worse.
It may be harder for some students
to grasp the material in a
longer block of time, he said. Plus, if
a student misses a class, he or she
misses more of the subject matter.
Even peer tutoring didn’t end up
helping the students in block
scheduling.
“An hour and a half is a long time
for high school students to stay in
one class,” said Dexter, who teaches
high school biology and has taught
in a variety of schedules.
The 90-minute classes also are
hard on the teachers, she added. It
takes more energy and more time to
plan enough activities to fill the
period. Although many teachers
regard longer laboratory sessions as
beneficial, students report that
teaching methods differ little
whether in long or short classes.
Over the school year, block
scheduling also costs the students
class time, the researchers found. A
50-minute class held every day for
two weeks equals 500 minutes of
class time, whereas a 90-minute
block class held five times in two
weeks (on alternate days) equals
450 minutes. In addition, more time
may be lost in the class period as a
teacher changes from one activity
to another.
“This is not advantageous,” Tai
said.
The survey sample comprises the
higher-performing students who
went to four-year colleges and controls
for students’ backgrounds.
And if these top high school students
are doing worse, Tai continued,
we could extrapolate that it
must be even harder for struggling
students. Block scheduling does not
appear to be a better option. When
schools go through all the changes
of switching to block scheduling,
even if there was no difference, it
wouldn’t be worth it. Harvard’s
Sadler adds, “Instead, schools
should invest in changes that have
been shown to produce large student
gains and that are backed by
rigorous research studies.”
The April/May 2006 issue of the
High School Journal is available
online. Scroll
down the contents
page to find html or pdf
access.
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