<p>Although our blocks seem very different from most of yours, college-going kids have returned to visit and they’ve said that the way classes are taught DID prepare then for college-level intensity. So did having to do quarterly presentations of in-depth projects, as well as working in groups towards a common goal.</p>
<p>I like my school’s block system. I find it rather boring to be in the same 7 classes everyday for a whole year. It keeps it more interesting, and exciting to switch mid-way through the year…and we have 8 classes(without AP)!</p>
<p>I liked my school’s block scheduling (the A day / B day type) as an underclassman. I had two days to do homework (especially nice in softball season) and I could schedule appointments on my “boring” days. It also helped me make the most of my time in classes that require a lot of “prep time” as well. For instance, in band it takes quite a bit of time to get instruments out and to warm up. If we had 40 min daily, we’d only really get 30 minutes of quality practice time, or 60 minutes over two days. In the block schedule, we still needed ten minutes to prep which left 70 minutes of quality practice time… 10 minutes more than we’d get with a traditional schedule. </p>
<p>As an upperclassman, I really despised the block schedule. It was still nice having two days to do homework, but otherwise I hated it. Having 84 minutes of material thrown at you in AP Calculus or AP Physics is overwhelming, and I really think I would have done better in those classes if I had them for 42 minutes everyday instead of 84 minutes daily. Research has shown that studying a little bit everyday is better than cramming, so it’s not a huge jump to say that traditional scheduling helps students retain information better than a block schedule. Block scheduling also causes problems in easier classes like Health and Economics. There isn’t really enough material to fill 84 minutes, so the last 20 minutes become study hall. If classes were shorter there might be less wasted time. And if I happened to be sick or have a game or a field trip on my “hard day” it was really difficult to catch up. </p>
<p>I’m just glad my school at least had an A/B day schedule rather than 4 classes each semester. AP testing would have been a nightmare, and the amount of time dedicated to review in math/foreign language probably would have increased to accommodate students who took the prerequisite 2 semesters + a summer ago. </p>
<p>My Ds went to private schools all their lives before college. Both schools had block scheduling, so they didn’t know any other way. Both have done fine.</p>
<p>My kids attended a school for a year with straight block scheduling.
Pros-
You only had four classes per semester to keep up with, and one of those was usually an elective. If you have a child that has attention issues, that could be problematic.
If you are a high achiever, you could take a ton of APs
My son struggled with organization,so four classes made life so much easier for him.</p>
<p>Cons-
Ninety minutes is a long time, and my kids told me the teacher didnt really teach the entire time.
Sometimes APs were offered first semester, so you had too much lag time before the exam
You could conceivably go a year without math, for example you have geometry first semester freshman yr, then you dont have alg 2 until second semester sophomore year.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, we had the same system as what @kiddie described: 8 classes of which 6 met on any given day. High school, 4 classes rotated through the three morning periods and 4 classes rotated through three afternoon periods. This was a nice system The periods weren’t too long. One class didn’t suffer all semester from being the class after lunch (when everyone falls asleep). Having a specific course four days a week brought continuity but you also had a break too.</p>
<p>D’s school seems to do the usual A/B days with four classes meeting on A days and four classes meeting on B days. It makes for very long periods. I would find it hard, especially immediately after lunch to sit through 80, 90 minutes of instruction. I never had a college class, outside of labs, that long.</p>
<p>I’m not quite sure as to what the proper terminology is, but when I was in HS, we had a six class schedule, with three classes per day. I think they were about two hours each, but it’s been five years, so I could be wrong. You took each class every other school day. The vast majority of classes lasted a full academic year, but economics and government (both required classes) were one semester each. Personally, I think it injected some variety into the school week, provided extra homework time, and allowed more flexibility in teaching. I had a lot of problems with how my local education system worked, but block scheduling is one thing I think they did right.</p>
<p>@Limewine I’m not sure what you mean by a 3x5, but I think it might be the trimesters our high school uses. They have 5 classes per trimester and 3 trimesters per year. Each class is 70 minutes long, so not quite the 90 minutes the blocks seem to have, but more than a typical high school class. Half credit classes are only one trimester. Full credit classes, like English have English A and English B so they use two trimesters. Kids get 7.5 credits per year to work with or 15 trimester long courses. They moved to this when the state increased the graduation requirements because it allows most kids to get more different electives in. The old system was 6 credits per year= 24 credits total. The new system is 30 credits total in highschool. </p>
<p>The oddball thing is when it comes to AP classes. They’ve made those full year classes so they are 1.5 credits each and that actually makes it harder to get them all in. My daughter was also messed up by band, which is also a full year course. She did get permission to take one trimester off from band to fit an AP class in, but she graduated with 5.5 credits of band, which is a bit much. </p>
<p>Personally, i think A-B block scheduling is the worst thing i have ever seen! I see absolutely no upside to it. Kids are taking 8 classes. In college or grad school one needs a dean’s permission to exceed 5 or 6 classes because of the workload. If teachers would only assign homework that takes a reasonable amount of tine, it might work. But our experience was that teachers gave twice as much homework because they thought students had two nights to do it. It was nothing short of disasterous! </p>
<p>Our HS has a modified block schedule and it’s a nightmare! There are 4 ninety minute periods each day. Most courses are 1 period long for a semester. It’s not uncommon for students to have a semester, or even a year, between sequential courses in math and foreign languages. Other courses, such as honors freshman English and social studies operate on an A/B rotation, meeting every other day. AP classes, however, are “skinnies” and meet for a half period (45 min) year long. One has to find another AP class to fill the other 1/2 period. Course availability is often limited so this is easier said than done. Other classes, like chorus, meet for a full period year long so they take up 2 of the 8 blocks during the year. Scheduling is crazy and students who take multiple APs often end up with holes in their schedule. </p>