<p>I've further read about it since one of you mentioned it in another thread.</p>
<p>I've read about the pros and cons, and I don't think it's a good idea and is very often implemented in an extremely incompetent manner. The first red flag should have been universal limitations of student attention span. I'm glad I went to school before this fad saw the light of day. (Yes, I realize that some of you hate my rants. Well, I feel no need to comment about something when I agree with everyone. So you won't see me writing "The sky is blue" or "Nobody reads Playboy for the articles".)</p>
<p>I still don't understand how block schedules work. Some of you have implied that block scheduling crams nearly two years' worth of material into one. On the other hand, I've read that block scheduling means that up to half of the course material is cut out. This shortchanges students by dumbing everything down.</p>
<p>How exactly does this work? And how does a one-year math course get compressed into one semester? When I was in high school, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Algebra, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus (AB) were all one-year courses. Some of you report that these are one-semester courses at your school. </p>
<p>One thing that really confused me about one of your block schedules was Pre-Calculus as a one-semester course and AP Chemistry as a full-year course. For me, these were both full-year courses I took in my junior year.</p>
<p>A single class in middle school used to be around 45-ish minutes each, right? Block scheduling basically means combining TWO of these single classes into a 90-ish minute class (ours are actually 82, to compensate for lunch, and "dash to the locker" time) so you learn double the material per day, meaning you learn twice as much in a day, THUS meaning you only take the course for half the year. It's basically stuffing a ton of material into half a year instead of spreading it out over the course of a whole year. </p>
<p>Other courses, like AP Chemistry, are "college level" courses, therefore are worth more credit (AP sciences are worth 1.5 at my school, and regular one semester, everyday courses are 1 credit). Meaning, you have them throughout the whole year, because you invest more time in it :) </p>
<p>But yeah, I definitely prefer the old way. Having math every single day for about 82 minutes for HALF A YEAR nearly fried all my brain cells...</p>
<p>Only positive is you only have courses like math or english for half a year - so if you really detest it, you don't need to take it all year long. It's kinda like college classes in that aspect.</p>
<p>
[quote]
How exactly does this work? And how does a one-year math course get compressed into one semester? When I was in high school, Pre-Algebra, Algebra, Geometry, Advanced Algebra, Pre-Calculus, and Calculus (AB) were all one-year courses. Some of you report that these are one-semester courses at your school.
[/quote]
It's 90 minutes a day. We have four courses first and four courses second semester. We're not cramming two years to one, we're taking 8 courses instead of 6, not 12.
Precocious said everything else.</p>
<p>
[quote]
One thing that really confused me about one of your block schedules was Pre-Calculus as a one-semester course and AP Chemistry as a full-year course. For me, these were both full-year courses I took in my junior year.
[/quote]
It is hard to get some of the APs into one semester -- so they decided to put them into two semesters.</p>
<p>And I love it, because I really crammed two years into one -- took Geometry and Alg II in Freshman.</p>
<p>Around this area, block scheduling doesn't cut down the time period over which you take the class. Most classes are still two semester courses. You still take 6-8 classes a year, but you take them on altenating days. Classes are 90 minutes long, but you only have 4 periods a day.</p>
<p>My school does it a lot better. I actually like it. We have lettered days ABCD. We take our classes for 85 minutes, with four blocks in a day. With the exception of Sciences and Gym, every class meets every other day, which means more time for homework! Science has class three out of the four days, with Gym one of them. Almost all courses are full year.</p>
<p>The school of mine that had the best schedule was 7 classes per year, block, tumbling schedule with 3 classes per day, it would go:
Day 1: 1,2,3
Day 2: 4,5,6
Day 3: 7,1,2
Day 4: 3,4,5
Day 5: 6,7,1
Day 6: 2,3,4
Day 7: 5,6,7</p>
<p>It was cool because how each day the schedule changed so it kept you on your toes sort of.</p>
<p>Don't the alternating schedules get confusing? Call me an old curmugeon, but under the traditional system, you don't even have to think about where you have to go or what class meets on what day. Even in college, all Mondays have the same schedule, and the same applies to each of the other days in the week.</p>
<p>If you get to take 8 courses per year instead of 6, doesn't that mean that less instructional time can be dedicated to each of the 8, assuming the school day isn't lengthened? If the quality doesn't get diluted, doesn't taking 33.3% more coursework also mean being flooded with 33.3% more homework over the course of the school year?</p>
<p>I can't believe that the Block Scheduling is a free lunch. It sounds like a shell game to me. Even without the confusion from having a different schedule each week and the impact of limited attention spans, something has to give in the class allocation tradeoff:
A. The school day/year and the workload increase.
B. The curriculum gets watered down.
C. Both of the above.</p>
If you get to take 8 courses per year instead of 6, doesn't that mean that less instructional time can be dedicated to each of the 8, assuming the school day isn't lengthened?
[/quote]
Instructional times increases in 1.5 times while whole time for a course decreases by a factor of two. So we sit 90 minutes in each class which is actually nice; because when, after long thinking you finally began to understand material the last thing you want is to be disturbed by a bell.
You are more relaxed, more confident.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can't believe that the Block Scheduling is a free lunch. It sounds like a shell game to me. Even without the confusion from having a different schedule each week and the impact of limited attention spans, something has to give in the class allocation tradeoff:
A. The school day/year and the workload increase.
B. The curriculum gets watered down.
C. Both of the above.
[/quote]
Shazbot! We just have semester for a one year load but increased period and less subjects a day.
Example. Let's say you have to do an hour of homework for 6 classes that you have in regular schedule. If you will try to do them twice faster (year-->semester) you will have to do 2<em>6 = 12 hours of homework. a day. However, if you only have 4 classes each semester, then you, with twice the speed have to do: 2</em>4 = 8 hours of homework.</p>
<p>We had regular scheduling (6 50-minute periods each day) with block days (3 120-minute periods) on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I personally didn't like it, but a lot of my friends did. </p>
<p>Now, in dual-enrollment, I'm in charge of my own schedule which is way nicer ;) <3 College</p>
<p>< Instructional times increases in 1.5 times while whole time for a course decreases by a factor of two.>
Under the traditional system, you take 6 classes of the normal length for the school year.</p>
<p>Under the block schedule, your classes are 1.5 times as long but are only 1 semester instead of 2. So the total instructional time decreases by 25% (1.5/2=.75=25% less than 100%). So this means that the teacher has to cram in the same amount of material into fewer class hours or water down the class.</p>
<p>Going from 6 classes to 8 means that there is 33.3% more material for the student to learn over the same school year. This also means 33.3% more studying and homework to do (or more if the extra classes are the hardest AP classes). If more studying and homework aren't required, then that means the classes have all been watered down.</p>
<p>I smell a rat. Again, one of three things must happen:
A. The school day/year and the workload increase.
B. The curriculum gets watered down.
C. Both of the above.</p>
<p>We have block scheduling by the semester (or quarter) here.</p>
<p>I love being able to double up on courses. I completely finished all of the chemistry classes at my school this year, excluding basic chem, because of block.</p>
<p>I'm also wondering if I just missed this or if it hasn't been mentioned yet. Block scheduling takes a way quite a bit of the "settling down" and "getting ready to leave" parts of class. So class is 90 minutes long. We take 5-10 minutes to "settle in" and 2-5 minutes to "get ready to leave" which is 7-15 minutes a class. You do that way less with block scheduling, saving upwards of an hour (in my school at least) of wasted time.</p>
<p>Then again there are still classes like Spanish. School starts at 8:20. Spanish starts at 9:00.</p>