Providence Journal
3/20/00

Schools revamp the time it takes to learn

At least three high schools in the state have shaken things up by moving to block scheduling.

by LINDA BORG

WOONSOCKET - For years, Woonsocket High School operated on what Assistant Principal Robert Vachon calls the assembly-line approach to education. The pace was furious, with students switching classes seven times a day, every 43 minutes.

By the time the class settled down and attendance was taken, little time was left for instruction before the bell rang again. Students at Woonsocket High Rhode Island's largest high school with 1,760 pupils were bored and disconnected. So were some of the faculty, who had been teaching the same way for 10, sometimes 20 years.

"We realized that things weren't working," said Vachon. "The building never stopped. Kids were moving constantly. It was like a factory of learning. Our dropout and absenteeism rates were too high. Our grades and test scores were too low."

Vachon and others realized it was time for a change. Motivated by a national report called "Breaking Ranks" that called for sweeping high school reform, a core group of faculty and administrators decided to embark on a grand experiment: restructuring the entire school day.

The high school collapsed a seven-period day into four large blocks of time. Classes now last 83 minutes instead of 43 minutes. Most courses run for a semester instead of a year.

Redesigning the school day set off a chain reaction that is still being felt today. The high school has increased its graduation requirements, dropped a strict tracking system of placing students according to skill levels and, most important of all, forced faculty to revamp the way they teach.

"When we started block scheduling last year, it was like my first year of teaching," said George Lacouture, the math department chairman. "Everything in my bag of tricks, I couldn't use. But I see this as a plus, not a negative. It reinvigorated my teaching career."

A 1994 REPORT by the National Education Commission on Time and Learning, an independent panel convened by Congress, called the traditional six-hour, 180-day school year the "unacknowledged design flaw in American education."

About 10 years ago, educators began rethinking the way they structured their school day, at least partly in response to the national call for higher standards.

Since then, at least 55 percent of all high schools nationwide have adopted some form of alternative

schedule, according to the National Association of School Principals.

In Rhode Island, at least three high schools Woonsocket, East Providence and Shea High School in Pawtucket have gone to block schedules. Coventry and Cumberland plan to adopt this schedule on at least a limited basis this fall.

South Kingstown High School experimented with block schedules during a 10-week trial period three years ago, but hasn't decided whether to go forward with the project. And in Massachusetts, Seekonk High School has moved to longer class periods.

In interviews last week with more than a dozen Woonsocket teachers, almost everyone expressed support for the longer learning blocks, despite some initial reservations.

"I can't imagine going back to seven periods," said Eileen Passano, a business teacher. "I know the kids much better now and I get to know them sooner."

However, block scheduling is not an end in itself. Rather, extended class periods provide an organizational structure that encourages faculty to teach more creatively and explore subjects in depth.

"It allows students to learn more deeply about a particular subject rather than skim the surface," said Robert A. Mackin, who directs a high school reform effort at Brown University called Breaking Ranks in the Ocean State. "Schools have found that it provides a much more meaningful learning experience."

Block scheduling has forced teachers to move away from the classic chalk-and-talk approach to education, where the teacher stands in front of the class and imparts information.

At Woonsocket High School, teachers still lecture, but they do so for 15 to 20 minutes instead of 43. The class period is divided into a variety of activities, from seminar-style discussions to working in small groups.

Block scheduling has been particularly effective in the sciences, where students can complete a lab project in a day and a half instead of three.

Science chairman Linda Jzyk might begin with a quiz, review the reading material, and then watch a movie. In a traditional 43-minute period, Jzyk said she could do one of these activities, but never all three.

"Under the old system, we thought that if the teacher didn't say it, the student wouldn't know it," said Claudia Eagan, chairwoman of the English department. "Now, kids have to prove that they can do it. That's been the biggest challenge for us figuring out what skills students have, not what skills we have."

Students' reaction to the new schedule has been mixed, with some complaining that teachers are still lecturing too much. Others say they are overloaded with required classes one semester, while their course load is filled with electives the next.

Still, most students said they preferred the longer classes to the seven-period day.

"The day goes by quicker," said one junior.

"I'm getting more out of class now," said another.

ONE OF THE CLASSIC debates prompted by block schedules is the breadth versus depth tradeoff. Because each course runs only one semester, teachers no longer have the time to cover the entire time line in a survey course like American history.

Although Woonsocket faculty were worried about this concession, Vachon said most teachers recognize that it makes more sense to analyze a seminal event like Gettysburg rather than touch on every battle.

"It was understood that I'm not going to cover everything," said Heidi Joly, an English teacher. "Once I realized that I have to focus more on skills as opposed to covering every book in the English language, I was OK."

Some Woonsocket teachers said they are spending much more time on lesson preparation and on grading homework. Planning enough activities to hold students' interest for a double period takes considerably more work than putting together a 30-to 40-minute lecture.

"It's a lot more stressful," said Renee Shaw, a business teacher. "You have to be prepared. You can't wing it. And it's a lot more responsibility."

The administration realized that the shift to longer classes would take more time and effort. Working closely with the union, it guaranteed that teachers would have a full block of preparation time every day.

With the backing of the School Committee, the administration went one step further, temporarily suspending teacher evaluations until the faculty became comfortable with new teaching methods, and hiring people to monitor the corridors during class breaks.

"We don't have an us-versus-them atmosphere," said George Morris, the union treasurer. "It's very collegial. The administration asked us to participate in the creation of this new schedule."

The committee that was formed to study block scheduling launched a two-year campaign to educate staff about its advantages and shortcomings. Members brought in experts, held faculty workshops, published a monthly newsletter, and developed lesson plans.

The upshot was that by the time Woonsocket switched to the new schedule in 1998, the faculty knew what to expect.

Early on, the study committee realized that some subjects, like band and Algebra 1, should be taught for an entire year, and so the high school tweaked the schedule to accommodate these changes.

IN WOONSOCKET, block scheduling has been the catalyst for a bevy of school reforms.

Because of the semester schedule, students can now take a maximum of 32 possible credits, compared to 27. As a result, Woonsocket has increased its graduation requirements from a minimum of 18 credits to 26 credits.

The high school has also added more courses in core subjects like math, science and social studies, and eliminated study halls in an effort to increase the amount of time students spend learning.

Students now have the opportunity to take courses they never would have considered before the change, and students of varying abilities find themselves sharing the same English or American History class.

Block scheduling has also had a noticeable effect on school climate. Vachon said the school seems less hurried and discipline has improved. Suspensions and disciplinary referrals have dropped, student and teacher attendance are up and more students are making the honor roll.

But the transition has not been flawless. Many classes are still too large, which hinders the kind of hands-on teaching essential to block scheduling.

Some students complain that school spirit is sagging because there is less time during the school day for extracurricular activities.

Woonsocket, a working-class community with a growing minority population, has a high turnover rate at the high school. Block scheduling places students who enter the school mid-year at a serious disadvantage, Morris said, because they are either way behind or way ahead of their classmates.

The move to block scheduling is not something fixed in stone. It is, as Robert Vachon put it, a work in progress.

"You can't do this overnight," said Lacouture. "You have failures, so you try something new next year."

Perhaps the most dramatic impact wrought by block scheduling is the way in which it has transformed how teachers think and feel about their jobs.

"I've been teaching for 26 years," said Linda Jzyk. "Since we went to block scheduling, I've been as excited about coming to school as when I first started."

============================================