In most high schools across the country, quick shifts are the order of the day. Students sit in classes for about 50 minutes—then bells clang, and students throng the halls, moving from French to physics, from English to social studies, from math to physical education. Besides changing location, students must shift gears mentally as they move from one subject to the next, typically six times a day.
The seven-period day (six classes plus lunch) has a long tradition behind it. But today some educators are questioning whether this way of scheduling the school day is the most productive, for both teachers and students. As more and more teachers try instructional innovations that work best in longer time blocks—such as cooperative learning, hands-on activities, long-term projects, and interdisciplinary lessons—they are finding the typical 50-minute class period a barrier to delivering good instruction.
Many teachers would like to extend their classes so they could try new techniques and delve more deeply into their subjects before a bell rings and students head for the door. To make this possible, some schools are experimenting with forms of block scheduling that create extended classes, observers say.
One school that has embraced this approach is L.V. Rogers Secondary School in Nelson, British Columbia. Students at the school take two two-and-a-half hour courses (lasting 9 weeks) at a time, according to Principal Bill Reid. All courses except band are offered in these blocks, including foreign languages and physical education. The logistics of scheduling in this way are no more difficult than in previous years, he says.
Now in its second year with the new schedule, L.V. Rogers has seen "a variety of academic advantages," Reid says. The graduation rate has increased from 73 percent to 90 percent of 12th graders; attendance is up; discipline problems are down; and the failure rate has "dropped dramatically." Last year, students at the school won 16 $1,000 scholarships based on their scores on the Ministry of Education's examinations; the school's previous record was 6 in one year. Reid credits these accomplishments to the new schedule.
Such striking benefits come as no surprise to Joseph Carroll, who is a strong advocate of extended classes. Carroll, former superintendent of the Masconomet Regional School District in Topsfield, Mass., calls his own rescheduling strategy "The Copernican Plan." Under a Copernican schedule, students take only one four-hour class (lasting 30 days) or two two-hour classes (lasting 60 days) at a time. During the remainder of the school day, students attend a seminar, lunch, and a study/help period. Music and physical education are also woven into the day.
The extended classes—which Carroll calls "macroclasses"—have many advantages, he says. First, they allow teachers and students to "concentrate their time and energies in a much more effective way," because they can study a subject in depth without interruption. "It's a more efficient way to learn," he says.
Second, macroclasses make it easier for teachers to individualize instruction. Because teachers teach only two classes a day instead of five, their student load is reduced dramatically. With fewer students in longer classes, teachers can do more one-on-one coaching. Under the Copernican Plan, "there's no way a kid can get through the day without a teacher talking to him or working with him," Carroll asserts. And with this increased interaction comes a better rapport between teacher and students—and hence fewer discipline problems.
Moreover, Carroll explains, under the Copernican Plan teachers teach six classes each year (two per trimester) rather than the typical five. This change yields other benefits: class size is reduced by one-fifth, and the number of course offerings is increased.
Are there disadvantages to the Copernican Plan? No, Carroll says—but some aspects of the Plan have aroused skepticism. The objection raised most often is that students can't "survive" a class that lasts two hours or more—that they will become bored and tune out. Carroll says this argument is based on the false assumption that teachers will only lecture during class time.
Another common concern is students' retention. Because there may be long gaps of time between a student's courses in the same subject—math, for example—skeptics worry that students will forget too much content in the interim. Carroll disagrees, saying that the research on memory indicates that after some fast memory loss, the rate of forgetting slows considerably. And retention has not been a problem when the Copernican Plan has been put into practice, he asserts.
A Closer `End of the Tunnel'
While Reid concedes that extended classes can be hard on students who are absent, on the whole the new schedule has "solved far more problems than it's created" at L.V. Rogers Secondary School.
One prime advantage, he says, is that students get final grades every nine weeks. In the past, waiting until the end of the year for final grades was like "waiting till June for your paycheck," he says. With the new schedule, "the light at the end of the tunnel is so close, it's easier to keep a student on task."
Students have not become bored in the extended classes, Reid says, because teachers have varied their lectures with cooperative learning activities, guest lecturers, field trips, and library research. In the past, lectures were prevalent at the school, but "this timetable kills the lecture method," he notes.
Nor has retention proved to be a problem. After a time gap in studying a particular subject, students just need a brief review, as after summer vacation, Reid says. The French teacher finds that students get rusty, "but when students are doing French two-and-a-half hours a day, the rust scrapes off real soon."
Using the time saved by eliminating home room and "passing time" between classes—30 minutes total—the school has also created a period (during the noon hour) when students can get extra help, Reid says. This added period also helps to accommodate band classes.
While community reaction to the new schedule has not been unanimously positive—some parents with successful students objected to the change—most staff members, students, and parents like the extended classes, Reid says. The idea has also spread: six other schools in the area are now experimenting with extended classes, he reports.
Extended classes are also used at Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield, Mass., which serves students in grades 7–12. Under the school's "Odyssey Plan," students take three 90-minute courses per semester, says Principal J. Wayne Eline. The new schedule, which has been used for one-and-a-half years, is "going very well," he says. In fact, the logistics have worked out much better than in the past.
Students are overwhelmingly in favor of the longer classes, Eline says. They are not bored, because the new schedule has "forced the teachers to become more creative in the classroom." Eline now sees "a lot more rapport" between teachers and students and fewer discipline problems. Moreover, students' grades are improving, more students are on the honor roll, and fewer are failing, he says.
Nevertheless, Eline admits that the new schedule has been "a terribly hard sell" with the community—despite many open meetings to discuss the issue. Some parents are very concerned about students' retention, he says, especially in foreign languages and math. "The jury is still out," he says.
Community dissent eventually scuttled the Copernican Plan at Masconomet Regional High School, Carroll says. But not before the pilot program had been evaluated—positively—by a team from Harvard University. Through surveys, interviews, and classroom observations, the evaluators found that, as a result of the new schedule, "students were better known by their teachers, were responded to with more care, did more writing, pursued issues in greater depth, enjoyed their classes more, felt more challenged, and gained deeper understandings."
The Copernican Plan: Restructuring the American High School, by Joseph M. Carroll, is available from The Regional Laboratory for Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands, 300 Brickstone Square, Ste. 900, Andover, MA 01810; (508) 470-0098. Stock no. 9067. Price: $14.95 plus $2.50 for postage and handling.
