Are we really prepared to move from a teacher-directed, lecture-based classroom to a student-centered, collaborative environment? Can we change our focus from content to process, knowing that some of the content will have to go? What about long-term retention of material, student absences, and discipline issues?
These are some of the questions that teachers at two northeastern Pennsylvania high schools faced in 1990, when their schools changed from a 45-minute period, eight-period day to either a two- or three-period day with time blocks of 90 minutes or longer. The premise behind the creation of longer instructional blocks was that extended time segments give teachers more instructional flexibility (Sizer 1990, Carroll 1990).
Since January 1992, we have worked closely with these two schools to observe their progress and help them assess their efforts. In addition to classroom observations and interviews (with students, teachers, principals, and parents), we have shadowed students during the school day for a firsthand view of intensive time scheduling in action.
While searching for ways to better prepare their students for the world beyond the local community, both schools followed similar paths. The faculties visited other high schools involved in similar initiatives, studied the literature on innovative secondary programs, and met weekly to review their findings. Both schools were drawn to the same concept: divide the year into semesters (School A) or trimesters (School B), and increase the length of the class periods.
Change at School A
School A, a small-town high school with approximately 30 teachers and fewer than 600 students, incorporated a 90-minute time block, with three core courses per semester. Electives, normally one-semester classes (for example, music theory and psychology), remained 45 minutes in length.
The faculty at School A regarded their principal as a charismatic leader. Lengthening class time, in her view, was merely a vehicle to accomplish a greater goal: effective learning through effective teaching. In particular, she wanted to encourage cooperative learning and move her school toward an integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum.
Year 1. During the first semester, School A's principal focused on maintaining the enthusiasm and commitment generated during the initial investigation—for example, through workshops on instructional strategies, additional visits to other restructured schools, and frequent communication with both student and faculty committees.
According to teachers, students, parents, and administrators, the mood in classrooms was one of excitement. Extended time provided opportunities for class trips to local points of interest and for dynamic learning with fewer time constraints. For example, a visit to a local coal mine shaft helped students in a social studies class to understand the dangerous mining practices that their ancestors endured at the turn of the century. Classes also engaged in cooperative learning projects and spent more time involved in computer and science labwork. For instance, the school set up a chemistry lab for groups of four to five students to work in. Without the constraints of a traditional schedule, students had time to begin their chemistry experiments and carry them through to completion.
Above all, extended class time allowed teachers to delve deeply into concepts. When the teachable moment occurred, teachers could seize it without the usual guilt pangs associated with going off the topic. Over time, as reports of greater student involvement in learning emerged, teachers became less anxious about student knowledge retention, accommodation of transfer students, and work missed due to absences.
The excitement started to ebb during the second semester. Inclement weather caused School A to close for several days between January and March. For every class missed under traditional scheduling, two were lost under intensive time scheduling. And, during the flu season, teachers and students were frequently absent. Consequently, teachers of Advanced Placement courses and heavy content courses began to worry about covering the material. Lectures displaced many of the exciting projects carried out in the first semester. As one 10th grader stated, “It's the same as the old way—only twice as much.”
By the end of year one, approximately two-thirds of the teachers remained committed to the intensive time schedule, but admitted to being stressed out. Their anxiety increased with the news that their principal was resigning.
Nevertheless, the guidance counselors reported that the overall grade point average was up, discipline problems were down, retention was not a problem, and SAT/ACT scores showed no significant differences. The results on AP examinations were the biggest disappointment, even though students who had taken AP during the fall semester had received refresher sessions prior to the May tests. The goal of developing an interdisciplinary, integrated curriculum was postponed for another year.
Year 2. During the second year, the drop in faculty enthusiasm for intensive time scheduling may have been more the result of a change in leadership than the new schedule. Logistical problems of the first year persisted. For example, in the first semester, teachers' schedules consisted of three consecutive 90-minute periods. During the second semester, teachers had a light teaching load and many nonteaching duties, such as cafeteria monitoring and substitute teaching. Many teachers felt that the heavy first semester led to stress and fatigue, whereas the second semester schedule, with its reduction in teaching duties, fostered dissatisfaction and loss of self-esteem.
Most teachers sought ways to make their instruction exciting but found it difficult to develop creative ways to present lessons in 90-minute class periods. But the new principal provided no support in the way of staff development. In addition, school enrollment increased, but the number of faculty members remained the same. With an increase in class size came an increase in the size of cooperative learning groups, which teachers had purposely designed to be small. As ideas, energy, and resources became strained, more teachers voiced their desire to return to traditional scheduling.
Year 3. School A began year three of the project with yet another new principal. He had been the school's vice principal for several years and was aware of the expectations and problems of the past two years. His one major modification to the original schedule was to balance Advanced Placement classes by creating yearlong 45-minute classes. For example, teachers taught AP English and AP social studies in back-to-back 45-minute classes for the entire school year. Several teachers thought this change was a step backward, from an emphasis on process to content.
Change at School B
How did things go at the second school? After the initial year of planning, School B, a rural high school with approximately 35 teachers and fewer than 600 students, changed to a trimester schedule. During each trimester, students were to take two major courses (for example, math and English) every day in a 130-minute block. Other courses, such as technological/industrial arts or home economics, met for extended periods for only 9 weeks, while health and physical education classes continued on a 45-minute schedule for all students throughout the entire year.
Year 1. School B's teachers adapted to the new schedule in various ways. For those in industrial arts and home economics, the change appeared to be natural. Being project-oriented, they saw the larger instructional blocks as a godsend. Their students now had almost two hours of uninterrupted working time. Actually, under the traditional 45-minute classes, students often had less than a half hour for projects, after time to set up and clean up.
Teachers of traditional mainline subjects did not adapt easily to the changes. For example, combining two or three of their traditional 45-minute lectures into one 130-minute presentation didn't work. Both teachers and students found lengthy lectures “incredibly boring,” as one student put it. Within two weeks, however, positive instructional changes became apparent. Teachers began developing lessons involving cooperative learning activities. Their role shifted from director of learning in lectures to facilitator of learning when working with small groups. The traditional rows of desks gave way to clusters, horseshoe arrangements, and other configurations designed to facilitate projects and small-group discussions.
Midway through the first trimester, the librarian noticed that teachers were scheduling more small- and large-group research time in the library. Requests for new materials and inter-library loans ballooned. Under the new schedule, the library became much more than a place to send students during study hall.
The teachers who adapted well to the change began sharing ideas about organizing cooperative group activities and acquiring materials. Rather than complain about problems associated with the change, teachers began viewing them as issues to address through dialogue with other professionals.
- holding the attention and interest of students for two hours was a challenge; and
- preparing for 130-minute classes took significantly more of their personal time than had the 45-minute periods.
In our interviews with teachers, some of the initially resistant teachers told us they had reluctantly modified their teaching in order to survive the new system. Other teachers, who remained unconvinced that the change was either positive or permanent, continued to teach the way they always had, based on past successes.
By the end of the first year, two discernible patterns of behavior began to appear: teachers who were adapting well to the change were collaborating and sharing ideas, while those who resisted it began to withdraw, inhibiting professional dialogue and collaborative problem solving.
Year 2. About 70 percent of School B's teachers began the second year with a positive outlook toward intensive scheduling. During the summer, they had had time to reflect on the freedoms and constraints of an intensive time schedule and to form more realistic expectations of how to accomplish their curricular goals.
Their principal, however, made the situation more complex by introducing another schoolwide change, mastery learning. With this approach, students would have multiple opportunities to demonstrate mastery on assessments at a minimum level of 75 percent.
As the end of the first trimester approached, teachers realized that many students, particularly in the areas of math and English, would receive incompletes on the assessments. In addition to adjusting to block scheduling, teachers now faced the constant task of developing and giving multiple assessments to students who had not demonstrated mastery. As they began a second trimester with a new group of students, they found themselves still assisting students from the previous one.
The issue of incompletes haunted the school throughout the year and left many teachers questioning not only the merits of mastery learning but also the intensive schedule.
Year 3. Early in the summer before the third year, School B's teachers and principal met to discuss concerns of the previous year. Comments about incompletes and time constraints dominated the discussion. Although some teachers were willing to continue the two-period day/trimester arrangement, many felt that a semester/three-period day would be more effective. School B decided by consensus to make the change at the beginning of year three.
Throughout the year, teacher support for the intensive time schedule continued to be mixed. Although student achievement on standardized achievement tests had increased and suspensions had decreased, approximately one-third of the teachers held on to the belief that the school would eventually return to a traditional schedule.
Reflections on Change
Moving to an intensive time schedule, one teacher said, created a workload that he had not experienced since his first year of teaching. The change of principals from a charismatic leader to one unfamiliar with intensive scheduling in School A, and the addition of a second change (mastery learning) in School B placed more pressures on already strained systems. Teachers at both high schools had difficulty believing that “exposing our students to less should help them learn more” (Dempster 1993).
During any change, stakeholders need to feel that their basic needs are being recognized. They need clear expectations, some control over their work environment, and certainty about future goals and methods for achieving those goals. The introduction of an intensive school schedule made some teachers feel that their basic needs were being violated.
At School A, teachers were frustrated by the dearth of support from their principals in years two and three of the project. The lack of continued staff development, as well as postponement of the goal to integrate the curriculum, took a toll on the change effort. At School B, teachers were overwhelmed by the addition of mastery learning in year two. In both schools, teachers who viewed the change as a personal imposition and a temporary condition experienced greater frustration than those who adapted to the change and collaborated with colleagues to help them through the process.
In spite of these obstacles, both schools are continuing the intensive time scheduling project. In fact, commitment to the change effort grew during 1994–95, and continues to build during the 1995–96 school year. Thus far, results indicate that such innovative scheduling may indeed increase student achievement, foster critical thinking, and encourage collaborative learning. An important lesson from this study, however, is that future success of an intensive time schedule, or any major change, may hinge more on teachers' perceptions of the change than on its actual merits.
