What Could Define Block Scheduling as a Fad

Abstract

Introduction In many academic journals and professional teacher articles, block has been called a What determines whether a trend or process is a fad? The growth of alternative scheduling has been escalating since early 1990's. According to Canady and Rettig (1995) approximately 50% of all high schools in United States are currently implementing an alternative or considering one. Just by looking at sheer numbers, we could infer that if greater than 50% of schools were changing and adopting an alternative then it couldn't be a By definition a fad is something that tends to fade away after time Wronkovich (1998) mentioned that the decision whether or not to adopt block should be based on examination of current research. He also stated that blocking has seemingly achieved educational status of a fad. With support of empirical data from a research study, this article will shed some light on how to analyze or evaluate data. What is empirical research and what should you trust? Without empirical data, schools are left with feelings and anecdotal surveys upon which to base their decisions (Wronkovich, 1998, 6). School Based Literature There are many reports on effectiveness of block in high school. Most of these reports are unpublished documents compiled by investigative teams made up of teachers, administrators, and staff (e.g., Angola, 1996; Decatur, 1997; North Central, 1997; Penn, 1998, Wasson, 1995). Some reports are evaluation studies of schedule process done with assistance of outside evaluation teams (Westfield High School, 1998). Many of these reports and studies have documented parent, teacher, and study attitudes and beliefs about schedule change. The documentation in most cases consists of percentages of answers for survey questions, followed by a list of qualitative statements. Little interpretation or statistical analysis has been completed on this survey data. Other data from these school reports describe an increase or decrease in GPA, attendance, discipline referrals, dropout rate, standardized test scores, honor roll numbers, and graduation rates. The findings and conclusions determined from these data could be problematic when process of collection and analysis was not mentioned in any of these reports. For example, few reports mentioned if there was a change in attendance policy or a closed campus for lunch. These variables could have altered attendance, discipline, and tardy rates more than just schedule change. The reports did not mention an effort to control external variables. Also, conclusions made were often attributed to schedule change without evidence of a direct correlation. For example, Westfield High School's (1998) report mentions that 52.7% of students in student survey stated that their grades improved because they had fewer classes. This conclusion is based on students' opinion rather than looking at GPA data before and after implementation on same population of students. Wasson High School in Colorado Springs reported data from year before 4x4block implementation and four years following (1995). The honor roll percentage increased, failure rates decreased, daily attendance increased, AP exam scores increased, credits earned increased, average class size decreased, and average teacher load for students each semester decreased. The SAT math and verbal scores decreased. All of these factors changed within context of an increase in minority population of 22% to 34%, and significant increase in number of atrisk students. The changed student population could have explained decrease in standardized test scores and other variables. Qualitative data supported 4x4 block. Teachers stated that they knew their students better. The teachers' instructional methods (e.g., more writing, use of cooperative learning) changed to accommodate longer class periods. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 6 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.