Reading the Research

I was at the Sac State library today, and decided to look up Block Schedule.

I found a masters thesis from 2000 which said that, according to the research, Teachers and Students are happier under a Block format, but Learning suffers, as measured by CST and SAT scores. This was most pronounced under 4x4 and modified 4x4 formats, but existed in other formats as well.

The author did caution that there wasn't much research available, but did point toward modifying the schedule such that certain classes, such as Math (the author's field) and Science be taught traditionally, with other courses (such as English) be in a traditional time block. He gave some examples of schools where that had been done (some in the Sacto area); I didn't look to see whether they still have such a schedule.

Since the thesis is fairly old, we should make sure we look toward more recent research before finding our path.

One point he made, however, is the need for Staff Development, targeted toward HOW to teach in the Block. All of the research he used pointed toward better success if teachers were trained specifically for Block. I found that interesting, too.

Good luck in your research. I wanted to share some of mine.

-David