On the surface, block scheduling seems to be the answer to some of the time problems inherent in the Carnegie Unit schedule. However, the process of making the change to block scheduling is a challenge. The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory recommends two years of planning before implementation.
Teachers who have taught in minute to minute blocks for years need time and training in order to develop the skills and strategies necessary to teach in large blocks of time. Teachers who are most successful in block scheduling plan lessons to include explanation, application, and synthesis. Most teachers have had little experience in the application and synthesis phases of a lesson. Another area in which teachers need in-depth training is in cooperative learning, community building, and team formation.
Implementing block scheduling is a time issue—one that must be carefully considered before the schedule change is actually made. Without consensus among the superintendent, school board, principals, teachers, students, and parents, the change is likely to be met with strong resistance. Building the support of all stakeholders takes time and requires many opportunities for all parties to learn about the proposed new schedule and discuss the ramifications of the change Carroll, Teachers need time for professional development to help them implement a new schedule and develop their abilities to use instructional strategies appropriately in a longer time period.
Scheduling plans must be carefully developed to ensure that each student is provided the time and the opportunity to complete the requirements for high school graduation.
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So although block scheduling offers an alternative to the Carnegie Unit schedule, implementing the change is not only a time issue but also an issue that touches at the very heart of the nature of high school. Steve Krasner has compiled an extensive bibliography of resources on block scheduling and use of time in school at http: Although teachers have little control over the mandated daily schedule or the curriculum, they do have control over how they allocate time to teach the standards and grade-level objectives.
Teachers' responsibilities for pacing the year's curriculum involve two important elements: Instructional pacing is directly related to time allocation. Too many times, teachers reach the midpoint of the school year and realize that there is no way they can accomplish the year's work or even cover what's on the upcoming test. So, pacing must begin the first day of the new school year. The following suggestions can help you make important decisions about pacing instruction: At the begining of the year, study the standards for each subject you teach.
Identify the key content assessed on high-stakes tests, and determine ways that you can connect key ideas within the curriculum area or to another curriculum area to minimize teaching the same thing in two or three different units or subject areas. Mark dates on a calendar of special events, such as standardized and high-stakes test schedules, holidays, and other school events that are likely to either shorten instructional time or cause students' attention to be diverted from the instructional program.
Schedule the major parts of your curriculum in time periods that allow for uninterrupted time and that work within the testing schedule. Build in extra time for content that you know is particularly difficult for students or that requires spaced review and practice to develop proficiency.
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Identify those areas of the curriculum you can develop using learning centers or other independent work that can be done outside of school. Refer to your pacing calendar every week as you plan your lessons. Quickly finding that your pacing plan is either too ambitious for your students or that the pace of instruction is too slow buys time that you can spend on other topics, and can alert you to the need to assist students for whom the pacing is too rigorous.
Instructional planning is key to successful classroom management. Pacing the curriculum for exceptional students with identified learning disabilities and for able learners is especially challenging in today's standardsbased environment. Resources that provide information and assistance in meeting these students' needs are available through the Learning Disabilities Association and the Council for Exceptional Children.
Information on flexible pacing techniques for use with able and gifted learners is available from the ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. Once your pacing plan is in place, you can think about how to use the instructional blocks of time allocated in the daily schedule.
You can choose from several different instructional methodologies and can structure the time within an instructional block in a myriad of ways. However, planning successful instructional activities includes the sequence of events shown in Figure 2. Planning Instructional Activities Tasks. Duplicate materials that each student needs.
For center work, prepares materials, decides on procedures for center use, and posts directions, rules, and the assignment; decides on student groups if necessary. Estimate the number of minutes required for class setup—passing out materials, setting up group work areas, and getting students moved to their workstations. Determines the lesson objective; decides on a motivating, interactive way to introduce it; decides what product students are to produce, and the due date for that product.
Decides on an instructional strategy—a teacher demonstration, lecture, whole-class discussion, debate, or other strategy. Decides on the directions and the amount of time required for most students to complete the assignment. Determine whether the assignment must be turned in before the end of class or whether it is homework due at a future time.
Decides on a strategy for lesson closure. Plan to use the last three to five minutes to celebrate what students have learned, link the new learning to real life and prior learning, review students' responsibilities for completing the assignment, and develop anticipation for tomorrow's lesson. Now let's look at ways to use various instructional strategies within varying timeframes. One key factor in planning a lesson is to consider the attention span of your students.
According to the 3M Meeting Network, the average attention span of an audience is 18 minutes—and this is for adults Burmark, We know that young children generally have short attention spans. To estimate the number of minutes of a child's attention span, add two to the child's age. So, for children in the elementary grades, activities within a time period should vary to include a mix of listening, movement, hands-on experiences, and individual, partner, or group work.
Even though middle and high school students should have longer attention spans, many students continue to have difficulty paying attention to a lecture for more than 10 minutes. On the other hand, some children can concentrate for extended periods of time on a project, game, computer activity, or book in which they are intensely interested. So, it is easy to understand why time management is crucial to successful learning experiences.
For each learning experience, the time for each element of the lesson varies with the type of activity and the students' ages.
Use of time and choice of instructional strategies are also based on the scheduled time for the learning experience. However, regardless of the length of time, successful lessons include the entire sequence of events shown in Figure 2. Time wasted getting materials and supplies at the beginning of the lesson sets a negative tone and encourages off-task behavior.
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Lectures and seatwork assignments that are too long and group work and hands-on activities that are too short fail to accomplish the learning objective. A hurried ending to the lesson leaves students without closure—one of the key elements important for permanent learning. It is also a critical time for teachers to assess which students accomplished the objective and which students need more time.
The following time-management strategies can help you develop procedures for dealing with supplies and student work: Establish a procedure for organizing and distributing materials for lab or hands-on activities based on whether each student needs materials or whether groups of students share materials. Provide containers in which to organize and distribute materials for each group. Designate student assistants to assemble materials in the correct configuration before the scheduled time. This practice is invaluable for finding out what supplies are missing, broken, or unusable before class begins.
Plan at least five minutes for distributing lab equipment or manipulatives. This time may be shortened as students become more familiar with the procedures. If lab or hands-on materials are new to students, spend a few minutes helping them understand what the materials are, how to use them, what safety precautions if any to follow, and what they are to do with the materials at the end of the class. For science experiments involving messy materials, such as sand, water, dirt, and other liquids, plan an extra five minutes for cleanup.
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Chaos results when students are moving in every direction to clean up real messes. Ask the custodian for a large garbage can for disposal of consumable materials. Use a system to collect completed student work. Effective techniques include locating a basket in an accessible place and having students place their work in the basket upon completion, or collecting papers in the seating order so that they can be quickly returned in the same order.
It is usually best not to have students collect other students' assignments, as the opportunity for misbehavior is high when students handle one another's work.
In addition, maintaining the confidentiality of student work is one of your key responsibilities. The following suggestions are helpful for organizing group work and managing students working at learning centers: For group work, prepare a list of the members of each group and the location of the group's work area as part of your preplanning. Write the list on a transparency or the chalkboard, or duplicate it and give a copy to each student.
Scheduling students' time for computer activities and learning centers requires a systematic approach. One strategy is to use computer work as one of a group of learning centers. The whole class rotates through the centers according to an organized plan. In some classes, center work is scheduled one day of the week for a to minute period. Plan the center activities so that equal amounts of time are spent in each center, and there is adequate time to complete an activity or task.
Develop a plan to ensure that all students rotate through each of the centers and that the number of students at a center at one time is acceptable. For example, if you have four centers and students are allowed 20 to 30 minutes at each one, they can complete all four centers in two- to three-center sessions.
If students are allowed access to the computer when they have free time, have them keep a log of their time and what activities they did. Because some students rush through their class work so they can spend time at the computer, this record is a helpful check on students' use of time. For older students who are allowed to choose group members to work on special projects, develop and teach a procedure for that process before the option is allowed.
It has been our experience that this process can be extremely painful for students who are not well regarded by their peers or who have learning difficulties and are perceived to hamper the group's efforts. Therefore, it is probably best that choice be allowed only when the majority of the work is done outside of class and the assignment provides several different options, such as preparing multimedia presentations, writing and performing skits or plays, doing research projects, or building entries for various contests science fairs, engineering competitions, and so forth.
Clear criteria for grading is an absolute must for project work that involves multiple students and a significant commitment of time. The following suggestions help you estimate how long you should plan for various types of instructional strategies: Allow adequate time for completion of the laboratory and hands-on activities. Estimate the time based on prior experience; if this is the first time you have done this particular activity, allocate a generous amount of time and then monitor to see if your estimate is reasonable.
Allotting enough time to successfully complete the work but not enough for off-task behavior is tricky, but careful monitoring of actual time versus estimated time helps you plan time allocations for future hands-on experiences. Evaluate the time it takes for each instructional strategy you choose. If the strategy takes longer than your scheduled time, it is best not to attempt it. Some activities, such as complex science experiments, research projects, cooperative group assignments, and others, simply cannot be done in an hour period. These activities are ideal for block schedules or when you can arrange to have extra time.
For periods of 60 to 90 minutes, use a variety of instructional strategies in order to maintain students' attention. Limit lectures to no more than 20 minutes for high school students and 15 minutes for middle school students. A successful lecture technique is to insert breaks for processing information. Use brief discussions among student partners or small groups or application activities that help students apply the information just presented.
Another technique for refocusing students' attention is to have them stand up when you present a particularly important point or summary. A great memory builder is to simply remind students of the point that was made when they were standing up. Perhaps the most challenging instructional strategies are those involving cooperative, collaborative, and small-group activities.
Some features of this site may not work without it. South Africa has gone through many recent changes and the impact of these changes was, especially, experienced in the development of the South African Education system. Before the National Curriculum Statement, History and Geography were taught as separate subjects under Social Studies but later combined into one subject, Social Sciences. Teachers in some South African schools are specialist in one of the two disciplines, either History or Geography.
The intention of this study was derived from many of the researcher? This study identified the challenges experienced by heads of department HoDs of Social Sciences and the strategies they use to address the identified challenges.
The research approach was qualitative and a case study research design was used. The research participants were identified, using a purposeful sampling strategy. Participants were selected from four schools, two from Quintile 1 no fee-paying schools and two from Quintile 5 fee-paying schools; each school had an enrolment of more than learners.
The participants were HoDs responsible for Social Sciences and teachers who were teaching the subject.