In 2016, math teacher Nicole Koutsourais began teaching at the CCAC north campus summer program that met for five hours a day, five days a week.
“You would have Algebra 1 for five days a week, for five hours straight,” Koutsourais said.
During the summer of 2020, Koutsourais taught this class virtually for the last time. But now, she is teaching Honors Algebra 2 as a blocked class for the first time as a new teacher in Baldwin. Block classes seem short compared to these long CCAC days.
Baldwin High School is running a hybrid block schedule this school year. Most classes still meet every day for about 45 minutes, but just less than 20 courses are blocked and run on an A/B day schedule, meeting every other day for about 90 minutes.
Koutsourais was happy to hear she’d be teaching a blocked class for the first time in her career.
“I was super excited,” she said. “I think there are so many applications and activities we do in class that make the time go quickly. It allows more of that time for activities where I don’t worry about the bell ringing.”
The hybrid block schedule this year will switch next year to a full block schedule. Principal Shaun Tomaszewski said students need to actively participate in what they are learning, and the block schedule design will help ensure this happens.
“You can’t learn science without doing science, and that philosophy has been carried with me throughout my administrative career,” Tomaszewski said. “I think that if kids aren’t given the opportunity to engage in authentic inquiry, then the extent to which they learn things is just superficial.”
The move toward block scheduling began a few years ago.
“About three years ago, at the high school, we started having conversations around authentic inquiry,” he said. Then teachers were put in groups and asked to design an instructional model.
“The instructional model that the teachers ended up voting on as the winner relied heavily on engagement and authentic inquiry, and you simply can’t get those two things in 45 minutes,” he said.
This year, Koutsourais uses student-based projects and inquiry-based learning so that her students can enjoy learning more in extra time.
“We do RIASEC (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional) tasks, and sometimes it takes us the full block to do the project, and then for everybody to present them,” she said.
Ceramics teacher Tina Walsh’s classes have been positively affected by the change to block scheduling.
“It allows students more time to work on their project without losing time on cleaning and gathering materials,” Walsh said.
But one unfavorable aspect of block schedule is that when students miss a day of school, they miss the equivalent of two traditional periods of their class.
“Students miss and then end up essentially two class periods behind. A lot are responsible and make it up,” Walsh said.
Art teacher Nicole Flannery also is teaching in blocked classes this year.
“I prepare just as I would for 45-minute courses, but now I am able to incorporate activities or discussions for my students to dive deeper into what we are doing,” Flannery said. “I like that we not only have that extra time, but we are also able to participate in class critiques and explore career paths in art-related fields.”
Flannery said she has seen a variety of improvements.
“There are improvements in the quality of student work. Students have more time to focus during the process of creation, rather than having to rush to clean up,” Flannery said. “Students are also able to talk about their art in positive ways and understand the methods and techniques more thoroughly.”
Heading into this hybrid block year, Tomazewski asked teachers and administrators to bring him a list of classes from each department that would benefit from being blocked.
“They came back to me with about 30 courses that could be blocked and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh’ because it’s not just 30 courses, but it’s all the sections associated with those courses,” Tomazeweski said. “That’s like 300 different class sections, and that was too many. Each of the block classes was like a monkey wrench in the master schedule and prevented kids from taking other classes.”
Even with limiting the number of blocked courses this year, scheduling a hybrid schedule for this year was difficult, Tomasewski said. He cited one typical scheduling issue administrators ran into.
“We only offer one section of orchestra all day, so anybody who wants to take orchestra is automatically blocked out of any of the other courses that are running that particular period,” Tomaszewski said. “Then we have to look at the kids who want to take orchestra and figure out that six of them also want to take CHS Latin, so CHS Latin can’t meet during the same period that orchestra meets. So then we move CHS Latin, and now Latin is in conflict with Honors Calculus, and four of those six kids want to take Honors Calculus.”
Administrators eventually got the schedules made, often by hand. Students have had varying reactions to the blocked classes, with some adjusting their opinions throughout the first semester.
Sophomore Mary-Kate Stock was shocked at first.
“I didn’t know what classes would be blocked,” Stock said. “I thought I would hate it because it would make the class feel longer.”
But Stock now believes that extra time is a benefit.
“I like not feeling rushed during labs for chemistry or just when we have a lot of work in general,” Stock said. “It’s also nice to have time to do homework, since there’s a day between the next time I have that class again.”
Sophomore Carson Bender feels that the new schedule has made the day more structured by adding extra class time.
“I like that it helps to get a lot of information in a seemingly faster and more efficient way, and we usually get more time to finish the work because of the gaps in the days,” Bender said.
But the 90-minute length of the block classes can be rough, he said.
“I don’t like how long it is, as it can get very tedious to write notes,” Bender said.
Junior Kendall Santilla also saw both positives and negatives.
“I’m less stressed when it comes to school and I have extra time to get homework done,” Santilla said. “Not being as stressed helps improve my overall performance.”
But, like Bender, she finds the length of the blocked classes challenging.
“You’re still in a room for 90 minutes. By the end, I’m not as interested,” Santilla said. “I feel drained, but it helps with classes not being every day.”
Next year, the blocks will be shorter — 80 minutes long.
Sophomore Laila Ruvolo also has mixed feelings about the block.
“I’m able to get more work done. However, it can be hard to switch topics each day,” Ruvolo said. “It can also be hard having to jump right back into that class when you didn’t have it the day before.”
Tomaszewski said there have been both positives and negatives about block scheduling.
“I think it’s like anything new. We have successes no doubt, and we have opportunities for improvement. The goal was, and continues to be, to increase engagement and opportunities for authentic inquiry and along that goal. We’re making significant progress,” Tomaszewski said. “You go into classes that are blocked and the teachers are creating different types of learning opportunities in those classes.”
He thinks the blocked classes will improve as time goes on.
“Is it perfect? Absolutely not,” Tomaszewski said. “I think as we continue to evolve and complete our transition, it’ll get better this year. No doubt it’s the most challenging, least successful year we will ever experience block scheduling.”
