Reply to APS ending block scheduling?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a teacher.  Learning to teach blocks was hard.  Takes a lot of creativity to keep them engaged and keep it moving, and it’s important to do so- 90 minutes is long. As a parent, there are advantages and disadvantages to both.  Would love math and language every day.  Also like that my kid can focus on homework and prep for 3-4 classes a day instead of 7.  I think I could go back, but I do wish we’d pick a lane. [/quote]

You supposed to give them time to do class work so there is no homework. [/quote]In my experience this seems to result in kids doing a lot more self teaching.  I had daily 45 minute classes and the teachers would instruct for pretty much all of every class.  We then did practice at home as homework.  With block scheduling, it seems that teachers only offer instruction for the same 45 minutes or so every class, even with a 90 minute block, because that's as long as kids can focus.  So then kids use the second half of the block to do homework.  But since classes are only every other day, kids then end up learning missed content from YouTube or other videos and websites.  It seems like a really flawed model.  My kid has come home so many times with math that she says the teacher never showed them how to do.  That never happened when I was a kid.  The homework matched the lesson.[/quote]

Word to the wise, poke around a bit more.  When my kid says things like this to me, I say wow the teacher never taught you the material, I am going to email them and ask what is going on.  (Because if this is true, you in fact should say something and advocate for your child.)  Then my kid backpedals. A lot of the time, the real story is your kid is screwing around in class and not paying attention.  Your kid zoned out.  Or your kid didn't get it and then what they need to do is advocate for themselves and follow up with the teacher or yes, follow up at home on their own.

[b]Do you really think teachers are in the habit of handing out homework that they never showed the kids how to do?  That would be gross incompetence.[/b]  If that's what is going on, do something about it.[/quote]
Yes.  Have you heard of a flipped classroom model?  That's often what's being done.  Students are supposed to watch videos to teach themselves.  And when teachers don't make their own videos (which they usually don't) there are often gaps between the assigned content where certain things aren't explained or are explained differently, leaving gaps.  It's not uncommon at all for the teacher not to have taught the material.[/quote]

right but again this isn't working well! [/quote]
Exactly!  The mix of resources leaves lots of gaps and kids comprehending poorly because they aren't mature enough to self teach.[/quote]

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