Kristin Harty Barkley
Cumberland Times-News
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CUMBERLAND — Students in Mrs. Hosken’s sixth-grade math class at Mount Savage Middle School are learning pretty much the same material as last year’s sixth-graders — how to multiply and divide decimals, solve linear equations, add and subtract fractions.
But the way they’re learning it is significantly different.
A new “block schedule” at Allegany County middle schools is extending core class periods from 42 minutes to 78 minutes, forcing teachers to try new techniques and use new tools to help children learn.
“We’re going to do all kinds of activities,” said Hosken, who’s been teaching or 39 years. For the first time this year, she and the rest of Allegany County’s middle school math teachers will use “SMART Boards” in class. A SMART Board is an interactive whiteboard that uses touch from a finger, pen, or other solid object for input.
“It’s just doing different activities to keep them up and moving, to get the kids to be alert and on task,” Hosken said. “I think all these years I’ve really done that…I pray that it’s going to work. It has to work. It will work.”
Administrators hope so.
Over the last several years, Allegany County’s middle schools have not consistently made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), and Maryland State Assessment scores show achievement gaps in math and reading for special education and students who receive free or reduced meals.
After state and local task forces studied middle school trends for several years, leaders here decided to try the “AB block” schedule, which creates longer class periods for four core classes: Math, language arts, science and social studies. Students will have 78-minute math and language arts classes every day, and 78-minute science and social studies classes every other day.
Classes in creative arts and foreign languages will be offered on the days science and social studies are not. In addition, students rotate through co-curricular classes, such as band, intramurals, or drama and other clubs, which are taught in shorter, 38-minute periods.
Research indicates that in many cases, longer class periods in core areas improve student performance. In one study, nine out of 10 mid-Atlantic middle school teachers who were interviewed said they believe the block schedule format positively affects students’ learning.
The single greatest factor determining whether block scheduling is successful depends upon “the degree to which teachers successfully alter instruction to utilize extended time blocks effectively,” researchers said in a 1995 study.
Local teachers are feeling their way forward.
“The next couple of weeks, not only for me, but for all the other teachers, it's trial and error,” eighth-grade physical science teacher Alyssa Gearing told a roomful of parents and students during an open house at Mount Savage Wednesday night.
“If we do something that works one day, that's great. We're going to try to stick with it. We do something that doesn’t work, we won’t do it again. I'm trying to get as much feedback from the students as I can over the next few weeks, see what's going to work for this group of kids, for their dynamics.”
Despite the longer class periods, there will be less total instructional time in science and social studies because of the AB schedule, Gearing said.
That concerns parent Tara Staffore.
“I think it’s going to make it more difficult on the kids because they only have some classes every other day,” said Staffore, whose daughter, Sydni, is in sixth grade. “Like science.. You should have that every day… . It just seems like a lot of stuff for the kids to understand, being their first year in middle school.”
Braddock Middle School Principal Danny Carter said students and teachers are adjusting well to the new schedule, which cuts almost in half the amount of time students spend changing classes. Maintenance staff at Braddock and Allegany County’s other middle schools reprogrammed bells over the summer to accommodate the new schedule.
“The traffic in the hallways has been reduced,” said Carter, adding that teachers at Braddock seem happy with the new schedule. “The building’s a lot quieter. Teachers now have time to do what they couldn’t do before. They’ve reduced their number of classes basically from six to three.”
Eighth-grader Lily Gardner said she likes the new schedule for a similar reason.
“It's different because there are longer periods and there are, like, less classes to get homework in,” said Gardner, who proudly showed her new locker to her mother during Wednesday night’s open house at Mount Savage. “So I think it will be easier to stay organized.”
Mount Savage assistant principal Jim Raley said he thinks students will adapt well to the new schedule. At Mount Savage, sixth-graders have actually had 84-minute class periods for Language Arts for the last four years, Raley said.
“This isn’t a totally new concept to the kids,” he said. “Kids are resilient. I think they’ll snap into it really quickly.”
For teachers, adjusting to the new model will be a learning process. All middle school teachers attended workshops last year on how to differentiate instruction and alter teaching methods to accommodate longer class periods, and professional development will be ongoing, principals said.
“We’re going to use more technology,” said John Shaw, an eighth-grade math teacher at Mount Savage.
“We’re going to try some more cooperative learning. We’ll be using more of the activities with the online textbooks. Other than that, we really don’t know yet. This is a ship that’s being built as we speak. So it’s going to be an interesting first couple of weeks to get used to.”
Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kbarkley@times-news.com
