This companion article reports initial findings of a case study of longer learning periods in one school. It examines whether teachers perceive longer lessons to make a difference to teaching practice and whether students perceive them to improve learning opportunities
Early experiences of longer learning
periods at Alfriston College
Rosemary Hipkins, with Lynda Shanks and Michal Denny
From its inception Alfriston College has sought to be a school for the 21st century. Setting up a new school provided opportunities for the founding staff of Alfriston to try out new ideas. Adapting the traditional timetable structure to try and make space for deeper learning was part of this 21st-century vision. Longer learning periods (100 minutes) were designed into the school day, with some more traditional 50-minute periods also retained. In recent interviews that retrospectively explored the reasons for creating this structure, the senior foundation staff variously explained the rationale in terms of: maximising learning time while minimising the stress of constant changes during the day; creating a classroom climate more conducive to in-depth learning; providing the opportunity to include a greater variety of learning experiences within a lesson, including making greater use of ICT; and enabling better relationship building between teachers and learners (Shanks, 2007).
Once a term the Alfriston timetable is also suspended for three days and students work on an extended project of their choice. Teachers work together in teams and students are often mixed across year levels, depending on their choices and interests. These times are called “three-day learning episodes”. The planning manual for these episodes suggests that they will allow the curriculum to be “delivered in an authentic and connected way” by “creating a learning, rather than a teaching, environment” (Alfriston College, n.d., p. 3). Planning typically revolves around a predetermined theme or topic and a programme committee vets proposals. These must identify clear learning outcomes and provide indications of how the achievement of these will be demonstrated towards the end of the extended learning time.
Within this context we will report initial findings from a two-year TLRI-funded research project1 at the school. The research in the first year focused on whether the 100-minute lessons really did make a difference to teachers’ perceptions of their practice and students’ perceptions of their learning opportunities, as compared with the shorter 50-minute periods. We also asked teachers to compare the 50- or 100-minute lessons with the three-day episodes.
A brief outline of the research process
During 2007 data-gathering activities in the TLRI-funded project and a related Master of Education research project being conducted by one of us (Shanks) included:
•&&&&a teacher survey composed of Likert-scale items designed to contrast aspects of practice in 50- and 100-minute lessons, and between either of these and three-day episodes (Tables 1–3 show the full item set)
•&&&&a shorter student survey that contrasted aspects of practice in 50- and 100-minute lessons, using identical or slightly adapted items from the teacher survey, as relevant
•&&&&interviews with the foundation2 senior managers of the school
•&&&&four focus groups of students, two at Year 10 and two at Year 12 (the latter were the foundation pupils of the school as the Year 9 cohort of 2004)
•&&&&teacher feedback at a staff meeting where the preliminary survey findings were discussed.
Overall frequencies of survey responses were collated and graphed as sets of related items that could be discussed by the staff. Forty-four teachers (71 percent of the staff at the time) responded to the staff survey. Participation was voluntary but the survey was completed during after-school staff meeting time to enhance the likelihood that busy teachers would take part. The teaching staff has expanded each year in proportion to the roll growth and just 11 percent of the survey respondents had been at the school for more than three years. The majority (53 percent) had been there less than one year when the survey was completed.3 The learning areas were reasonably evenly represented. Participants nominated their main teaching area and English, mathematics, sciences, social sciences, technology, and health/PE were each represented by between 14 and 18 percent of teachers. However, just 5 percent said they taught either languages or arts subjects.
The voluntary student survey elicited 312 responses from Years 10 and 12 students. Somewhat more respondents (58 percent) were in Year 10, and these students represented 68 percent of the whole Year 10 cohort. Forty percent were in Year 12 (71 percent of that year cohort). Slightly more female (54 percent) than male (44 percent) students responded. Two percent of the students did not give their gender or year level. The project was explained during a student assembly and data were collected during tutor time, with participation being voluntary.
What did we find?
Our findings align with Zepeda and Mayers’ 2006 finding4 that many teachers and students like longer learning periods:
•&&&&Most staff thought that 100-minute learning periods were better for student learning than 50-minute lessons (82 percent agreed or strongly agreed).
•&&&&The students, however, were more equivocal. Just 43 percent agreed or strongly agreed, 22 percent were unsure, and 31 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed.
We now dig into the data to explore the nature of the advantages that teachers saw for longer learning times—and to consider a few questions of interpretation.
What teachers can do more often in longer lessons
Tables 1–3 compare staff and student responses for the part of the Likert scale that indicates it is easier for teachers to organise a specific type of learning experience or activity in 100-minute lessons as compared with 50-minute lessons.5Note that most items were very similar in both versions of the survey but the student version was often a little bit more explanatory—for example, “use self assessment” versus “encourage me to assess my own work”. Where it was necessary to substantially rewrite an item so that its meaning would be clearer for students, the changed version is also shown in these tables.
The tables show that at least some of the school’s teachers saw the benefits of longer learning periods for every aspect of practice described. More than half of them said they used more than half the specified approaches more often in the longer lessons. Note though that the two top-ranking benefits for teachers were seemingly apparent to fewer students. There was a stronger degree of similarity between teacher and student frequencies for the items ranked in the middle of the range, while those rated as benefits by fewest teachers were, interestingly, seen as happening more often in longer lessons by more students.
Arguably, giving more notes in longer lessons is counter to the spirit of this type of reform so it is interesting that there is such a difference between teacher and student perceptions here. Similarly, why were students more likely to say that more of their learning could happen outside the school? It could be that any such event was memorable for them—and would almost certainly be associated with a longer learning time—whereas many individual teachers might not take students out of class at all. The other possibility is that students could have been thinking about the three-day episodes rather than the 100-minute periods. As we discuss below, this is where the more striking differences were perceived by the teachers.
What students can do more often in longer lessons
The next table shows responses to items where teachers and students were asked to think about what students do, as opposed to what teachers do.
Combining these results with Table 1, we can see that being able to make greater use of IT tools is one of the top three ranked benefits of longer learning periods. Given the practicalities of setting up for such lessons, this seems understandable. Again, however, teachers were more likely to see this advantage than were students. Perhaps teachers are more aware of the efforts needed to plan and deliver a coherent and purposeful set of IT-based experiences, or to book IT suites and so on. Students may simply “go with the flow” and hence be unaware of this behind-the-scenes effort and deployment of deep subject expertise.
Note that around half the teachers and students thought that students were more engaged in longer lessons. A further third of each group thought there was no difference, so only a relatively small number thought longer periods were less engaging. Since the literature shows that longer periods can be disengaging for students if they are structured along traditional “chalk and talk” lines (Zepeda & Mayers, 2006) these data tend to support the picture painted above—different types of learning experiences are more likely to happen in longer learning periods.
Managing longer lessons
The final set of items relates to aspects of planning, time, workload, work flow, and behaviour management. Here again we see a pattern where teachers are more likely than students to see benefits in longer learning periods. This is hardly surprising, given that much of the decision making here could be invisible to students.
Whereas teachers, as they responded, would be thinking about the time they could give to each of their students, each student doubtless thought more about their own experience than about the class as a whole. What’s more, comments made in the focus groups suggest that some students might have responded on the basis of an emotional response to negative experiences in just one class, perhaps setting aside benefits they might have experienced in other classes:
Students shut down after a while if they hear the same monotone voice. You just want to jump up and scream at them to get a life. (Year 12 focus group student; Shanks, 2007, p. 61)
People in your class affect your learning. In 100 minutes it gets too much—kids not giving teachers a “fair go”, interrupting and being rude and we have to wait for ages. (Year 10 focus group student; Shanks, 2007, p. 60)
SELF- AND PEER ASSESSMENT: AN EXAMPLE OF THE CHALLENGES OF INTERPRETING SURVEY DATA
Lower-ranked items were not necessarily seen as happening less often in longer learning periods (although it is important to note that a few teachers and students did see this as the case). More typically, the response category “it makes no difference” was larger for these items. For example, the table shows that the use of student self- and peer assessment were among the items least likely to be seen as happening more frequently in the longer learning periods, but 61 percent of teachers responded that “it makes no difference” to self-assessment and 70 percent did so for peer assessment. The 2006 NZCER National Survey of Secondary Schools reported that just 50 percent of teachers said they used any form of self-assessment, and 47 percent said they used any form of peer assessment (Hipkins, Joyce, & Wylie, 2007). In the light of this, how many teachers saw no difference regardless of the lesson time because they don’t encourage self- or peer assessment in lessons of either 50 or 100 minutes in length, rather than because it is easier or harder to do? We asked about this possibility in a follow-up staff meeting and one teacher offered:
Yes [I have responded to different items on a different basis]6 e.g. peer assessment—I don’t use it much in 100min or 50min lessons.
On the other hand, it is also possible to say that there is no difference, on the basis that the item describes something you do regardless of the length of the period because you value it:
We still do it—because it doesn’t matter whether it is 50 or 100 min lessons—apart from school trips/outside activities (obviously depending on the purpose).
It’s what good teachers do anyway so would do it in both 100 or 50 min lessons.
Without further data it is not possible to clearly differentiate between these two types of response. It may be that more students than teachers said these things happened more often in longer periods because they self-assess regardless of teacher encouragement. Combined with the extra thinking time provided, this could explain why somewhat more of them than teachers said they found this easier in 100-minute lessons:
You get more processing time—time to sort stuff out. In 50s the teacher’s in a rush. You get the information but you have to sort it out at home and then I don’t actually look at it again so I don’t get it. (Year 12 focus group student; Shanks, 2007, p. 59)
Another possible issue of interpretation may be what teachers and students see as “counting” as peer or self-assessment. For example, during the staff meeting where the results were discussed one teacher reflected that:
Yes [100-minute lessons support changes in directions suggested by the key competencies] because time and the Alfriston Philosophy … support it. 100min give time to scaffold and develop independent thinkers. Time also for restorative practices and learning log reflections.
For this teacher, the longer learning time is clearly seen as providing for what could be considered as numerous opportunities for self- and peer assessment, provided that these are not seen in narrower terms of formal test-type responses. One of the students made similar comments in the specific context of one subject:
In drama we have time to get everything done. We warm up and get into our roles and we actually have time to talk and interact with the teacher so he can explain things in more depth. We use a lot of energy in these lessons and at the end we get reflection time to record things in our journal. (Year 12 focus group student; Shanks, 2007, p. 59)
It is interesting that more students than teachers perceived that their behaviour was easier to manage in longer learning periods. There is an interesting echo here of recent findings from the Competent Learners longitudinal study. At age 16, teachers of students’ favourite classes were more likely to say managing the class took up a lot of time whereas the students seemed less aware of this. Since favourite classes tended to be ones where students were more involved and active, and where the learning environment created was positive and supportive, this difference might say something about how managing the lively nature of enjoyable learning interactions is experienced differently by students and the teacher (Wylie, Hipkins, & Hodgen, in press).
Opportunities afforded by the three-day episodes, and some related challenges
The teachers (but not the students) compared the learning experiences that could happen in either 50- or 100-minute periods with those they could offer over the course of a three-day episode. The next three tables show the differences teachers perceived in this type of comparison. The first column repeats teacher frequency data for 100-minute lessons from Tables 1–3. The middle column reports responses for three-day episodes. In the final column, a positive difference means an item was likely to be reported as happening more often during three-day episodes than during a “normal timetable” class of either 50 or 100 minutes. Conversely, a negative difference means an item was seen as happening more often, or was achieved more easily, during 100-minute lessons than 50-minute lessons, but increasing the learning period to three days showed no further benefit. Numbers in this column closer to zero indicate that neither condition of longer time appeared to confer a greater benefit. Tables 4–6 are ranked on this final column so the order in which items appear is different from that in Tables 1–3.
Most teachers said that three-day episodes allowed them to more often organise learning experiences outside the school (62 percent difference), and make connections between topics and students’ lives (31 percent difference). Not surprisingly, connecting students’ learning—both to other subjects (Table 5), and to their lives outside school—appeared to be easier when they worked across three days on one project. This is not to say that these things don’t happen during timetabled lessons. However the overall size of the positive differences in Table 4 shows that a number of aspects seemed to be relatively easier to achieve in three-day episodes. Note that self- and peer assessment were seen as only marginally more likely to happen in the three-day episodes. Possible reasons have already been discussed above.
The negative differences indicate aspects that teachers perceived happened less often during three-day episodes. As might be expected, these include more formal activities such as giving notes (-10 percent difference), and leading whole-class discussions (-14 percent difference). Fewer teachers felt they could give individual feedback in these situations, perhaps because students typically engage in group tasks. Since the three-day episodes are intended to give students an experience of the pleasures of being absorbed in a learning activity over an extended period of time, it is not surprising that fewer teachers said they provided varied learning experiences in three-day episodes.
Table 5 suggests much higher levels of student engagement during three-day episodes. This is congruent with teachers’ perceptions that it is easier to manage student behaviour at this time (Table 6). The extended time also seems to afford the opportunity for students to take more responsibility for their learning, which is interesting in the light of the imperative to develop “managing self” as a key competency in the revised curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007).
Table 6 shows that teachers were twice as likely to collaborate with colleagues as they planned and executed their three-day plans. Note the indications, however, that doing this made it harder to manage workload issues.
Transformed or improved?
The literature-based article that complements this one makes a distinction between improvement and transformative change paradigms. Within an improvement paradigm, present structures and ways of working are made better, but underpinning assumptions may not be examined closely. The change to longer traditional learning periods is likely to fit this model and, as we have seen, may indeed lead to considerable improvements in relatively traditional teaching and learning activities and responsibilities— without necessarily questioning either the nature of learning per se or the nature of the outcomes sought. Without this additional layer to their professional learning, some teachers will work to deliver improved learning for their students regardless of the time constraints they may face, but others will remain unconvinced, seeing it as their responsibility to “cover” content in ways that help students “get it” as expeditiously as possible. Unless this view changes, any proposed reforms to develop “21st-century learners”, supported by teachers to become more autonomous in their learning, are likely to be resisted as an abdication of the teacher’s responsibility, and/or a devaluing of their subject expertise.
The comments that follow should not be taken to imply that improving learning is somehow a less worthwhile aim than transforming learning. However, as noted in the companion article, improvement per se will not necessarily help students to meet the ongoing learning challenges they will doubtless face in the 21st century if assumptions about what such learning might entail remain unchanged. In a transformative paradigm all practices and assumptions will be revisited as the school embarks on a journey to think differently about learning and the ways we organise it. There are indications in the results presented here that learning processes are more likely to be transformed (as opposed to improved) during three-day learning episodes. Things happen very differently at these times, and learning is more likely to be distributed across a variety of people, places, and relevant artefacts and resources, both within and outside the physical bounds of the classroom and school. Of course some students may not respond positively to such a paradigm change.7 However, almost all the teachers saw engagement benefits and the school leaders noted there were lower rates of absence at these times.
Feedback to the survey results suggested that many staff at Alfriston College, notwithstanding the benefits they have identified, may harbour suspicions that what happens in three-day episodes is really a pleasant diversion from the main learning agenda, which remains firmly traditional. Thus, when asked why students were so much more engaged during three-day learning, some teachers responded with comments such as:
Knowing that there is little/no formal assessment in a 3 day episode—it is about learning and fun.
More focus on learning/experiences → not driven by assessment.
3 day episodes tend to be hands on stuff, building, making etc. Using many skills kids already have rather than relying on teachers to be responsible for teaching/making content easier to understand.
Such comments hint at views of teaching and assessment of a more traditional and formal nature, suggesting that other types of evidence of learning, and indeed the legitimacy of more informal or distributed learning as valued school learning, may need to be foci for ongoing discussion and more overt in the planning for future three-day episodes. Accordingly, evaluating the types of learning that can occur, and documenting the nature of evidence of success in a wide range of learning contexts, will be a new focus in the second year of this research project.
References
Alfriston College, (n.d.). ‘Zest for learning’ 3 day episodes manual. Auckland: Author.
Hipkins, R., Joyce, C., & Wylie, C. (2007). School planning and reporting in action: The early years of the new framework. Wellington: New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Shanks, L. (2007). The missing voice: Learner perceptions of 100 minute lessons. Unpublished master’s thesis, Massey University.
Wylie, C., Hipkins, R., & Hodgen, E. (in press). On the edge of adulthood: Young people’s school and out-of-school experiences at 16. Wellington: Ministry of Education.
Zepeda, S., & Mayers, R. (2006). An analysis of research on block scheduling. Review of Educational Research, 76(1), 137–170.
Notes
1&&&Teaching and Learning Research Initiative, a fund provided by the Government and administered by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
2&&&Alfriston College began in 2004 with one Year 9 cohort, and has grown each year as another Year 9 intake arrived. This means the school only reached its planned full size in 2008.
3&&&This is an important qualifier. Those staff at the school since its inception had taken part in in-depth professional development related to the intent of innovations such as longer learning periods, whereas more recent appointees had not had this opportunity.
4&&&See the companion article on this topic in this edition of set.
5&&&In the text, some reference is made to the mid-point response, “it makes no difference”. We make little comment on responses to the parts of the scale that indicated it was harder to do things in longer lessons. There were far fewer of these responses, but they could form the basis of a future article with a different overall focus.
6&&&Square brackets are explanatory comments added by the authors.
7&&&We will explore the students’ perceptions of three-day episodes during 2008.
Rosemary Hipkins is a chief researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
Email: rosemary.hipkins@nzcer.org.nz
Lynda Shanks is Whanau Leader at Alfriston College.
Email: l.shanks@alfristoncollege.school.nz
Michal Denny is Research Leader and Head of Biology at Alfriston College
Email: m.denny@alfristoncollege.school.nz
Both Lynda and Michal are involved in a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative project looking at extended periods of learning time at Alfriston College.