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Across the country educators are facing the challenge of restructuring the secondary school to meet the needs of students in the twenty-first century. Block scheduling provides sustained time and fosters an environment for active and experiential learning, a key to student success in life. The author, who has spearheaded the adoption of block scheduling in her school's library media center, has prepared a complete guide for library media specialists contemplating or moving to block scheduling. In preparing this guide she has incorporated the experiences of twelve secondary school libraries across the country that have also moved to block scheduling. Step by step, this guide walks the library media specialist through planning, networking, curriculum and instruction, professional development, technology, and assessment. Practical suggestions, forms, lesson plans, and case studies of other media centers that have successfully adopted block scheduling will help the library media specialist to make the transition to the block.
Block scheduling places a high demand on staff, materials, and information technologies. Shaw stresses that networking of people and resources is essential to successful adoption of block scheduling. She takes the reader through the planning and transitional phases of a high school adopting block scheduling and addresses concerns about instructional change, ongoing curriculum, and the role of the library media specialist as a teacher of information technology. She provides ideas on where to find professional development and how to network with other library media specialists with expertise in the block and offers practical suggestions on resource sharing, study hall, flexible scheduling, budget, collection development, substitute teachers, and assessment techniques.
List of contents
Introduction
Restructure and the Block Schedule: An Overview
Planning for the Block
The Library Media Specialist and Instructional Change
Professional Development for the Block
Block Scheduling and Curriculum Development
Of Practical Consideration: Staffing, Collection Development and Budget
Resource Sharing
Technology in a Block-Scheduled High School
The Internet, Multimedia, and Block Scheduling
Distance Education
Of Practical Consideration: Scheduling, Study Halls, Substitutes, and Assessment
Case Studies
Selected Lesson Plans for Classes Using Block Scheduling
Index
About the author
MARIE KEEN SHAW is curriculum instructional leader and a library media specialist at East Lyme High School in East Lyme, Connecticut./e She took a leadership role in her school's adoption of block scheduling and has presented a number of workshops on the topic to school library media specialists. She was a member of the Connecticut Legislative Task Force on Telecommunications for Schools in 1997, and co-authored a district technology plan, Target for Technology.
