Being on the Block

I had the pleasure of visiting Quest University, located 50 miles north of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada. Quest is among a handful of new colleges aiming to attract students through a new innovative curriculum steeped in the liberal arts. Students start with a foundational curriculum in their first two years, at the end of which they develop the outline or the idea of a Question. (You can see examples on the university’s website.) The next two years are spent on a Concentration – exploring a series of courses for the student to delve into his or her Question. The student co-designs this roadmap with a faculty mentor. What is often referred to as the “capstone” in higher education lingo manifests itself as the Keystone at Quest. A student’s Keystone presentation represents the culmination of a two-year exploration called the Question. (If you didn’t notice it before, these terms force you to look at the link between the words “quest” and “question”.) There are no majors at Quest, nor are there traditional departments.

There’s a lot more I could write about Quest: flat faculty hierarchy with no tenure system, fully residential experience, engaged students, and the development of its curriculum (at least what I could glean from a very short visit, beyond what you might find on the website). However I want to concentrate on just one aspect of the curriculum: The Block System. Quest is not the only institution that uses the block system. I first learned that such a system existed when I was a postdoc and I met several graduate students who went to Colorado College, a pioneer of the block system. Traditional institutions also have a flavor of the block system – in summer of intersession intensive courses. So do professional programs. Intensive classes aren’t novel in this regard, rather it’s having your entire college experience taking only one class at a time in an intensive format that distinguishes Quest and Colorado College from many of their peers.

First, a description of Quest’s system. (You can find all this on their website too.) To graduate a student needs to complete 32 blocks, or an average of 8 blocks per year. There are three terms (Fall, Spring, Summer) each with 4 blocks. So technically a student could graduate in slightly under 3 years by taking 4 blocks every term consecutively. No one actually does this – it is way too intense! The median is currently 4 years (i.e. an average of 8 blocks per year) although the time-to-completion seems to be creeping up. In my discussion with students, they found that in addition to summers off, they also liked a month off every now and then. So while many students still take 4 blocks in the Fall and 4 blocks in the Spring, a number of students are starting to spread out their intense workload. (This is akin to what a typical college student might do at an institution that offers 4-credit-hour courses rather than the more common 3.) Full-time faculty teach six blocks per year, akin to a liberal arts college with a 3/3 load.

A block is 3.5 weeks long, and typically includes 54 contact hours (or an average of 3 contact hours per weekday). Then there is a 4-day break before the next block. The student only takes one class during the block. According to the faculty I talked to, students are typically expected to work 4-6 hours per day on course material outside of class. That’s pretty intense, but it’s not uncommon. What is uncommon is doing this four times in a row during a semester. Even summer terms at traditional institutions stretch from 4-6 weeks with a slightly lower intensity – and a student wouldn’t take more than two in a row (because after that summer is over).

Although the academic work is challenging and intense, my conversation with the students seemed to indicate that they thought the academic piece was generally manageable. The trouble seemed to be balancing this with their other interests and co-curricular activities and not be completely tired out. (I only had lunch with 6-8 students, all very engaged, so that’s a rather small sample size. My conversations with faculty and staff seem to indicate that the students I met were not atypical.) A number of students did indicate that every now and then, they would choose to “take a block off” (i.e. to enroll in 3 rather than 4 blocks in a semester). December and January were the most popular months to do this. If you plan ahead, according to the students, there was no impact on tuition.

I asked the students what happens if someone gets very sick for several days during a block. (I also asked the faculty this question but you really want to hear it from the students directly.) Most of them said that typically you’d have to “drop the block”. There is a mechanism by which to do this and certain procedures that the student would need to follow that would allow them to make-up a block in the coming summer. There was some stress surrounding this – since it might mess up the student’s plan. Students indicated that some professors were willing to work with the student if not too many days were missed, and others would not. It depended on the course and the instructor. The students cited small class sizes and good relationships with professors, and that they would at least have a conversation with the instructor.

How intense is it for the professor? What I garnered from my conversations with faculty is that it can be a bit of a shock to the system the first time around, but after that you get used to it. There seems also to be quite a bit of flexibility in how to schedule your class. As long as there are rooms available (this did not seem to be a huge problem in general), the registrar would entertain varied configurations. Some faculty would divide up their class into a morning session and afternoon session to give themselves a break. I would probably do this if I taught in the block system. I find myself drained of energy after a lecture-discussion class. Some of my colleagues seem okay with back-to-back classes; I never do this. The one exception is the 4-hour chemistry lab. The pace and intensity is much more manageable in the lab course. I do walk around a lot and make many observations. When necessary I have a quick discussion with the students to keep them on the right track, or to get them to think a little more deeply about why they’re doing what they’re doing. But I try not to interrupt the flow of a student unless they’re having some downtime (waiting for a calibration for example), in which case I take the opportunity for some light banter.

Scheduling can still be a tricky business. I had some great conversations with the registrar and the chief academic officer. Since I have some experience scheduling and working closely with a registrar’s office (I ran one for a short period while I helped hire a new registrar), it was interesting to compare and contrast the issues surrounding scheduling in a block system versus a traditional system. I think the block system is a little easier from a registrar-viewpoint, but that’s probably because Quest is still small. The larger the institution, the more complex the moving parts. I won’t go into details of the analysis here since I’d like to keep this post light and readable. I will just point out that student stress is high during the 1-2 day add-drop period at the beginning of a block. In a traditional system, this is spaced out over a couple of weeks at most institutions. In a block system, if you’re only taking one class, and you drop – you’re done for that block. Thus choosing a class is much more high stakes. My sense was that the registration part of the block system can be quite stressful for students.

The biggest advantage of the block system, in my opinion as an educator, is that you can design the class for maximum learning impact. You’re not constrained by a system that forces you to teach in three 1-hour slots or two 90-minute slots per week. You’re not forced to vacate a classroom after the hour is up. Students in fact stay on after official class hours to continue working together. Having the larger block of time also, in my opinion, facilitates group work and other active learning pedagogies. I wonder if the reason why many of us who still have a substantial “lecture” part to our classes do so in part because of its efficiency in “communicating content” when you’re constrained by the class time. I feel deep learning in group work is leveraged when you have more time. It’s hard to get beyond just quick surface discussion when you have five minutes here and ten minutes there. Not to mention, students are fully immersed in your class – they aren’t taking any others simultaneously.

For classes that have a field component – this spans the sciences, social sciences, and humanities – the block class is a boon! Want to take your students to an ecological field site? No problem. It’s the only class they are taking so there are no academic scheduling conflicts. The same applies for a visit to a museum or an art gallery. Perhaps an urban studies field trip into the nearby metropolis (this would be Vancouver in the case of Quest) would really enhance the educational experience of the student. You could even take the students to an off-site location for the entire block. This is rare, but possible. (There is a fund for “field trips” and a faculty committee administers this.) Since faculty autonomy is very high at Quest, one can imagine that classes are structured in rather varied ways. As the institution approaches its current maximum capacity (they’re not quite there yet), constraints will start to be felt simply from an operational point of view. But at the moment, there is a lot of freedom to design a class they way you think is best as an instructor, for maximal educational impact to the student. What a wonderful quest for an institution!