Uncovering insights gained from applying block mode of teaching: case of higher education

Block Model of Teaching (BMT) is a teaching approach that can lead to higher level of productivity and performance by having a compressed style of teaching. Although BMT is not a new concept to secondary or high schools, the adoption of this mode of teaching in higher education is still limited. By taking a qualitative research approach, this study collects evidence from several cases where BMT has been implemented and provides a taxonomy containing thirty lessons learnt from those cases, clustered into 7 different groups, namely, course duration and scheduling, learning platform, academic performance, student engagement, memory retention, flexibility in teaching, and course design and guideline. Implications of the findings for practitioners are explained in details. Implications of the findings for several groups including the educational providers, students who are about to enter colleges, parents whose children are about to start college, government, researchers, educational practitioners or educational researchers, and organizations who are sending their employees for higher training and learning have been outlined.