One of the pump-priming ideas forwarded as part of the Designing the Future(s) program (See: Experiments) is a call for experiments with alternative length, intensity, and structures of courses. At Georgetown, we tend to use a format of 15-week, 3 or 4-credit courses. Three-credit-hour courses tend to have 45 hours of class time and at least 90 hours of out-of-class student activity over the semester. Such classes permit time to present multiple concepts, theories, techniques, and sets of course readings. A common structure of a course begins with the introduction of new ideas and then gradually builds on that knowledge with successively more sophisticated material.
It is very important that Georgetown students experience deep, persistent study of complicated material. It is through such experience that critical thinking skills are enhanced. The proximate presentation of increasingly complicated material often leads to long-run understanding. A common design issue in a three-credit course structure is the choice of material in the later stages of the course. However, there are often scores of alternative endings of a course. The instructor can expose students to different material to solidify and extend their understanding. Indeed, some instructors change the ending of their courses over semesters, to keep it fresh. For such courses, one can easily imagine alternative short modules (1-credit) added to a base 2-credit foundation.
Introductory courses are interesting examples to consider. Some students outside the major could profit from short introductions to a field. Such a course might be delivered in five weeks. Other courses might be skill-related, offered in less than 15 weeks, and devoted to intense experience-based learning.
A completely different example of greater flexibility might be a course that is fully integrated over an entire year (maybe a 15-credit course). For example, students might be involved in an intense research-based experience that would last an entire year, from August to August, including spending a summer at Georgetown. The early experiences could give students some key research skills and the remainder of the time would involve working in research teams with undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.
In all of these experiments, it seems proper at this moment in academic history to be very explicit about the learning goals, the desired outcomes of the experimental programs. In this way, students and faculty will be well-aligned in their expectations for the experimental programs. Assessments of these learning goals must also be carefully constructed to assure ourselves that the experimental changes are achieving their desired effects.
Through giving faculty more flexibility in how they organize their teaching, these experiments are hoping to achieve great effectiveness and efficiency in the learning offered at Georgetown.
It seems to me that all of these ideas would require team teaching and group effort — and yet there are strong institutional walls that surround and protect the “one teacher – one course” model. Working with others has its own challenges — as we hear when we assign our students group projects — so structural disincentives easily thwart efforts to collaborate. Perhaps it is time to create some structural incentives to design team-taught courses? A possible starting point using the semester model might be to have a “2 credit foundational” teacher for a large introductory group then a choice of “1 credit short module” teachers for the end of the semester. The 15 credit full year option could have faculty “hand off” students after various “shorter than a semester” periods — but there would need to be support for the person (perhaps a lead instructor or a graduate student) who would coordinate the full year while the faculty come in and out. Along with linking to summer classes at Georgetown, I can imagine ways to use study abroad options in closer coordination with main campus coursework to integrate our learning goals with the impressive array of experiences available to our students. Community-Based Learning has been able to bring forward collaborative possibilities and extra credit options, but it has taken a long time, many bureaucratic changes, and a lot of institutional support to get this “on the books”.
The “Liberal Arts Seminar” idea from the College was an exciting idea — but the due date for applications was the end of September and the commitment of three years was intimidating. I had good discussions with colleagues about how such a seminar could be arranged and taught, but we needed more time to sit together and work through an application — when the semester has started, this is very hard to arrange, especially when the faculty are in different departments. Perhaps interested faculty could meet at TLISI or some other non-semester time and be guided through to a full application with some consultation with those who are offering the funding.
Non-Tenure Line Faculty are often very interested in collaborative projects and willing to try new teaching arrangements, but the cap on credit hours and the contract nature of the job make it difficult for unit heads to imagine ways to use NTLs in team-taught courses.
Good ideas here as usual .. Flexibility and Universities HOPE that’s not an oxymoron.