What an awful idea! It has been proposed in various forms at our college and never gained much traction. 75 minute classes are very useful for many courses. However, it makes a lot more sense to pair them as Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday. This allows a more even (3-4 day) interval of presention of material. Homework makes more sense if the days are more evenly spaced. Other courses benefit from 50 minute classes. Again, a M/W/F schedule will make for a more even presentation of material and time for homework assignments. Pedagogy should drive the schedule - not days off.
I know that attachments are not allowed for this list. However, if you go to the Providence College (RI) website, you will find a unique schedule of classes that allows us to choose 50 minute, 75 minute and 150 minute classes in an incredibly flexible set of combinations - because the day is divided into 3 hour blocks. Built into the schedule are times set aside for meeetings on Wednesday afternoons. Since the mission of our college is centered more on teaching than research, days off with little contact with students are discouraged. We weave our research around daily classroom contact with our students. However, if a day off for research is necessary (such as off campus travel) we can construct a schedule that will allow it. This year I needed Thursday free and was able to do it with the cooperation of my department chair - but I had to justify it.
Bob at PC
________________________________
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu on behalf of John SOHL
Sent: Sat 9/22/2007 11:58 PM
To: phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
Subject: [Phys-l] term schedules
Hi All,
Our campus administration is attempting to fix a problem (that is primarily) with the summer term by redefining the entire academic calendar.
A counter proposal has been proffered that uses a 4 day week calendar. The idea is that 3 credit hour typical semester classes would be held on a Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday schedule with Fridays reserved for meetings, research, scholarship, clinical rotations, and Community Service Learning. (Of course, most students would take Fridays off probably.)
The proposal has 1 hr 15 minute class blocks for both the MW and TuTh schedules much as is commonly done for typical TuTh semester schedules.
So, here is my question: Do any of you know of any college or university that has (or had) such a schedule? (Or even something close to such a schedule.)
Thanks,
John
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John E. Sohl, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics
Weber State University
2508 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-2508