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[Phys-L] Re: Quarters vs Semesters



At 16:47 -0500 9/15/05, Rauber, Joel wrote:

Mike gave a cynical opinion of the change from semesters to quarters.
Quarter system schools are becoming a dying breed, which I consider a
shame.

Depends on what you mean by the quarter system. I went to college and
grad school on a quarter system--that is, each term was a quarter of
a year, so we had three terms each school year (it is now mostly
called "trimester," I believe). But, a one-year course took all three
regular year terms, whereas, in most modern iterations, and, it
sounds like, what Joel is talking about, a full year course is
completed in just two terms, so students have fewer course per term
and meet, presumably, for a longer time, so that by the end of the
second term, a student is supposed to have had as much "contact
time," as they would have had during a "normal" full-year course.

The second version of the "quarter" or "trimester" system is what my
school has adopted for the past two years. Most of the faculty thinks
it has been a disaster. The problems are many, but first, I think
that the teachers were swindled out of considerable time. The
curricula have had to have been significantly shortened in order to
fit them into the newly allotted time. Second, we still end up
squeezing more material into less calendar time than was done before,
and this means that the students have less time to digest the
material. I am a firm believer, based mostly on personal experience,
that effective learning takes time. New ideas don't seat themselves
in your brain instantly. You have to take the time to assimilate
them, to practice with them, to get used to them, Usually, this
process cannot be hurried, although it takes less time for some and
more time for others, it still takes time, and for those students
whose assimilation time is longer, these schedules work strongly
against them.

Another lesser but annoying aspect is that when a class is cancelled
for other reason, you have lost not just one class but more than one
class--in some cases up to the equivalent of two "normal" classes.
With already shortened contact time, the loss of a longer than normal
class is a greater hit than would have happened under the old
standard system.

So I see lots of negatives to a modern "trimester" system and few positives.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto:haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto:hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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