|
| As Michael E. and others have pointed out, converting a
| two-semester course to a three-trimester course is no big deal.
|
Says you! :-)
Admittedly it doesn't *have* to be a big deal, however . . .
As mentioned, the devil is in the details, here is a scenario that I
don't think (without knowing for sure) is uncommon, allowing for some
variation.
The year long introductory physics course.
Quarter system --> three quarter meeting 4 times (like at my UG
institution) or more often meeting 5 times a week, for 10 weeks a
quarter
Gives 120 ( 150 ) hours of instruction.
You now switch to the semester system, year long course.
For us the standard course is 3 credits, so we have 3 credit courses for
our introductory physics,(4credits when the lab is figured in)
So what happened, we get 40 or 41 lectures a semester so we now have
about
85 hours of instruction for the year long physics course. I note that
we do not have 15 week semesters. If you had 15 week semesters, you'd
get 90 hours of instruction.
Hence, significant diminishment. Oddly enough, I don't think the
catalog description changed when the system changed about 30 years ago.
So obviously, a lot of material gets skipped that used to be covered.
(one of our sister institutions managed to keep there course at 4
lectures a week under the semester system for a 5 credit course, if you
include the lab credit.)
They get about 115-120 hours of instruction in the year. That's getting
closer. But still is some diminshment.
For it to be equivalent your 5 credit 10-week quarter system year long
sequence (assume lab consumes one credit) must be converted to 3 4credit
15-week semesters; i.e. a year and a half.
Or be converted to 2 5credit 15-week semesters.
Neither happened at our institution when it made the conversion (rather
early in this particular fad, it occurred in the mid-60's for us); so
our year long sequences got gypped.