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Small Class Initiative
Because of changes in technology, the future job market will reward workers with new sets of creative, thinking skills. Future workers will use ever-more-powerful search engines to filter and retrieve vast quantities of information more efficiently and accurately than could any human mind. Human memorization and recall of information will be much less important, possibly obsolete. The University of Georgia needs to meet this challenge and change the way in which we teach students. We need to prepare them with skills that will not be automated in the coming decades as technology advances. Above all we need to teach them to think critically, develop their own ideas, conduct original research, be creative, discover new things, solve problems, write well, work both independently and in complex teams, and present their work to others via an array of different media. In short, they need to be experts at doing things that machines can't. The student/faculty ratio at the university has greatly increased in the last decade, leading to dramatic increases in the sizes of many lectures. Unfortunately, large lecture classes are not the medium to teach the skills that will be marketable in the 21st century. There are many strategies that could be implemented to reduce the number of large lectures at the university and create more engaging educational experiences without increasing the demands on faculty time. A faculty resource should be created to facilitate implementation of these strategies. To this end, this resource should have three goals. One, the resource should possess expert knowledge on the effectiveness of methods of higher education, including large courses and methods used successfully at other institutions. Two, the resource should be provide concrete and detailed training to UGA faculty who desire it. Three, the resource should provide the technical and physical resources to convert current courses and develop new large enrollment courses at UGA with the most effective instructional methods. In one model, the resource could be a department within the College of Education, and service to the university would be one part of its mission. Faculty would be able to consult with the resource to decide upon the best strategy and format for their particular course. The resource would then provide the technology to establish the course, which would be self-supporting thereafter. As a concrete example of one alternative to large introductory or survey courses, teams of faculty members could prepare lectures that will be developed, updated, and shared as videos via the web. Each faculty member might only prepare 3-5 lectures in their area of expertise. Because the lectures can be archived and edited, greater care can be given to their production. Moreover, faculty expertise is better used because they are speaking about areas in which they have great personal knowledge. By saving time in delivering lectures, faculty will have the time to teach the course's discussion sections and laboratories. Moreover, students will be able to manage their own time more wisely and listen to the lectures on their own schedule. Many large courses also encounter problems with their testing strategies. Given the resources currently available, multiple choice examinations have become a standard method even though they are well known to only test for superficial understanding. The resource could help faculty develop examinations that can be implemented in large courses that require writing and problem solving techniques. For cases where multiple choice questions are desirable, the resource could help faculty develop examinations that use critical thinking and test banks and other secure ways of delivering the tests online.
John Pickering and
William B. Whitman 19 December, 2008 Pre-proposal to Student Learning Initiative, University of Georgia |