A student writes in the Brown University newspaper:
Perhaps the greatest problem [involving Brown’s two-week class “shopping” period] exists for Monday and Tuesday seminars. These classes have just two meetings for the entirety of shopping period, one of which is devoted to [an] abbreviated introduction. Thus, the only truly substantive class exists during the third week of classes… My friend and I shopped a seminar at the beginning of the second week, where the professor simply passed out syllabi, lectured for five minutes and let the class out after a mere half-hour (cutting professor’s own total class time by two full hours). When we were walking back to our respective dorms, I asked if he was going to take the class. “I have no idea what this professor is all about,” he said, “and I don’t really have the time to find out.” Needless to say, he isn’t showing up to class this week.
September 25th, 2009 at 4:09PM
Hmmm…
I bet the science profs really love this.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:00PM
Wow this hits close to home! Brown also has the shortest semesters in the country (so I’ve been told) which means, as I love telling my students, that not doing their homework would qualify them as the laziest students in the country.
The reason for keeping the first class short is because so many students arrive on the second or third day of classes. If you’ve spent day one outlining the central questions/issues you are looking to focus on you’ve either got to do this all over again next time round or give the new students their own primer. One solution is to do some good old fashioned close reading–begin to teach them the method, that is, if not the material. Just in case you think Brown professors have it too easy I would point out that one consequence of shopping period is that you never really know if your class is going to be a seminar or a lecture class (I’ve taught the same class to 15 students one semester and to 65 the next) which can be stressful if you like to prepare your lectures way in advance.
September 25th, 2009 at 6:59PM
There is this thing called a syllabus, which is often used to communicate the key ideas, themes, and problems with which the course will deal. I hear that it’s often passed out quite early in the class.
September 25th, 2009 at 7:16PM
Total: Yes. The student points out that all professors at Brown, given its shopping deal, should put their syllabi online so the time wasting exercise of reading what’s on it and then dismissing the class (according to the student, this is what some professors do) comes to an end. Though I guess what you’re suggesting has to do with the responsibility of students to read and understand the syllabus… Yet I think the writer’s suggesting that the syllabus may be insufficient to give one a sense of the course; you want to see the professor do some actual, in-depth, teaching.
September 25th, 2009 at 7:19PM
Stuart: Thanks for that detail. I didn’t know about Brown’s short semesters… And as to having to repeat the first lesson: Nu? So what? So you repeat it. This is great for returning students — gives them a second chance to take in your major themes — even as it’s crucial for new ones. And — Brown doesn’t have size limits on any of its classes???
September 25th, 2009 at 7:45PM
only on seminars
Total: My syllabi tend to have at most two paragraphs detailing the course; I do go through them, but this doesn’t tend to take too long. Perhaps yours (in the spirit of your name) are more exhaustive
UD: recap yes, but repeat? I’m not so sure the returning students want to sit through 50+ minutes of the same material. I tend to spend the first 15-20 minutes going over the ground covered in the first lesson and then I move on.
September 25th, 2009 at 8:11PM
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September 25th, 2009 at 8:15PM
I have never taught at Brown, but at one school where I taught I had a course that met for exactly 9 three-hour sessions, the first two of which were during a shopping period.
Do you know how many students were on the attendance list and never showed up to the first class? How many dropped after week one? How many added after week one? How many dropped just before the shopping period ended? How many added right at the last moment into a newly vacant spot and then demanded I excuse their absences and re-teach to them personally everything they missed? How many simply didn’t read the syllabus and feigned ignorance of policies? Needless to say, it became a problem and I stopped teaching at that school soon after.
These problems really can be quite bad at some schools, especially if they are student-centered (meaning, the customer is always right and the faculty are always wrong).
I still think it’s a little reprehensible to walk in, hand out a syllabus, and then leave. But maybe some profs with a high turnover have just given up. Maybe they pack the rest of semester’s material into the remaining weeks for the few who remain. Maybe it works for them.
I think the Brown author’s idea of encouraging syllabi or reading lists be posted before the semester is a good one. And then Brown could shorten the shopping period to a week, which incidentally was all I had back in college c. 1990-ish. I don’t recall anyone complaining back then, but then most of us weren’t precious little snowflakes in need of coddling.
September 26th, 2009 at 5:04AM
There is a basic pedagogical problem with the ‘shopping’ period — in that the prof doesn’t know how large or small the class will be when they plan their syllabus. I know that I have a very different syllabus for a large class vs. a small class. The large class gets more objective exams, fewer papers while the small class gets multiple drafts of papers…. because I can read/grade more easily for 15 students vs. 50…
September 26th, 2009 at 8:10AM
Don’t these universities have any ability to set enrollment caps? At my school, maximum size for every class is set before enrollment begins. You never have a class that might be 20 and ends up 60 if the cap is 30 or 35.
September 26th, 2009 at 8:57AM
Though I guess what you’re suggesting has to do with the responsibility of students to read and understand the syllabus…
Got it in one. Well, two.
September 26th, 2009 at 4:48PM
PhilosopherP, I suspect the cap is 60, which is the problem.
Classes capped at 20-30 might not have such a disruptive turnover. Then again, it might be worse.
Picture the e-mails from students begging/demanding to be added as an over-ride because they don’t have enough courses registered to be full-time at the end of the shopping period. It happened all the time at the schools where I taught.
P.S. Am I alone in being someone who, as an undergrad, had one withdrawal (Scriptwriting for Dummies) and one drop/add situation (Dropped Advanced American Literature to add Cultural Anthropology)? Is there a problem with undergrads having too much choice (like a shopping period!) at some schools?