Short Courses for Long-Term Learn­ing

by Phoebe Lostroh

Good mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists ques­tion as­sump­tions. How about the as­sump­tion that se­mes­ters are the best cal­en­dars for learn­ing? What would hap­pen if rather than tak­ing four courses con­cur­rently dur­ing a se­mes­ter, stu­dents in­stead took those four courses suc­ces­sively, one at a time? This de­scribes the Col­orado Col­lege "block plan," first im­ple­mented in 1970. We teach every un­der­grad­u­ate course, from Ara­bic to Zo­ol­ogy in pe­ri­ods of 3.5 weeks.

A view of Col­orado Springs, the home of Col­orado Col­lege, where the au­thor teaches.

You may won­der how such a cal­en­dar works for sci­ence courses with lab­o­ra­tory or field com­po­nents. But in fact, mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists al­ready be­lieve in this model of im­mer­sive sci­ence ed­u­ca­tion. Con­sider the short courses of­fered at the Ma­rine Bi­o­log­i­cal Lab­o­ra­to­ries, or Cold Spring Har­bor. These, how­ever, are courses for ad­vanced stu­dents. Would un­der­grad­u­ates learn any­thing in such a small pe­riod of time? The fact that Col­orado Col­lege grad­u­ates go to med­ical and grad­u­ate schools at the same high rate as that of most lib­eral arts col­lege grad­u­ates sug­gests that they learn their lessons well. And sadly, there is all too much ev­i­dence that stu­dents learn pre­cious lit­tle in most un­der­grad­u­ate sci­ence courses. Why not try some­thing dif­fer­ent?

In sci­ence class­rooms, fo­cus­ing on stu­dent learn­ing is more valu­able than fo­cus­ing on what the pro­fes­sor "cov­ers." I used to "cover" one chap­ter of a typ­i­cal mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy text­book each day on the tra­di­tional plan, mak­ing my way through 16–17 chap­ters. My stu­dents crammed and passed the ex­ams, as they would have on any cal­en­dar. I don't do that any more. In­stead I teach im­mer­sive courses that fo­cus on stu­dent learn­ing, with less lec­tur­ing, more in-class ac­tiv­i­ties, and lots of lab.

Of course stu­dent-cen­tered ped­a­go­gies can be im­ple­mented on any cal­en­dar (see Sci­en­tific Teach­ing by mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gist Jo Han­dels­man). But my ex­pe­ri­ence is that the se­mes­ter sched­ule gets in the way of in­no­va­tion. It is too fa­mil­iar, too pre­dictable, too com­fort­able. Stu­dents and fac­ulty alike rebel against changes in the ex­pec­ta­tions for what should hap­pen dur­ing 50-minute "lec­ture" sec­tions. The block plan pro­duc­tively dis­rupts these ex­pec­ta­tions. It helps fac­ulty em­brace stu­dent-cen­tered ped­a­go­gies, not least be­cause they keep the joy in learn­ing. Happy, en­gaged stu­dents can be chal­lenged and chal­lenge is a nec­es­sary pre­req­ui­site for learn­ing.

Why does any of this mat­ter? First, many col­leges have Jan­u­ary or May terms that last about a month, so there are op­por­tu­ni­ties to try teach­ing a 'real' sci­ence course in a 'block.' Sec­ond, block plans are re­pro­duc­ing and evolv­ing. They can be found at Cor­nell Col­lege, the Uni­ver­sity of Mon­tana-West­ern, Quest Uni­ver­sity, and in some sum­mer of­fer­ings at a num­ber of schools. Per­haps blocks are not for every­one, but maybe se­mes­ters aren't for every­one, ei­ther.

What are your ex­pe­ri­ences with block-like courses? Have you de­signed a mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy course for a "block," whether or not it was called that? I look for­ward to learn­ing from your ex­pe­ri­ences.

Phoebe is an As­so­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Bi­ol­ogy at Col­orado Col­lege.