Frontiers of Science update

This is just a local Columbia thing, so I’m posting Sunday night when nobody will read it . . .

Samantha Cooney reports in the Spectator (Columbia’s student newspaper):

Frontiers of Science may be in for an overhaul.

After a year reviewing the course, the Educational Policy and Planning Committee has issued a report detailing its findings and outlining potential ways to make the oft-maligned course more effective. The EPPC’s report, a copy of which was obtained by Spectator, suggests eliminating the lecture portion of the course in favor of small seminars with a standardized curriculum, mirroring other courses in the Core Curriculum.

This seems reasonable to me. It sounds like the seminar portion of the class has been much more successful than the lectures. Once the lectures are removed entirely, perhaps it will allow the students to focus on learning during the seminar periods.

Also, I appreciate that Cooney did a good job quoting me. As I wrote last month, I respect that the organizers of the course did a pre-test, post-test evaluation, but I’m exhausted by all the hype and happytalk around that evaluation in particular and the course more generally. I’m not the world’s greatest teacher so I have a lot of sympathy for organizers of courses that don’t go quite as planned, but I wish they’d be a bit more forthright in admitting their errors—especially for a class that is required of most of the undergraduates.

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