Carothers: Reduce lectures, focus on interactive learning
Brenna McCabe
Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: News
"We have so many kids who are working … the times they can study are very different from the full-time student who lives on campus," he said. "For them, to be able to hear their lectures at 2 a.m. really makes a difference."
Carothers said the concept of attendance is going to change along with the learning dynamic. He added that he believes that putting less focus on attendance in lectures and focusing more on the learning aspect will appeal to more students, while allowing them freedom to choose when they "attend" class.
"We tend to measure seat time and not learning time," he said.
Carothers also commented on URI learning partnerships, which are part of his plan to increase interactive learning.
"Most of the work in the world is done in teams," he said. "The best model is the Coastal Fellows. There are about 90 students each year that start a Coastal Fellow in May through December."
Learning partnerships like Coastal Fellows encourage students to work together on projects and do research involving specific areas of interest, or in the case of the Coastal Fellows Program, issues involving the coastal environment.
Everything from how public policy impacts the shores of Rhode Island, to how residents can control contamination is brought to the table when students and faculty take part in the program. Students can apply these concepts through lab experiments, taking action when needed and raising awareness.
"They also do projects with developer rights," Carothers added. "They can figure out what happens when you build condos on the shores of Westerly. They're looking at [problems] in a specific context."
Learning partnerships have been responsible for increased student activity in the community and several outreach programs. There are 14 programs as of now and Carothers said the number of programs would continue to increase.
He said this goes back to his third bullet point in his plan for the new learning dynamic. To be able to take what experience students have and reflect on it is an important part of learning that most schools do not enforce, he said. He added that URI seems to be ahead of the game, with the 14 learning partnerships and a growing list of online courses.
"What you want to have is to engage students and hopefully from discussion, they can decide what it all means," he said. "One of the things we're seeing is an overload of information. It needs to be placed in a context of experience.
"I think we're ahead [of other schools]. You're still pushing against a tradition that's been here since the 14th century."
Though Carothers said he's received a lot of support for his passage from passive to active learning from faculty, he said he acknowledges that different forms of learning cater to different students and phasing lectures out entirely is not something that he wants to do.
He added that "in America, when we're trying to educate everybody," there must be different types of learning.
"We may come to the day where we have a prescription for every student … but we're a long way from that," he said.
Carothers said the concept of attendance is going to change along with the learning dynamic. He added that he believes that putting less focus on attendance in lectures and focusing more on the learning aspect will appeal to more students, while allowing them freedom to choose when they "attend" class.
"We tend to measure seat time and not learning time," he said.
Carothers also commented on URI learning partnerships, which are part of his plan to increase interactive learning.
"Most of the work in the world is done in teams," he said. "The best model is the Coastal Fellows. There are about 90 students each year that start a Coastal Fellow in May through December."
Learning partnerships like Coastal Fellows encourage students to work together on projects and do research involving specific areas of interest, or in the case of the Coastal Fellows Program, issues involving the coastal environment.
Everything from how public policy impacts the shores of Rhode Island, to how residents can control contamination is brought to the table when students and faculty take part in the program. Students can apply these concepts through lab experiments, taking action when needed and raising awareness.
"They also do projects with developer rights," Carothers added. "They can figure out what happens when you build condos on the shores of Westerly. They're looking at [problems] in a specific context."
Learning partnerships have been responsible for increased student activity in the community and several outreach programs. There are 14 programs as of now and Carothers said the number of programs would continue to increase.
He said this goes back to his third bullet point in his plan for the new learning dynamic. To be able to take what experience students have and reflect on it is an important part of learning that most schools do not enforce, he said. He added that URI seems to be ahead of the game, with the 14 learning partnerships and a growing list of online courses.
"What you want to have is to engage students and hopefully from discussion, they can decide what it all means," he said. "One of the things we're seeing is an overload of information. It needs to be placed in a context of experience.
"I think we're ahead [of other schools]. You're still pushing against a tradition that's been here since the 14th century."
Though Carothers said he's received a lot of support for his passage from passive to active learning from faculty, he said he acknowledges that different forms of learning cater to different students and phasing lectures out entirely is not something that he wants to do.
He added that "in America, when we're trying to educate everybody," there must be different types of learning.
"We may come to the day where we have a prescription for every student … but we're a long way from that," he said.
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