[Magdalen] US Higher Education

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Capers Limehouse

>Every college and grad course I've taken has included class participation as a 
>significant part of the grade, including the online courses I'm taking at CDSP. 
> >Earlier grad courses were mostly seminars. One's lack of participation would 
>have been noted and pointed out in class. I went to a relatively small women's 
>l>liberal arts college, and not a large university for undergrad. That may have 
>been part of the difference. CDSP is also small. But, the rest of my grad 
>school >work was at a state university where, as I said, classes tended to be 
>seminars. I know large lecture classes are normal at other schools, but not my 
> >experience.

Certainly my experience -- but that was 40 years ago <g> I taught an 
undergraduate Transportation Economics course as a Grad Student at Penn State 
for three terms -- I was handed a packet of Course Outlines, half a dozen 
Quizzes to be given every other week, and a Midterm and a Final Exam. Class 
participation was not part of the grading criteria.

The third term, I gave up on the quizzes and tests and decided that class 
participation was going to be the grade (probably too full of Prof. Kingsfield 
in "Paper Chase" that came out that year; I also offered a term paper and final 
exam as an alternate.

It turned out that those Scholar Athletes apparently had the quizzes, Midterms 
and Final Exam in a fraternity file, and the then-new Department head (who was 
also the Penn State NCAA Rep at the time) decided my attempt at Socratic Method 
was not what the "Scholar Athlete" Department needed <g>.

I've been sure that also played into the refusal to approve a dissertation 
topic, but then being part of a group suing the University probably didn’t help 
either <g>.

Cheers,
Jim

Cheers,
Jim