I don't have much experience with large multi-section courses (I'm
getting to where I'm grateful for every sunrise, and then for every
time I remember that . . . ), but I think Amanda's remark about math
is interesting.
> (What would happen if administrators decided, for example, to require
> Math-Intensive courses? How would mathematicians feel?)
A few weeks ago I spent some time at a conference with Chris Anson,
who used to direct writing at the University of Minnesota and who's
now running a really interesting WAC-like program at North Carolina
State. The university mandated writing intensive courses in
departments, and hired Chris to help departments design and conduct
them. What he does, it seems, is mainly faculty development, and it
sounds from his description like a super program. OK, you've been
told to make your course writing intensive and you think what that
means is taking on the English teacher's burden of 100 essays to mark
every weekend. It doesn't have to be that way: let's talk about some
alternatives.
I think if he were doing that here and I were told I had to make my
Restoration Drama course more math-intensive I might be interested in
finding some ways to do that . . . and were I a mathematician I might
feel pretty good about it, too.
As we all know, the multi-section, lecture-about-writing course isn't
the only way to go. We might even be able to convince some people of
that, especially if we had some alternatives to propose . . .
-- Russ
St. Thomas University
http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/
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