Teaching Natural Science to Nonmajors: A Comparison of Two Different Course Formats -- the "Team of Experts" vs. the "Individual Instructor"
Abstract
A general education course at Berea College, Natural Science, was taught for 15 years by a team of several science faculty who each delivered lectures in his or her fields. After years of student complaints about the intensity of the course and growing faculty dissatisfaction with it, the instructors agreed to dismantle the course and allow instructors to teach it in individual sections. Working with the institutional research director, the faculty constructed a multidimensional evaluation to compare the "old" and "new" formats in terms of attitudinal and cognitive changes. Results indicated that changing to the individual instructor format yielded several positive outcomes.
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