Faculty members are being encouraged to alter their teaching approaches to take advantage of the two-hour blocks. Many faculty members have already attended effective teaching workshops that deal with active and collaborative learning techniques. We plan to continue these faculty development activities. The basic outlines of all programs were approved by the deadline in April. This means the course names and catalog descriptions are now known.
Students can begin to plan now.
All existing courses will be on the books through spring 2001. Students can take any of those courses as long as the prerequisites are satisfied. We advise students to work out a preliminary contract to see how it all fits together. Major reforms shouldn't be required that frequently, if at all. Once that is accomplished, assessment will drive continuous improvement, which will be incremental rather than massive.