Like many other colleges and universities in the US St. Michael's is moving to a 4 x 4 system of courses. This permanent change will affect all students coming to St. Michael's in the Fall 2011 semester and beyond. What this basically means is that students will take four 4-credit courses each semester instead of the current five 3-credit courses. The primary reason for this is so that students can become more deeply engaged with fewer topics of study each semester.
As you can imagine making such fundamental changes to a college curriulum has been a lengthy and involved task. Each course within each major, and each major in each deparment has had to be reconfigured in terms of seat time, content, assignments and all the other many different things that go into constructing a college degree. The Liberal Studies requirements has also been reconfigured so that it more closely represents the needs of students preparing for life in the twenty-first century.
In the Education Department this has been an exciting process as we have reconfigured our courses and the degree requirements while still addressing the VTDOE licensure requirements which all our graduating students must demonstrate proficiency in. Luckily, my Math/Science course just needed a little tinkering as it was already a 4-credit course but the Schools and Society course I teach will need to expand by a third.
The other 4 x 4 in my life is this 1973 Land Rover; the Land Rover motto is the blog title for today. I love tinkering with old cars and this one reminds me of the days I spent working on Motorway (Interstate) construction during summer vacations when I was completing my undergraduate degree in England in the '70s. I would have to "chauffeur" the civil engineer around all day on the unfinished Motorway avoiding huge earth moving machinery. I remember writing educational essays on fence-posts while waiting for him. I wonder if they are still there?
In the Education Department this has been an exciting process as we have reconfigured our courses and the degree requirements while still addressing the VTDOE licensure requirements which all our graduating students must demonstrate proficiency in. Luckily, my Math/Science course just needed a little tinkering as it was already a 4-credit course but the Schools and Society course I teach will need to expand by a third.
The other 4 x 4 in my life is this 1973 Land Rover; the Land Rover motto is the blog title for today. I love tinkering with old cars and this one reminds me of the days I spent working on Motorway (Interstate) construction during summer vacations when I was completing my undergraduate degree in England in the '70s. I would have to "chauffeur" the civil engineer around all day on the unfinished Motorway avoiding huge earth moving machinery. I remember writing educational essays on fence-posts while waiting for him. I wonder if they are still there?
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