(The Beacon)
By Kathryn Walters, Staff Writer walters14@up.edu
Starting in the fall, education students can plan on more free time in their evenings.
The School of Education will transfer 7:10 to 9:55 p.m. classes from undergraduates and graduates to doctoral students and instead initiate a class time slot from 5:10 to 7:55 p.m. for undergraduate and graduate students.
John Watzke, dean of the School of Education, said the decision was spurred by the introduction of the new Doctorate of Education program starting this summer.
"Part of adding any program is the process of where that's going to fit in," Watzke said. "So in the process of review and talking with students and alumni, we decided that we should really comprehensively look at our entire schedule."
The classes that will be switched to the 5:10 time slot are endorsement classes, in which students can gain extra ability to teach a certain subject such as reading or special education. One of the challenges behind this schedule change was to achieve a balance between the demand for endorsement classes with education students' commitments to attend field experience or student-teaching.
"We've tried to put those in a sweet spot, where it's accessible to everybody, it's not keeping them here late, and won't conflict with the daytime scheduling of undergrads who are trying to finish core classes," Watzke said. "That's the one that's going to affect undergrads most, and I think it's going to be a good thing."
Another concern School of Education administrators had was the planning of future courses for faculty to teach.
"We are wanting to get to a one-year and two-year plan of teaching, so that faculty can plan well ahead of time, so we can really project for the next year or two years what these courses will look like," Watzke said.
Watzke also said after considering students' concerns about night classes, it became clear that late-night classes negatively impact the efficiency of the classroom experience for both undergraduate and graduate students.
"What we were getting back both from professionals and students was that going to 10 p.m., there's a point of diminished returns, where the teacher is exhausted, the student is exhausted and the effectiveness just diminishes," he said.
Junior elementary education major Kristin Hortsch agrees that night classes can be a problem for busy students.
"I can see that seniors who would be student teaching all day, and then have to be out until 10 p.m. in class, and then have to get home and do homework, that can be a lot. So I think it's a good thing," she said.
Watzke believes this set-up will be beneficial for all education students, whether they are undergraduates or a doctoral students.
"Ultimately we are trying to provide better programming for our students," he said. "That's really what it comes down to."
