NSF Award
9727412
9727412 Becker Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI) will investigate a novel segmented curriculum approach to graduate education. The approach, to be tested in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has the prospects for reducing duplication, lowering cost, promoting curricular innovation, and facilitating attendance of part-time working professionals. The basic approach proposed is to decompose multi-credit (typically three or four credit) courses into smaller one credit blocks that are uniformly spaced through a semester or quarter. (OGI is on the quarter system.) In this manner, areas of commonality can be covered so that they may be taken by a variety of students. This will lead to larger class sizes for the core components of the classes. The specialized portions of the classes may still have small enrollments, but these small enrollments will be easier to justify for one credit classes than for three credit classes. Segmentation would permit lower course development effort than otherwise would be required, and would avoid having students studying subjects that are not germane to their objectives. Segmentation would also provide additional flexibility to practicing professionals engaged in the process of lifelong learning. Segmented courses would permit enrollment for periods in which these people are available.
