The Class Schedule - Essay Example

THE MOST CONVENIENT WORKING PATTERN FOR scheduling has always been a great matter of discussion throughout the of formal education. Right from the pre-primary classes, we are faced with the questions like when to begin and when to end the class hours. So many meetings and discussions end in a total mess and confusion and finally something is approved with grumbles and sighs. Here we are going to get into a final discussion with the proper base of a student sided survey. The survey was conducted to get details on various aspects like how many days a week is acceptable to them, likelihood in taking classes by 7 am or such early hours of the day, classes during the weekends and even about skipping the intersession. The results were rather surprising than expected. Let us have a look through each part of the survey and get into an approvable conclusion on how to schedule classes with student consent. Let us learn about the survey by keeping five criteria in mind. Viz, Fridays, morning classes, weekend classes, elimination of Intersession, a longer summer school. In order to ascertain student views about the daily / weekly class schedule, the Vice President for Academic Affairs supported a formal survey. Pursuant to this, the Social Science Research Center completed 581 interviews, comprising a random sample of the entire Cal State Fullerton student body. Interviews were all completed in October, 2001. 1) Number of days preferred to take class: When asked about the number of days the students prefer to take classes, one day class was preferred by just 8% of the 581 students. That is less than 50 numbers of students preferred this lazy method of taking class. The current number of students attending just one day class a week is 13%. When 29% are attending two days class a week, a maximum of 47% wish to attend class twice a week. With 21% attending three days class per week, 24% wish to attend class in this fashion. And regarding a five days class favoring population, 5% liked to have five days class while 18% were already having a five day class in their normal class schedule. From this, it is clear that, most of the students preferred to have classes twice a week which was appealing to them. This was the most preferred number of days to get in touch with regular class on a regular basis. In an era were most of the students prefer to work along with their studies, it is quite natural that they seek more time for their extra-curricular activities to their regular academic sessions. This shows a growing attitude towards money and life than the splendid devotion exhibited by the past generations to studies and teaching. 2) The preferred combination of two days a week: When we moved on with the 47%, the majority of students who wished the best preferred combination of two days a week for regular academic sessions, we had another question for them to answer. Which is the most preferred couple of days for the regular classes? The answers were as the following. Tuesday-Thursday was the most preferred combination with about 64% supporting the same. They found it as their first choice while 31%, 2% saw it as their second and third choices respectively. Monday-Wednesday was seen as first choice by 32% and 62% saw it as their second choice. Only 3% supported this to be their third choice. Wednesday-Friday was seen as first choice by just 1%, while 5% and a not so bad 38% saw it as their second choice and third choice in order. Monday-Friday was seen acceptable by just 1% as their first choice, 25% as their second choice and 56%as their third choice. There may be a few young reasons why these students preferred the Tuesday-Thursday combination. The urge to avoid Monday would be certainly because Mondays smelled of the weekend celebration hangovers. The next two days were skipped for so many reasons like avoidance of the boredom of continuous class and even to get a couple of days continuous at work. Whatever is the reason, the most preferred combination was Tuesday-Thursday. Who knows how many strange reasons account to this! 3) Take classes at the unlikely times: The survey went on with questions like the most unlikely times to be considered for the academic sessions. The attitude shown towards this section of the survey was with a sort of anticipation and discouragement. When asked about how many of the students preferred to have classes at 7 am twice a week, 13%found it very likely, 12% somewhat likely, 9% somewhat unlikely and 67% very unlikely. The result showed nothing but the laziness and less interest for the students to be present in class in the early morning. When the same question was repeated with a single change of cutting short the number of days from three to two, the results became, 18%, 16%, 10% 56% percent with very likely, somewhat likely ,somewhat unlikely and very unlikely attitudes respectively. Still, there wasn’t much change with the attitude as the time appeared a bit uncomfortable with the students. When the time was made a bit more comfortable with 9am class on Friday, 27%, 22%, 7% and 44% made their opinions clear in the previously followed criteria of opinion. When it came to 3pm on Fridays, 11%, 8%, 13% and 59% was the result. Regarding 9am on Saturdays, the result was 3%, 21%, 7% and 58%. 1pm on Saturday gave an even more poor result like 11%, 16%, 9% and 64%. Classes at 9am on Sunday and 1pm on Sunday gave 7%, 11%, 5%, 77% and 7%, 11%, 6%, 76%. This shows nothing but the reluctance of the students to be present at the weekends for their studies. Our culture is still too weekend centered and the youngsters who come under the generalization of college or university students are not ready to compromise their weekend for any reason. 3) Classes per week as per respondent age/grade: When the students of age eighteen and nineteen preferred three days class the most with 33% as the majority the second choice went to four days class per week with 30% of students supporting the same.21% for two days and 14% for five days, the least number of people favored one day class with just 1% of students supporting this schedule. Regarding first time freshmen, there was a tie between three days and four days class with 35% for both the choices.18% supported two days class and 13% supported five day class while not a single person supported one day class. When the freshman and sophomore were considered, 34% supported three days class, 29% supported two days class, 23% supported four days and the rest was shared by five days class with 12% and one day class with 2%. When students from the age limit twenty to twenty five was considered, 46% supported two days class, 25% supported three days class, 20% supported four days class, 5% supported five days class and just 4% supported one day class. The juniors and seniors had a widely accepted opinion of 50% supporting two days class, 24% supporting three days class, 17% supporting four days class and an equally least percent of 4% supporting five days and one day each. When students of age twenty six and above were considered, 56% supported two days class, 21% supported three days class, 13% supported one day class, 9% supported four days class and 2% supported five days class. Regarding the credential students, 58% supported two days class, 26% supported three days class, 9% supported four days class, 4% supported one day class and none supported five days class. The graduate students mostly preferred two days class with 56% supporting it and they supported the idea of five days class the least with 1% supporting the same. The general trend seen throughout this segment was that many of the students hate the idea of having all five days or just a single day in the campus. They mostly prefer two or three days in the college rather than both extremes. 4) Likelihood to attend classes at early hours of the day: The total section received a mixed response. The idea of two days class at 7am per week was favored by first time freshman the most in the whole segment by 35% of them supporting this whereas just 7% of the graduate students favored this idea. Junior and senior students and credential students gave a somewhat similar response of 19% and 17% of the students supporting the idea respectively. Fresh sophomores supported it a bit more with 21% supporting the same. 30% of the first time freshman found this idea the least supportable and regarding the other responses, it can all be explained with the single term ‘interchangeable opinions’. Nothing much noticeable was seen in the other results. The results showed the interest of the fresher to attend the classes in the most attentive manner and the results from the graduates show their worn out interest in the regular schedule of studies. 5) The choice of a group: A portion of the data was collected from seven sociology classes in fall of 2001.82% rated the Monday-Friday combination the fourth or fifth choice out of five.62 % rated Wednesday-Friday as their fourth or fifth choice out of five. When asked how likely will they come to Friday only classes, 61% said they would likely come for the classes in the morning. During the afternoon, 28% was likely to come and in the evening,3% would likely come. When asked how likely they will come to Saturday classes, 33 % were likely to come in the morning, 23 % in the afternoon and 2% in the evening. And about how likely will they come to Sunday classes, 15% was ready to come in the morning, 10% in the afternoon and 7% in the evening. 36 % said they would come to a class that meets Friday and Saturday for half the semester. 67% said they plan to attend this coming Intersession and 68% said they plan to attend Spring Session 2002, 80% planned to work. 27% want to come to campus two days a week, 31% want to come to campus for three days, 32% want to be there four days and 8 % were willing to come for five days. None opted for six or seven days. 6) Student views about the annual calendar, summer, and intersession: When asked about their previous experiences at any summer class, 52% had the experience at a community college, 34% at California State Fullerton and 18% at another college or university. When asked about the plans to take summer classes in Summer Class 2002 at CUSF, 26% gave the answer ‘will definitely take’ and another 26% gave the answer gave the answer ‘will probably take’. In this, 50% respondents expected to enroll in two classes and 37% planned to enroll one class and 13% planned to enroll three or more classes. The months preferred for summer instruction was 63% support for May-June and June-July with 26% support for the same. July-August was preferred by a minority of 9%. When asked if Cal State Fullerton abandoned the January Intersession in favor of an earlier start for the Spring semester, ending the Spring semester in early May instead of late May, 29% strongly supported the idea, 35% somewhat supported, 20% somewhat opposed and 16 % strongly opposed. Similarly, when asked if Cal State Fullerton ended the spring semester in early May, it would be possible to start a first summer session in early May, ending before July 1. A second summer session would run about July 1 to mid-August, 43% somewhat supported the idea, 38% strongly supported, 12% somewhat opposed and 7% strongly opposed. Conclusion: The general trend of the survey shows that lesser number of students prefers to be in the campus for most of the days and also least number of days per week. The students are also reluctant to be in the campus for the early hours of the day. Even regarding the summer sessions and special changes, the students do not find it much encouraging. They prefer to be in class in a couple of days and the rest they prefer to devote for work and other productive means. Weekends cannot be compromised for any reason by the students though a minority favors the idea. This particular trend is good evidence to the students’ mindset. They are sincere with the studies thought the days approved them for class hours won’t be enough to finish the syllabus. Also, the lesser days in campus may kill their devotion to studies. They may get swept buy life than studies. There is a cold response to the change in working days to shift the spring session and even in plan changes regarding the summer session. Changes are not too welcome with the students. Now, the survey results are to be studied well and analyzed to get an approvable time schedule for the students, teachers and university. Reference: Survey 1.” CSUF. October 2001. 05 May 2009 “Survey 2.” CSUF. October 2001. 05 May 2009 “Survey 3.” CSUF. October 2001. 05 May 2009 “Survey 4.” CSUF. 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