- #36
heafnerj
- 48
- 0
my perspective
I've taught undergraduate astronomy and physics at all levels at a community college for 15 years so I have to chime in on this thread.
It is true that many, if not most, community college science courses are watered down. Then again, many university science courses are also completely inadequate in that they don't foster reasoning skills and instead focus almost entirely on rote problem solving. Many incompetent faculty end up in community colleges, althought there is great variation. Many community colleges are managed by incompetent administrators, again with great variation from school to school. Community colleges are usually seen as a dumping ground for students who can't (by someone's arbitrary definition in come cases) cut it at the university. Sadly, this is true in many cases but I can offer direct evidence to the contrary.
In my opinion, the single most important issue other than instructor competence is student attitude. The hardest part of my job is convincing students that they actually have to do something outside of the classroom in order to succeed. I'm increasingly seeing school becoming more and more of a pastime between partime jobs and family obligations. Across the board education has lost its priority. That's another whole issue I could go into, but I'll save that for later.
Another important issue is that too many community colleges offer courses that attempt to mimic traditional university physics courses, which is an endeavor doomed to failure from the beginning because emulating mediocrity only leads to more mediocrity. I have a hard time convicing my students that university faculty are hired and fired based on research and publishing obligations and not quality classroom instruction. Students who eventually transfer to the universities learn this quickly; students who are at community college after failing at a university already know this.
In the mid 1990s, I made some radical changes to the way I teach and to what I teach. I stopped using the traditional calc-based physics texts and switched to a truly innovative text (Matter & Interactions by Chabay and Sherwood). At the time, mine was the only school in the state using this text and the state's largest public university was courting the authors to work in their PER group. The university department chair was worried that their undergrads wouldn't be able to handle the radically different text (radical especially with respect to content, but also somewhat to pedagogy). I'm told by the authors, who were indeed hired, that once the department chair learned that the new materials were being used successfully at a lowly community college, he agreed to try them at the university. That's another different story that I'll save for later.
More to the point, I can tell you that with the right materials and the right instructors, community college students can not only succeed, but sometimes outperform their university peers. I have had many students who wanted to become engineers, but they simply didn't make it. I have had a handful of students who went on to get their degrees in engineering, computer science, chemistry, physyics, and mathematics and blow their university peers out of the water. There was one student who transferred to the state's largest university as a junior and took advanced/graduate level pchem and quantum courses as an undergraduate and also received a prestigious NSF grant for summer research in carbon nanotubes at U. of Maryland. Another student transferred to our state's second largest public university as a junior and was so disenchanted with the quality of undergrad instruction there that she transferred to another state. Upon graduation, she entered grad school in chemistry at U. of Hawaii where, I'm told by a mutual friend, she was the first entering student in about ten years to completely ace all chemistry placement exams, including earning a perfect score on the organic entrance exam. Then there are the two students who took physics with me and transferred to the state's largest university only to be hired as undergraduate teaching assistants in physics sections taught by the textbooks' authors (same ones mentioned above). Their level of preparation was far above that of the the home grown students. Then there are the students who take tests and homework assignments from my courses to their friends taking physics at the universities and come back and tell me their friends couldn't work the problems! In all but one instance when the quality of my course was questioned relative to a university's own course, my course was shown to be not only equivalent but many times also higher in scope and quality than the university's course. Oh, and that one institution that balked at me is now using the same materials I'm using! Oh the irony! The student involved told this school, a very large southern engineering school, to get stuffed and accepted a full scholarship from another engineering university.
There are more such stories I could relate. You have every right to be skeptical of these stories by the way.
It is indeed true that these students represent the minority of community college students however. Most do eventually transfer and complete their undergraduate degrees. Many, though, have to change their goals to make them more realistic. I have no qualms in claiming that the quality of instruction at a very good community college is far superior to that which *any* university is remotely capable of offering. The hard part is finding a very good community college.
Here's the bottom line. For every negative stereotypical image of community colleges you cite, I will quite loudly and forcefully cite a counter example and will take great pride in doing so...every time.
Any students here considering taking physics from a community college please PM me and I'll discuss it with you to your heart's content.
I've taught undergraduate astronomy and physics at all levels at a community college for 15 years so I have to chime in on this thread.
It is true that many, if not most, community college science courses are watered down. Then again, many university science courses are also completely inadequate in that they don't foster reasoning skills and instead focus almost entirely on rote problem solving. Many incompetent faculty end up in community colleges, althought there is great variation. Many community colleges are managed by incompetent administrators, again with great variation from school to school. Community colleges are usually seen as a dumping ground for students who can't (by someone's arbitrary definition in come cases) cut it at the university. Sadly, this is true in many cases but I can offer direct evidence to the contrary.
In my opinion, the single most important issue other than instructor competence is student attitude. The hardest part of my job is convincing students that they actually have to do something outside of the classroom in order to succeed. I'm increasingly seeing school becoming more and more of a pastime between partime jobs and family obligations. Across the board education has lost its priority. That's another whole issue I could go into, but I'll save that for later.
Another important issue is that too many community colleges offer courses that attempt to mimic traditional university physics courses, which is an endeavor doomed to failure from the beginning because emulating mediocrity only leads to more mediocrity. I have a hard time convicing my students that university faculty are hired and fired based on research and publishing obligations and not quality classroom instruction. Students who eventually transfer to the universities learn this quickly; students who are at community college after failing at a university already know this.
In the mid 1990s, I made some radical changes to the way I teach and to what I teach. I stopped using the traditional calc-based physics texts and switched to a truly innovative text (Matter & Interactions by Chabay and Sherwood). At the time, mine was the only school in the state using this text and the state's largest public university was courting the authors to work in their PER group. The university department chair was worried that their undergrads wouldn't be able to handle the radically different text (radical especially with respect to content, but also somewhat to pedagogy). I'm told by the authors, who were indeed hired, that once the department chair learned that the new materials were being used successfully at a lowly community college, he agreed to try them at the university. That's another different story that I'll save for later.
More to the point, I can tell you that with the right materials and the right instructors, community college students can not only succeed, but sometimes outperform their university peers. I have had many students who wanted to become engineers, but they simply didn't make it. I have had a handful of students who went on to get their degrees in engineering, computer science, chemistry, physyics, and mathematics and blow their university peers out of the water. There was one student who transferred to the state's largest university as a junior and took advanced/graduate level pchem and quantum courses as an undergraduate and also received a prestigious NSF grant for summer research in carbon nanotubes at U. of Maryland. Another student transferred to our state's second largest public university as a junior and was so disenchanted with the quality of undergrad instruction there that she transferred to another state. Upon graduation, she entered grad school in chemistry at U. of Hawaii where, I'm told by a mutual friend, she was the first entering student in about ten years to completely ace all chemistry placement exams, including earning a perfect score on the organic entrance exam. Then there are the two students who took physics with me and transferred to the state's largest university only to be hired as undergraduate teaching assistants in physics sections taught by the textbooks' authors (same ones mentioned above). Their level of preparation was far above that of the the home grown students. Then there are the students who take tests and homework assignments from my courses to their friends taking physics at the universities and come back and tell me their friends couldn't work the problems! In all but one instance when the quality of my course was questioned relative to a university's own course, my course was shown to be not only equivalent but many times also higher in scope and quality than the university's course. Oh, and that one institution that balked at me is now using the same materials I'm using! Oh the irony! The student involved told this school, a very large southern engineering school, to get stuffed and accepted a full scholarship from another engineering university.
There are more such stories I could relate. You have every right to be skeptical of these stories by the way.
It is indeed true that these students represent the minority of community college students however. Most do eventually transfer and complete their undergraduate degrees. Many, though, have to change their goals to make them more realistic. I have no qualms in claiming that the quality of instruction at a very good community college is far superior to that which *any* university is remotely capable of offering. The hard part is finding a very good community college.
Here's the bottom line. For every negative stereotypical image of community colleges you cite, I will quite loudly and forcefully cite a counter example and will take great pride in doing so...every time.
Any students here considering taking physics from a community college please PM me and I'll discuss it with you to your heart's content.