Question:
On our campus, we have an atrocity called the "Adult Degree Program" which allows people over the age of 25 who have prior college experience to come and take classes and complete their degrees.
Naturally, being mature persons, they study much harder, and so the format of the classes is typically ONE 4-hour session per week for 6 weeks, That makes 24 contact hours (including exam time) which is supposedly made up for by the diligence and extra, outside reading that adult learners do. (Of course, in my thinking, if these adult learners weren't already taken mostly from the bottom of the motivational barrel, then they wouldn't be walking around with an average age of 35 with incompleted degrees, eh?)
This makes for a small war on our campus. A literature course might adapt itself to such a format, since, indeed, adults may read a couple novels a week and in fact, having paid for the course themselves.
But MATH? I don't think so. There's no way that _I_ can teach, say, College Algebra or Finite Math to a room full of adults getting their BA in Business who haven't seen a variable in a decade IN ONLY 6 SESSIONS and have the 6th session only be a Q&A period before the Final Exam.
Pretend like I'm my enemy and I'm gathering information to argue against me. Is there anyone out there who knows of a course like the one I'm refusing to teach? That is, a 3 hour freshman level math course taught for adult learners in such an accelerated format?
Answer:
Completing a degree is an atrocity for what reason?
There are many reasons why people interrupt degree programs, including personal ones.
That seems a little brief. A full semester course is more typically on the order of 3 hours * 14 weeks = 42 contact hours.
They may not have had the motivation when they were in school before. If they are paying their own tuition and giving up their own leisure time, family time, and sleep time for studying, they have plenty of motivation now.
I've found that in classes that mix "traditional" and "non-traditional" students, the non-traditional (i.e. older, usually working folks with lives and families) students are as a rule more dedicated and better participants.
You seem to be offering the strong prejudice both that these are strongly motivated students and an equally strong prejudice that these are very unmotivated students. It's a bit confusing. I would say that no semester course requiring 42 hours of contact time can be fairly condensed into 24. The only six-week courses I know are summer courses, and those still cram 40-odd contact hours into the six weeks.
