Carothers: Reduce lectures, focus on interactive learning

5/14/07 - "'Sit down and shut up,'" University of Rhode Island President Robert L. Carothers said. "That's what life in a factory was like . And what's the dynamic in schools? 'Sit down and shut up.'"Carothers explained that it has been his plan to transform this learning dynamic from the moment he became president of URI.

"There's three parts to learning: instruction, experience and reflection," he said. "Most of what we do [at URI] is instruction. The most powerful learning experience is when those three are put together. We don't need people who do repetitive work anymore. We need people with creativity who can handle rapid changes. The model [for learning] is different."

According to Carothers, URI is ushering in a new age, which will slowly break through the mold of what he called "an American mechanism of obedience and tolerance for boredom," as he reduces the number of lectures and increases the amount of interactive learning at the university.

"The historic styles of discipline are breaking down everywhere," he said, adding that he wants to foster the three aspects of learning so that students can maximize their experiences inside the classroom.

To do this, Carothers has implemented a plan that includes slowly reducing the number lectures, providing new interactive learning partnerships and online classes in the future.

"Learning technology has given us a different angle to all of this," he said, referring to the increasing number of online courses.

There are about 90 online courses offered for the summer session. Carothers said that although technology has made things easier over the years, he wants to keep a variety of learning styles to suit different students, rather than getting rid of regular lectures altogether.

"You wouldn't want a large percentage of your learning [to be online]," he said. "There are great people who inspire students - we don't want to lose that."

Carothers said online courses are directly beneficial to the students who work to support themselves while taking classes.

"We have so many kids who are working . the times they can study are very different from the full-time student who lives on campus," he said. "For them, to be able to hear their lectures at 2 a.m. really makes a difference."

Carothers said the concept of attendance is going to change along with the learning dynamic. He added that he believes that putting less focus on attendance in lectures and focusing more on the learning aspect will appeal to more students, while allowing them freedom to choose when they "attend" class.

"We tend to measure seat time and not learning time," he said.

Carothers also commented on URI learning partnerships, which are part of his plan to increase interactive learning.

"Most of the work in the world is done in teams," he said. "The best model is the Coastal Fellows. There are about 90 students each year that start a Coastal Fellow in May through December."

Learning partnerships like Coastal Fellows encourage students to work together on projects and do research involving specific areas of interest, or in the case of the Coastal Fellows Program, issues involving the coastal environment.

Everything from how public policy impacts the shores of Rhode Island, to how residents can control contamination is brought to the table when students and faculty take part in the program. Students can apply these concepts through lab experiments, taking action when needed and raising awareness.

"They also do projects with developer rights," Carothers added. "They can figure out what happens when you build condos on the shores of Westerly. They're looking at [problems] in a specific context."

Learning partnerships have been responsible for increased student activity in the community and several outreach programs. There are 14 programs as of now and Carothers said the number of programs would continue to increase.

He said this goes back to his third bullet point in his plan for the new learning dynamic. To be able to take what experience students have and reflect on it is an important part of learning that most schools do not enforce, he said. He added that URI seems to be ahead of the game, with the 14 learning partnerships and a growing list of online courses.

"What you want to have is to engage students and hopefully from discussion, they can decide what it all means," he said. "One of the things we're seeing is an overload of information. It needs to be placed in a context of experience.

"I think we're ahead [of other schools]. You're still pushing against a tradition that's been here since the 14th century."

Though Carothers said he's received a lot of support for his passage from passive to active learning from faculty, he said he acknowledges that different forms of learning cater to different students and phasing lectures out entirely is not something that he wants to do.

He added that "in America, when we're trying to educate everybody," there must be different types of learning.

"We may come to the day where we have a prescription for every student . but we're a long way from that," he said.