>>Sounds a lot like the newly-prosed reform of teacher education here in
Sweden.
>>oh dear, oh dear
>>Eva
It gets worse:
Even the early research (Soc of Research in HE (UK)-- Tony Mansell I
think) found that:
"Modular degrees are popular with students who could not make up their
mind what subject to study.
However instead of making up their mind once, they find they have to make
up their mind 12 times a year. This was hard for students."
Local annecdotal evidence however has shown that some departments work
hard to confound modularisation. U W Bangor used to offer a broad based
freshman year building up to discipline specialism in the final year.
Clever use of modularisation rules have allowed some departments with
"strong carrots" to ring fence some students. In contradiction to what are
the "laudable aims" of modularisaton they limit student choice of modules
through clever time tabling and insisting on spreading "essential"
knowledge accross many modules. Therefore to get the "proper grounding" in
psych for membership of the British Psychological Society, you have to do
a lot of psych modules even though the compulsary element may have been
covered in fewer modules if so designed.
I teach on a modular Master's programme. This is also a nightmare. I can
make no judgement about participant previous learning, as thy can take any
other modules and do them in whatever order they like.
Martin