Course outlines and course descriptions often indicate for how many hours of instruction time the course is designed. The students are expected to spend just that much time attending in the classroom and by so doing, have enough time to earn credit (usually minimum of C). My strong belief is this: The number of instruction hours is not important by itself, but the months of instruction combined with the number of hours are what is important.
The problem in something like, “60 hours of instruction”, especially for Elementary Algebra, or even Basic Mathematics, is that mere count of hours of classtime does not say anything about the amount of development time for the students to accomplish learning. This learning happens over a range of months; not just hours. Further, a course designed for 60 hours of instruction does not include the several more hours of required STUDY TIME, which would push the true amount of combined instruction time and study time far over 60 hours. Maybe more like 120 hours or more, spread over 3, 4, 5, or maybe 6 months?
Take a common difficulty with some basic beginning Algebra students. Some of them are still struggling with simple equation & inequality problem solving because they have not yet become strong in applying inverse operations, and are still a bit weak in these solution methods by the end of the course – well, they had their 60 or so hours of instruction, they earned 70 to 75 % average, and so they earn their C (or maybe low B). They are then qualified for the prerequisite for the next Math course (maybe Algebra 2). Problem is, some of their symbolic problem-solving skills are still underdeveloped. Maybe a few other concepts are still in need of improvement. Maybe another month of study would help first? Maybe another two months of study would help?
Tags: "instruction time", credit, grade
