Each year, Dartmouth faculty members work to update their curricula, according to College faculty members interviewed by The Dartmouth, in line with a national trend among faculty at public and private universities, according to a survey released Nov. 6 by the Bringing Theory to Practice program. The survey found that professors implement revisions ranging from minor changes in course readings to larger changes in teaching approaches at least once per year.
Dartmouth professors make an effort to keep their curricula current by including new technology and research in their lectures and assignments, several professors interviewed by The Dartmouth said. For disciplines where commonly-held ideas can be overturned at any time like government and the sciences it is vital for professors to update their syllabi so that their teaching is based on the most current research in the field, professors said.
Lee Witters, a professor of medicine and biology at both the College and Dartmouth Medical School, said the fields have "tremendously changed" in the 25 years he has been teaching.
"Biology includes all human-oriented courses, and there are so many things going on with normal and abnormal biology that [the curriculum] couldn't possibly not change," he said.
Although some faculty members said they believed there was less of a need for professors outside the hard sciences to incorporate current research into their classes, government department chair John Carey noted that with government courses, professors must take current events into account when creating syllabi.
"In government, probably more than in other disciplines, there is a need to find the balance between what's going on right now in the things that command our attention and classic studies and hypotheses that will stand the test of time," Carey said.
Government professor William Wohlforth said "the syllabus is never the same" in the classes he teaches, despite having taught at the College for 10 years.
"Political science is a fast-evolving discipline, and there are always new sources, new subject areas and new cases," he said.
Even in fields like literary analysis, new commentaries are always being published, Carey said.
"There are new perspectives and new criticisms, even in Shakespeare," Carey said.
The Bringing Theory to Practice survey found that 37 percent of professors adopt significantly altered teaching methods each year, such as experiential or service learning, according to Inside Higher Ed. Although the survey demonstrates the innovation involved in education, it also shows that institutes of higher education have not communicated the value of such innovation, Ashley Finley, who conducted the study, told Inside Higher Ed.
Although current political and economic events can affect the direction of a particular class, fundamental issues and theories remain a constant in syllabi, according to economics professor Jon Skinner. Introductory courses in particular may have less freedom to change than those at a higher level, several faculty members said.
Introductory classes show "less evolution" because they teach students the basics of a given field, according to government professor Michael Herron.
The same consistency in introductory courses is found in mathematics, according to math professor Erik van Erp, who said syllabi for introductory courses are "fairly static." It is not until students get to higher level classes geared toward seniors and math majors that there is more flexibility, he said.
Van Erp noted, however, that math courses may have less flexible curricula because of the way they are connected with courses in other departments.
"Math is usually tied in with all kinds of other programs, such as physics, chemistry and engineering," van Erp said. "It's hard to change one without changing the others, and students need to understand the prerequisites first."
Professors vary in the ways they work to keep their courses current. Some professors, such as DMS psychiatry professor John Corson, draw on their own research to provide their students with concrete examples. Corson, who has taught at Dartmouth since the mid-1970s, includes research in his courses gained from his past work with combat veterans.
"In every single class, I bring up new case studies that I've worked on or presented in my book," Corson said. "Towards the end of term I bring a client in to talk with the class."
Professors in the government and economics departments also said that they regularly use articles from major newspapers and magazines to supplement their courses.
"Every term I have at least 10 to 15 current readings as case studies, which apply current events to the theory and frameworks," Marjorie Rose, an economics professor, wrote in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Students tend to enjoy classes more when the material is current, Wohlforth said.
"When studying politics, students don't really like it when the literature and readings are totally out of date," he said. "I try to relate these scholarly theories to things that matter today."
In addition to adjusting the content of their classes, faculty members change their approach to teaching over time, often choosing to incorporate technology. Witters converts his lectures into online podcasts, and Skinner said he was working to incorporate the Internet in his teaching process.
"I've moved more towards media, and linking students to things on the Web," Skinner said.
