Planning classroom lecture duration in educational institutions

Planning Proposal

Duration of Class Room Lectures

There is always a room for improvement and continuous improvement leads to successful development of organisations. Regardless of the type of organisation; educational institute, medical healthcare centre or profit oriented commercial organization, the need of controlling and improving always remains there.

Keeping in view the mentioned point, this proposal is prepared to improve the conditions of an educational institute. Educational institutes are more important than any other organisation in the society because of their influence on the tender minds of the kids. Students consider educational institute as their second home and these institutes establish the psychological foundation of the individuals. At all levels of life, individuals sub-consciously refer to their teachers' views and styles. It is no surprise to mention that at times individuals regard their teachers more than their parents as well.

In lieu of high prestige attributed to the educational institutes, it is of utmost importance that the institutes are worth enjoying this portion of significance. The administration should leave no stone unturned to maintain discipline, decorum and learning environment at the premises. The administration needs to understand that their job is not only to issue degree certificates but also to contribute mainly in the personal, professional and psychological development of their students. This is the reason, the educational institutes are recommended to have one to one contact with every student so that his concerns are properly addressed.

For the sake of improvement in educational institutes and help the administration achieve their real goal; this proposal is prepared highlighting an important issue of concern for almost all the students.

Introduction to the Problem; Why it is Important to Address

The duration of class room lectures in the educational institutes is not well planned. Usually the standard duration of the class is 1.5 to 2 hours which may increase up to 3 hours if any previous class is skipped. In case of visiting faculty members, their availability on weekdays is an issue so the administration allows them to give one long class on any single day of the week. The problem also arises when the students prefer weekend classes only because of their employment commitments in other days of the week.

The administration permits long classes so that required number of course hours can be completed. They ignore the other drastic effects related to this temporal solution of difficult availability of instructors and students.

The college and university students are seemed in hurry to attend their classes. At times, they enter the campus with improper dressing and casual outlook. It also happens that they stay at campuses for long time. As the examination dates approach, the duration of their stay at campus increases and it becomes considerably long in the last month and week of the semester.

The reason for this prolonged stay at campus is not only giving more time to studies. Another important reason is the duration of classes which tends to increase as the end of course program approaches. The teachers have pressure to completely deliver the course content and in order to meet the quantity criteria; most of them altogether ignore the quality criteria. As the consequence, the students stay physically present at the class rooms but their minds wander around and they do not pay any attention to the fast spoken sentences of the course facilitator (The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2008).

It is broad daylight that every individual has learning capacity which exhausts with the passage of time. It is a recognised factor that as duration of activity increase without interval, the performance curve starts declining. Studying is a job of mental involvement and minds requires complete rest and break before it restores its absorption capacity. The instructors believe in a superfluous idea that the main objective of students is to attend the classes and learn. Their focus should be on learning and not on the recreation. They ignore the fact that mental tiredness blocks all ways of learning.

Another issue associated with this routine of taking long classes at the end is lack of time for the students to query the instructors. If they do not understand any concept, there is hardly any time left over before exams when the students can seek clarification about the concepts. They consult with each other or read the books to understand the concept and take the papers without even knowing their understanding is correct or not. They enter the professional fields with the same ambiguous concepts and it brings bad name to the educational institute as well.

In addition to the undesirable impact over students, the routine of long classes affect the instructors' performance as well. The instructor also has a delivering capacity which exhausts gradually. Teaching is an art and keeping the students attentive till the end of class is also the responsibility of the instructor. If he is tired and cannot concentrate on the subject, he beats about the bush in the class and leads to the loss of students' time and money which they have invested for learning. If it is continued, the students lose interest in the class and tend towards marking proxy attendance. The instructor loses his value and respect in the eyes of students.

Particularly the visiting faculty members suffer a lot because when they apply for the same position in some other educational institute, their previous experience and reputation does not give them any good return. It is a practise that every junior batch of students consults the senior batch of students for feedback about the teaching style of an instructor. If students lose interest at the very first point, it is extremely difficult to restore their enthusiasm to study with the particular instructor.

Conclusion

Class room lectures make a significant activity in the lives of students. It is the core factor determining the standard of an educational institute and the worth of an instructor. It is extremely important that this factor is given due importance by the administration of educational institutes. As mentioned earlier, it may temporally hurt the short-term interests of the administration but it may save it form the long-term affect of losing reputation in the educational industry.

The students of today are the graduates of tomorrow and professionals whom the society expects to bring value in organisations. If the foundation is not laid down properly, it is impossible to have a strong building on top of it. Furthermore, the educational institutes serve the multiple generations and societies hence they need to carefully ponder upon their matters of concern and bring improvement so that greater good for greater number of people can be made possible.