Following scrutinous examination, the interim evaluation of the College of Arts and Sciences' pilot curriculum is now complete -- though its results are not yet conclusive, according to members of the Pilot Curriculum Evaluation Committee.
The report -- which analyzed the academic performance and satisfaction of students enrolled in the pilot curriculum compared with those in the general curriculum -- showed minimal differences between the two groups of students.
"The conclusion that we seem to be moving toward is that it doesn't seem to make much difference whether students are in the pilot program or not in the pilot program," Evaluation Committee and Sociology Department Chairman Paul Allison said of the findings.
While the general curriculum consists of seven sectors and 10 required courses, the pilot curriculum is composed of four sectors, and students are required to take one course in each. This makes the experimental curriculum "much more simple and straightforward," according to committee member and Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman.
Further, Peterman said that despite current indicators that few differences exist between the two curricula, these finding could change in the committee's final report, which is due out this fall and will include a more thorough examination of students' academic records, as well as a closer look at pilot students in the Class of 2005.
"This is an interim report, and in several ways, it's really incomplete," he said. "We didn't see that pilot students were any different from other students, but we may well see differences once we get the full information."
Allison echoed these sentiments, adding that "we still have quite a few things that we want to do over the next six months" before releasing a final evaluation.
The University introduced the pilot curriculum in 2000 following careful deliberation on the part of school administrators and faculty members. Incoming members of the Class of 2004, as well as students in each subsequent class, were invited to participate in the pilot curriculum. Of those who were interested, the University placed 200 students from each class into the program.
According to Peterman, the pilot curriculum was merely intended to serve as an experiment and to provide a means of evaluating the general curriculum, which has gone largely unchanged since 1987.
"I certainly never entertained the idea that at the end of the process, we would have a vote, and we would decide yes or no on the pilot curriculum," he said. "The idea was to generate information about students and about how they make decisions and how they shape their educational programs, and to use that information to make our decision about what our next curriculum should look like."
Because of the minimal requirements for the pilot program, the committee was also able to examine what students would do with more freedom in course selection.
According to the interim report, though, this freedom of choice seems to have had little effect, since "few differences in course choices were found in comparisons between pilot and non-pilot students."
Also unique to the pilot curriculum is the team-teaching approach on which several of its classes rely. However, this approach has not been particularly well received.
"Students seem not to prefer these courses, at least as far as we can tell, and in some cases, they're rather dissatisfied with the team-teaching approach," Allison said.
Yet despite such findings, committee members remain optimistic about the usefulness of the pilot curriculum.
"One of my early conclusions is that the pilot exercise has been quite valuable for Penn," Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairman Bob Hollebeek said. "It's provided an opportunity for a number of people to think very carefully about ... what the requirements ought to be and what kinds of things ought to be in the curriculum."
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