So, there are things like The Great Courses, which by all accounts make terrific lecture series (I think that I’ve only listened to one, so far), and are as long or as short as they need to be, I think. The breakup of teaching and testing is routine on the lower level- think state tests, or national tests like the SAT, or international tests like the PISA- and somewhat common on the upper level- think the bar exam for law- but mostly missing on the university level.
As for shorter units, the semester system is not universal; some places use trimesters or quadmesters (which are poorly defined, as either can refer to the other); I haven’t seen anything on which leads to superior educational outcomes. As much as I like the idea of mastery-based curricula (i.e. instead of “World History” for six months, you have to pass 12 different tests on “Roman history” and “Chinese history” and so on, each of which should take about half a month to study for), it’s not obvious to me that even most students would benefit from a structure like that.
The majorly majorly system—ie if you study subject X you spend 80% or 90% of your time on it—is ubiquitous in the UK to the extent that we don’t really use the word “major” but do use the phrase “joint degree”.
Re education. I wonder if this has been tried on any scale anywhere in the world, and whether it worked. Maybe someone familiar can chime in.
So, there are things like The Great Courses, which by all accounts make terrific lecture series (I think that I’ve only listened to one, so far), and are as long or as short as they need to be, I think. The breakup of teaching and testing is routine on the lower level- think state tests, or national tests like the SAT, or international tests like the PISA- and somewhat common on the upper level- think the bar exam for law- but mostly missing on the university level.
As for shorter units, the semester system is not universal; some places use trimesters or quadmesters (which are poorly defined, as either can refer to the other); I haven’t seen anything on which leads to superior educational outcomes. As much as I like the idea of mastery-based curricula (i.e. instead of “World History” for six months, you have to pass 12 different tests on “Roman history” and “Chinese history” and so on, each of which should take about half a month to study for), it’s not obvious to me that even most students would benefit from a structure like that.
The majorly majorly system—ie if you study subject X you spend 80% or 90% of your time on it—is ubiquitous in the UK to the extent that we don’t really use the word “major” but do use the phrase “joint degree”.