In one of several changes, Frontiers of Science lectures will be split into two sections next semester, according to the faculty members working to improve the pilot course in accordance with student feedback.

Recent efforts have focused on issues raised in a Columbia College Student Council report published last April, which claimed that the course needed more help staff and lacked cohesion between its lectures and its section work, and questioned whether the level of the weekly assignments was appropriate for students of all scientific backgrounds.

“We found their final report to be extremely thoughtful and helpful,” said astronomy professor David Helfand, one of the course’s two co-chairs.

Frontiers, which was approved for trial as a Core course in 2004, aims to show “that science is at least as fundamental a part of education as CC or Lit Hum,” in Helfand’s words. The Committee on Science Instruction is expected to report to the Committee on Instruction, of which it is a subcommittee, and the Committee on the Core within the next few months.

Helfand said that the Frontiers faculty plans to split each 525-person lecture audience in half next semester and locate the lectures in classrooms instead of the current venue of Miller theater. Professors will lecture twice in the same day, with one section attending in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

“Miller Theater is not a classroom; it is a theater,” said Helfand. “There are no blackboards. There is no place to write because the seats don’t have any desks.”

According to Jessica Becker, CC ’10 and a student member of the Committee On the Core who worked on the report, another issue of concern is the difficulty some section leaders have addressing topics outside of their specialties. “It’s hard to get teachers that are knowledgeable in every field,” she said. “Some students get stuck in a class where their teacher doesn’t really know.”

Some students have also indicated that their weekly individual assignments, or WIAs, were “just busy work or not relevant to the seminar,” psychology professor Donald Hood, Helfand’s fellow co-chair, said. Others questioned whether the reading material corresponded fully to the lectures.

The department responded at the start of last semester by beginning to meet for an additional hour after each lecture to allow all instructors to review the lecture material, discuss section lessonn plans, and improve WIA consistency. The faculty has also modified the lectures to make more explicit references to the reading materials.

The course’s help room has also raised problems. According to Hood, the room’s undergraduate staff struggled to meet the demand of students. “Students often had to wait because there was not enough help and the staff, because they were overwhelmed, would often just give you the answers instead of helping you solve the problem,” Hood said. Faculty members said they have sought to remedy this by reviewing teaching methods with staff members.

Becker recently received positive feedback on the course from the Class of 2011 student council representatives. “They told me that Frontiers has been a lot better this semester,” she said. “They said that, overall, they really enjoyed the class, which is very different feedback than you would have received in past years.” The council decided that it will not put out another report on Frontiers.

She praises the effort many faculty members put into improving the class. “Dan Hood and Professor Helfand are very open to listening to students,” she said. “If a student feels strongly about something, they won’t have any objection to meeting with them. They really want to hear what students have to say.”

samantha.saly@columbiaspectator.com.