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October 12, 2007 > News > Wiess College offers first student-taught courses at Rice

Wiess College offers first student-taught courses at Rice

By Joyce Yao | Thresher staff

The old saying goes that students learn the most from their peers. Wiess College has taken this idea to a whole new level, offering student-taught college courses. The first of their kind at Rice, the three one-hour credit Wiess College courses offered this fall are Mathematics of Aesthetics, Zombies in Fiction and Film and The History of Jazz.

The student teachers receive course practicum credit for teaching the course. The courses are graded on the basis of satisfactory/unsatisfactory, and do not contribute toward the fulfilling of university requirements.

The courses were initially restricted to Wiess students, but were opened up to the rest of campus after the first week of school, junior Patricia Ladd said. Currently, only Wiess students can propose courses, but there is a possibility that this program will be expanded to enable students from other colleges to teach, Wiess Master Mike Gustin said. However, expanding the program could present financial difficulties.

“The committee [that mentors and selects student teachers] consists of people that volunteer to look at proposals,” Gustin said. “Nobody is getting paid to do this, so sustaining a bigger program may get tricky.”

Gustin said other colleges should start their own student-instructor programs if enough interest is generated.

Gustin, who often has his undergraduate biology students hold their own recitation and review sessions, said he saw student-taught courses as a good way for like-minded students to meet each other.

“We had been looking to see activities within the college that promoted non-academic yet intellectual activities, as an alternative to parties,” he said.

The idea first came to Gustin when he discovered that the University of Virginia offers 10-15 student-taught courses a semester.

“I thought it was a great idea,” Gustin said. “My impression is that undergraduates are amazing teachers, and teaching is also a great way to learn.”

When Gustin proposed the idea at a Wiess cabinet meeting, students showed a lot of interest. Those who wished to teach a course were required to give a 15-minute presentation to a committee of students and faculty members, present a syllabus and explain why they were interested in teaching. Students must have attended Rice for at least one semester before proposing a course and must meet regularly with Gustin and a faculty sponsor.

Matt Schumann, a sophomore who is teaching The History of Jazz, said he wanted to teach this course because he wanted to explain a genre of music he did not think many people understood.

“I love jazz music, and I took the opportunity to be able to teach,” Schumann said. “I wanted to impart the passion I have for jazz music to others, and to help others make a connection with the music.”

His class is mainly discussion-oriented, focusing on short reading assignments about the history of jazz and the music that students listen to in class. Grades are based on participation, including attendance and in-class discussions, discussion papers and a short final paper.

Wiess junior Sam Chang, who is in The History of Jazz, said he enjoyed the laid-back class atmosphere.

“The workload is light, and the class is fun,” Chang said. “All we do is listen to music and discuss the history of the music such as artists and styles of jazz.”

Although Schumann admits that he does not see himself as an authority on jazz history, he said he is still really enjoying the teaching experience.

“I don’t want people to think of me as on a pedestal,” he said. “I try to create a relaxed environment while staying within the requirements. This way the students can voice their fundamental reaction to music.”

Ladd said her course, Zombies in Fiction and Film, is also very relaxed and discussion-based.

“People usually establish a distance between them and the professor, but when the instructor is someone your age it’s not as big a deal to talk in class,” she said. “I feel like my class has a lot more dynamic discussion than other classes do.”

Ladd’s course involves viewing zombie films and discussing the general trends and changes of zombie movies over time. An English major, Ladd employs skills typically used in an English class to analyze the course’s movies, which allows her students, who are mainly not English majors, to develop their own analytical skills.

She said that the workload in the course is light, entailing three response papers covering any three films and a final creative assignment on how to survive a zombie attack at Rice.

Ladd said she realized it was much harder being a professor than it initially seems.

“Just writing the syllabus was difficult,” she said. “It requires you to plan ahead. I had to examine other professors’ syllabi to write mine. You have to know exactly what you think about things, and you can’t just go to class and wing it.”

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