Lux Mary F
Department of Medical Technology, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39406.
Microbiol Educ. 2002 May;3:7-11. doi: 10.1128/me.3.1.7-11.2002.
Microbiology is offered each semester at the Allied Health Campus of Pearl River Community College. The evening course meets weekly for 16 sessions from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Most students enrolled in the course are in one of the seven associate degree allied health programs on the allied health campus. Among the challenges of teaching a course in this situation is retention of enrolled students. Although the course is required for most of the allied health programs on the campus, many students enrolled, attended class for a few weeks, and withdrew from the course. During the 1998-1999 school year the retention rates for students enrolled in the night microbiology classes for Fall and Spring semesters were 52% and 47%, respectively. The format for the 1998-1999 academic year was a conventional course with 2½ hours of lecture material followed by 2 hours of laboratory. Little or no effort was made to correlate laboratory and lecture topics. The course format for Fall 1999 was modified to (i) provide the laboratory component at the beginning of the time slot, (ii) tailor the lecture topics to relate to the laboratory component each night, and (iii) add an outside reading component. The laboratory served as an introduction to the lecture topic, and the lecture became more significant since it related directly to the laboratory experience. Following this format change the retention rate for the Fall 1999 semester increased to 80%.
珠江社区学院联合健康校区每学期都开设微生物学课程。该夜校课程每周上课，共16节，上课时间为下午5点至晚上10点。参加该课程的大多数学生都在联合健康校区的七个副学士学位联合健康项目之一中。在这种情况下教授课程面临的挑战之一是留住已注册的学生。尽管该课程是校区内大多数联合健康项目的必修课，但许多学生注册后，只上了几周课就退学了。在1998 - 1999学年，秋季和春季学期注册参加夜校微生物学课程的学生的留存率分别为52%和47%。1998 - 1999学年的课程形式是传统课程，有2个半小时的讲座内容，之后是2小时的实验课。几乎没有努力将实验和讲座主题联系起来。1999年秋季的课程形式进行了修改，以（i）在课时开始时提供实验部分，（ii）每晚根据实验部分调整讲座主题，以及（iii）增加一个课外阅读部分。实验作为讲座主题的引入，而讲座因为与实验体验直接相关而变得更有意义。采用这种形式变化后，1999年秋季学期的留存率提高到了80%。
