March 06, 2012 | Myrna Anderson Many college students have the
same experience of learning science: “Lecture, lecture,
lecture,” said Calvin biology professor Dave Koetje, “which, it
turns out, was not the best way to learn.” Students who do
succeed in a lecture-style learning environment often do the
actual work of learning outside the classroom, explained Calvin
chemistry professor Herb Fynewever: “Some of our best students
can come in and listen to a lecture and, even if they don’t
understand it all, they can write it out like a transcript, and
they can go back to the dorm and look at the notes, look at the
textbook and talk to their peers.” Those students who can’t
follow a lecture and figure it out later often give up on
science. “People would get weeded out,” Koetje said. “That’s not
desirable.” Koetje and Fynewever—with biology professors Amy
Wilstermann and Randy Van Dragt and mathematics professor Randy
Pruim—are hoping to take the learning that happens in dorm rooms
(and apartments) back to the clas