College Students Need More Real-World Preparation, Researcher Says

May 14, 1999

GAINESVILLE — College graduates nationwide — many of whom have scooped up their sheepskins in recent weeks — are unprepared for their new jobs because they lack the real-world experience needed to hit the ground running, a University of Florida researcher says.

That’s because most educational programs, especially at the undergraduate level, are based on lectures and discussions rather than practical applications of real-world situations, said Gordon Greenwood, a professor in UF’s College of Education. Students often are thrust into the real world without anything but a theoretical basis for problem-solving, he said.

“You’re expected to memorize material for tests, but then you forget it,” he said. “What good is it if you don’t apply it?”

Instead, said Greenwood, students should receive a mixture of theory and practice in their courses, which would prepare them more adequately for life after college. In his recently published book, “Educational Psychology Cases for Teacher Decision Making,” he and co-author Henry Thomas Fillmer, a professor emeritus in the UF department of instruction and curriculum, argue in favor of the case study method of teaching, in which students routinely are exposed to real-life decision-making situations in small group settings.

For example, in the classes Greenwood teaches, students might be cast in the role of an elementary school teacher facing a child with a learning disability, or a high school teacher confronted with a fight in the classroom. Greenwood’s students are encouraged to define the problem confronting them, list alternative solutions, weigh the pros and cons of each alternative and try out the choices they make, applying the lessons they’ve learned through more traditional educational methods.

“The idea is that people go through courses, but it isn’t until their internship that they get any real-world experience,” he said. “We ought to be leading them into it, and case studies make that beginning step.”

The case study method of teaching has been around for at least 50 years, but only recently has it become so widespread. Greenwood said professors at UF’s Warrington College of Business Administration as well as the colleges of law, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, use it in many classes.

“It’s spread from law school to business school to medical school,” said Gene Rice, the director of the Forum of Faculty Roles and Rewards at the American Association for Higher Education, based in Washington, D.C. “Engaging students in the learning process is a much better way to learn than by passive methods. We’re going through a teaching revolution now, and the closer you get to real experience, the better.”

Most teachers who have implemented the program use it in conjunction with traditional methods such as lecturing and reading. That’s the approach Greenwood recommends, because it combines theory with application, he said.

“You could do this in almost any field,” he said. “It can change education altogether.”