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New Research Says Starting University Classes at 11am or Later Would Improve Learning (qz.com)
Using a sample of first- and second-year college students at the University of Nevada-Reno in the US and Britain's Open University, a group of researchers analyzed students' cognitive performance throughout the day and found that the best learning happened in classes that began later in the morning. From a report: Since every person's chronotype, or sleep pattern, is slightly different, there isn't one universal start time to benefit everyone -- but according to students' survey responses as well as theoretical data on circadian rhythms parsed by the researchers, starting classes at 11am or later benefits the greatest number of students. The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience this week, bolsters prior research indicating that teenagers learn better with late starts; it also extends the studied age group from high school students to college sophomores and freshmen.
And this pretty much sums up the value of the modern college degree.
Every semester I signed up for 8am classes all week; I worked night shift to pay for school so I showed up awake and ready. It was the classes that started after 11am that killed me.
When I was in university they ran classes from 8:30 am to 10pm, this is partly due to making scheduling easier but also reduces the number of rooms they need.
Did they study the improvement on early classes if kids went to sleep and woke earlier? Did they study the benefits when kids stay up even later and wake even later?
I doubt it. Because I would bet if they changed classes to 11AM then students would just stay up for 3 hours later knowing they could sleep in. Once their bodies adjusted it would business as usual. Waking up groggy for 11AM classes instead.
Professors so shitty that you have to go to a second section just to learn the material... yeah, sounds "distinguished" to me
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
It's not the time, it's the time awake. In college-aged people especially (late nights, partying, etc) this is a factor. The military has PT every morning to make sure people are awake before work, 30-60 minutes (depending on the exercises done) each morning is enough to wake people up, another 30-60 minutes to shower and eat and you're at 1-2 hours prep time to be fully alert. The issue isn't the time (if you started at 11AM each morning you'd just have 1PM be the new "best time to start" within a month or two.)
We are talking about learning in a college environment.
Learning includes things like responsibility, good study/work habits and prioritizing your time. It's not about the success of a business. It's about your success or failure later on in life.
Have gnu, will travel.
A few comments from my perspective as a faculty member:
(1) Faculty and staff want to arrive and go home at a reasonable hour. Setting class start times to 11 a.m. will effectively push back the entire academic day by two hours. People don't want to be leaving their offices at 7 p.m. every day.
(2) You can't "compress" the academic day. In other words, you cannot just say "We'll only hold classes from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., instead of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m." You'd need more classrooms (since more classes would be held during the same time slots) and there will be more class conflicts between required courses during the same time slots. Scheduling would be a nightmare.
(3) 9 a.m. really isn't that early. Most students have the luxury of rolling out of bed after 8:30 a.m. and heading to class without a shower, a meal, dealing with family members, or tackling a 30-minute commute. Your average faculty member is probably waking up at 6:30 a.m. to get started on the day. A two hour "sleep-in" period is already built in for college students.
(4) 9 a.m. is actually late by post-graduation standards. Most jobs in the real world start at least an hour earlier. Students might as well get used to it now.
Exactly. There are two reasons why it is a bad idea:
1) Then they'll complain that classes start before 12pm. When I've taken polls about what students do and don't like about a class, I get a full 10-15% of students complaining that "10am is too early". I can sort of understand that even if I think it is silly, but when I've also taught the class at 1pm and asked the same question, 5% of the students *still* complain it is "too early". They need to get their acts together and decide to dedicate the whole day to their studies and stop partying until 1am or later in the morning.
2) if they go through university with no classes before 11, what kind of preparation is that for the real world where many businesses expect you there at 9am or even earlier? Learn to adjust. They'll be fine.
There are strong biological reasons to remain roughly synchronized with when the Sun is up. Going to bed a quarter of a day after Sun down is the source of the problem. The solution isn't to shift the start of work a quarter day later.