There\u2019s a particular kind of optimism that comes with sitting down for a three-hour class. The first hour is very manageable: my laptop is charged, my water bottle and coffee cup are full, and I\u2019m energized and prepared to learn for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
The second hour rolls around, and by this time I\u2019ve either drunk all my coffee or let it sit so long that it\u2019s become mostly melted ice. But it\u2019s no big deal; I have only shifted positions in my chair and checked my watch seven or eight times \u2014 that\u2019s not too bad, right? I can definitely make it another two hours.<\/p>\n
I am always wrong.<\/p>\n
By the third hour, time slows. I have suddenly lost all ability to comprehend English, much less didactic instruction, and have begun to study the back of my eyelids more than whatever words are on the board.<\/p>\n
My inability to focus nearing the end of class is in no way related to the pedagogy of my professors, but I think I speak for more than myself when I admit my struggle to sit at a desk and focus for three whole hours without growing the slightest bit checked out. Last week in one of my classes, I scanned the room during the third hour of instruction to see that of the 36 students present in class that day, only six appeared to be actively watching the board and listening to instruction. If you\u2019re taking a three-hour class or two this semester, I encourage you to survey your classroom during the third hour and note how many students are alert and engaged in the content \u2014 just don\u2019t be surprised if you can count them all on one hand.<\/p>\n
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Sign Up<\/a><\/p>\n The solution might seem obvious: just give students a break. But a five- or 10-minute intermission provides only temporary relief from the mental fatigue that accumulates during a long lecture. Research suggests that although a traditional 10-minute break can produce a rebound in performance during a long class, the improvements are short-lived<\/a> and performance begins declining again almost immediately.<\/p>\n There is a biological rationale for this. Maintaining attention for an extended period requires continued engagement of the brain systems responsible for executive control and arousal, and research consistently shows that our ability to sustain that attention declines<\/a> with time spent on tasks. Brief periods of disengagement can help restore mood and alertness<\/a>, but they merely manage cognitive fatigue rather than eliminate it. Essentially, your 10-minute stroll in the hallway charges your battery a little bit, but it doesn\u2019t fully restore it.<\/p>\n Some may argue that college students are in for a rude awakening upon entering the workforce if we cannot sit through a three-hour lecture. But the issue is not whether students are capable of functioning for three consecutive hours, but rather, is three uninterrupted hours of the same type of instruction the most effective way to use that time?<\/p>\n A typical workday for most is not an eight-hour lecture; employees move between meetings, conversations, independent work, and different endeavors throughout the day. There is a reason for this. Dividing work into distinct activities with higher levels of task complexity can accelerate<\/a> an employee\u2019s perceived passage of time, ultimately making long workdays feel short. The same principle should apply to universities: shorter classes that sustain engagement should be favored over three-hour lectures that attempt to maximize information delivery at the expense of meaningful learning.<\/p>\n This is not to say that every long class in the course catalog should be shortened. As a Nursing student, I would never suggest compressing a chemistry lab or 12-hour<\/a> clinical shift into 90 minutes. In these settings, the extended time serves a purpose: students are engaging in hands-on learning. But when three hours simply means three hours of lecture, often stretching material that could be effectively taught in less time, length begins to feel less like a pedagogical necessity and more like a scheduling convenience.<\/p>\n I can sit in a classroom for three hours. I can also stare at a PowerPoint while thinking about dinner, laundry, and whether the hands on the clock above the whiteboard have stopped ticking. Endurance and engagement are not the same thing, and Penn\u2019s course schedules should stop treating them like they are.<\/p>\n