Approaches Toward Study
Finally, the reading course tries to help students discriminate between the kind of passage they should read word by word with frequent "retrogression" and the kind they can best approach by a "sampling process." The instructors also suggest ways of organizing exam answers and approaches toward studying.
The Bureau's reading course does not count for credit and costs $15. After approximately 15 class meetings, the average student rises from the lower quarter of his class to the upper quarter in performance on reading tests. Perry and Wilcox caution, however, that the skimming methods taught in the course are best suited only to general expository material.
The policy decisions of the Bureau are made by a Faculty Committee on Study Counsel headed by Dean Leighton. The committee, representing a broad base of educational experience, is composed of the Dean of Freshmen, men from the Social Relations and science faculties, and the heads of the General Education program and the Office of Tests.
Remedial Trouble-Shooting
Through Dean Bundy, the committee, in addition to shaping the programs of the Bureau, forms a liaison with the Faculty. According to Perry, this structure enables the Bureau "to act as an additional source through which the Faculty may explore the nature of the learning process from the student's point of view."
Perry feels that the Bureau of Study Counsel is fulfilling its intended function, "to provide a consultive service for students to assist them in breaking out of repetitive, circular thinking about their work and to obtain a sense of independence and mastery in it."
"Although every instructor must consider his students' problems in the learning of his subject, there seems to be a need for an office which makes general observation and thinking about study problems a full-time job." Perry says, "We believe that work which starts as remedial trouble-shooting can be an integral and productive part of education itself."