The students in Computer Science 124, "Data Structures and Algorithms," Bamberg says, requested traditional teaching. "There was strong sentiment for my just getting up there and lecturing," he says.

Flawed Methodology?

Winthrop Professor of History Stephen A. Thernstrom says that the Light study relies too much on undergraduate perceptions of what constitutes good teaching.

"This study takes as a measure of good teaching student responses...Some of my colleagues would be skeptical of this," says Thernstrom.

Thernstrom says that there is a trade-off between having faculty regularly monitor student progress, as the study suggests, and treating undergraduates as adults.

"This is a high school model of how you learn, "he says. "But maybe we can do with a little more of this at Harvard."

Questions of Impact

Regardless of their views of the report, faculty members agree that any changes it could bring about will take time.

"It is not Harvard style to tell individual faculty how to teach," says Bamberg. "On one hand, it makes it harder to change teaching styles. On the other hand, it makes it a more attractive place to teach."

And Mark A. Peterson, the head tutor of the Government Department, says that it is up to individual professors to implement the Light study's recommendations.

"The nature of life and pedagogy at Harvard is that it is a highly autonomous, decentralized process," he says. "In the end there is no mechanism that compels faculty members to work in a certain way."