The Course of a Course

In my experience courses tend to follow a pattern, in terms of morale and performance (which tend to go together). In general terms, Tuckman and Jensen's model offers an account of this, but there are specific characteristics of a course they do not touch on. So here is my model, after some caveats:

• This ain't research: it is more like folk wisdom. I don't know of any research on this, and it is probably rather difficult to do. This model does however seem to ring bells with colleagues and practising teachers/lecturers/ tutors in many areas of education and training. So don't just accept it— treat it critically.
• Above all do not let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is just:
  • A list of things to look out for, if they happen.
  • A reassurance that although some things need active intervention, they are normal, and not an indication of your inadequacy as a teacher.

The model is recursive (wheels within wheels). It operates at several time-scales at once, with variations. So it seems to apply to one-day courses and three-year programmes, and to semester-long modules in between: more than that, it applies at all these and other time-scales simultaneously.

Important characteristics of a course group are that its duration is known from the start, and that apart from drop-outs, its composition is relatively stable. Some groups, of course, are so large and anonymous that it is hard to detect these patterns; but individuals or sub-groups may well represent them on behalf of the whole.

• The convention is of course that red stands for danger.
• The width of the columns in no way represents the duration of the phenomenon.
• The model has to be laid out horizontally, so does not fit on this web page, but can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF.