Course Helps Students Beat the Clock : Education: Cerritos College uses computers to aid students with inflexible schedules. They can plug into class any time.

Jerry Winfrey’s efforts to advance his career as a policeman by taking college courses have been hampered by his irregular hours.

“Because I might work graveyard for a while, then switch to day shift, I just can’t always get to school,” Winfrey, 26, said.

But Cerritos College is offering a course that will allow the Bell Gardens policeman to participate in an English composition class any time he wants. He can go to class at any hour of the day or night by simply turning on his home computer and modem, an electronic device that will connect him with the college classroom computer by telephone.

Winfrey is one of 54 students who have signed up for Prof. George Jaeger’s computerized 18-week freshman composition class, which started Wednesday. Normal class size is 30.

“If you can’t come to us, we’ll come to you. The idea is to take the classroom to the people” Jaeger said.

Jaeger started the course on an experimental basis in 1989 as a way of reaching non-traditional students, such as housewives, professional people, the handicapped and hospital patients. Jaeger said he hopes to have the classes go into prisons someday.

Lorraine Irwin, a 68-year-old retired communications-equipment operator from Long Beach, has signed up for the class. Another Long Beach student, David Cayton, 23, travels a great deal in his job as a computer repairman and consultant. Both say it is more convenient to take the class through computers.

“Last year, I had to withdraw from classes at Cerritos because of conflict with my work. I couldn’t get to the campus. It won’t happen with this class,” Cayton said.

The students are required to come to the campus only on opening day, and for midterm and final exams. Otherwise, Jaeger will communicate with them via his computer in his office at the college or his personal computer at his home in Laguna Niguel.

Jaeger, who has taught at the Norwalk-based college for 25 years, took a one-year sabbatical during the 1988-89 school year to learn about “computer telecommunications.”

He said his program is modeled after similar courses offered through the Electronic University Network, a group of 14 participating colleges and universities, including Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Penn State. Most of the schools are in the East.

More than 11,000 students throughout the nation are signed up with the San Francisco-based university network to take courses ranging from literature to mathematics to psychology, said Ned Davis, vice president of marketing at Electronic. The electronic classroom “is the wave of the future. It allows students to work at their own pace,” he said.

Silvia R. Hubbell, who heads the liberal arts department at Cerritos College, gave Jaeger final approval to start the class. Hubbell said she believes the concept will be expanded to other classes.

Lacreta Scott, who heads the English department at Cerritos, said teachers have been “very supportive” of the pilot program. “We are committed to growth and progress and what works best for students,” Scott said. She acknowledged, however, that most professors still prefer the traditional methods of teaching, and that the class would not work for all students, Scott said.

Jaeger said the computer still permits a one-to-one relationship with his students. “The computer screen is the student’s classroom. It allows us to type-talk,” Jaeger said. And students who want to communicate with each other can do so through the computer, he said.

Jaeger also has a more traditional freshman composition English class, in which students use the computer as well as come to class at least once a week.

The other community college campuses might eventually consider similar programs to help accommodate an anticipated growth in enrollment over the next 15 years, said Ann Reed, vice chancellor of California Community Colleges. Enrollment is expected to increase from 1.3 million to more than 1.8 million in 15 years, she said.