I agree with the posters who have pointed out that many professors do not consider themselves teachers because they focus on research. I attended a graduate school where the professors resented teaching any class, especially undergrads. I even knew professors who didn’t want to interact with new graduate students, limiting their circle of both students and research assistants to upper-level graduate students worth their time.
However, I have to take issue with the generalization that professors aren’t taught to teach and somehow don’t care about teaching. MsMicco is a professor of psychology who chooses to work at a small regional university instead of a major research university because she values teaching and wants to be able to balance her research with teaching classes. Her department requires all graduate students who are on a teaching track (i.e. any degree track where they could end up teaching even at a JC) to take a teaching seminar where they are taught teaching methods and deliver guest lectures in real classes while being reviewed by peers. She has also established “teaching circles” where professors can meet informally on their own time to improve their teaching. While the teaching circles aren’t required or even rewarded in the professor’s professional development, they are well attended and do demonstrate a committment to good teaching on the part of many professors.
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I [at one time] knew Paul Berg for a period of a couple years. We had fascinating discussions. I would not claim to have more than an incredibly basic idea of recombinant DNA. Most of the ‘incredibly smart’ people couldn’t explain how to pour piss out of their boot without reading the instructions printed on the heel. INtelligence does not mean communication of information. I might point out that most communities of real intelligentsia seem rife with aspergers syndrom.
I have suffered through a nondirected class where the TA came in and read off an outline, I could have done the entire class by downlaoading the same outline offline. What my tuition paid for was the ability to sit in a class, having done the assigned reading the night before and asking clarification, being able to get a meeting with my teacher to help me with a problem about the material [i ended up with a couple book recommendations to read along with my regular work] and it took some serious complaints to actually get some content in the class, and to force the professor to actually hold office hours. There is a give and take in class. You have the material in the book, but in most classes there is info that is NOT in the book - new discoveries, continued research results … most text books are NOT printed with all new material every year to reflect the new material.
I have suffered through ‘high school’ classes where I felt like I was 14 years old again, and treated like I had no brains whatsoever. I love being told to sit down and shut up, that there would be no questions about the class materials, but a regular ‘pop quiz’ randomly, a formal test once a month, and a term paper at the end.
If I am taking a language class, I expect something in between. Language is very difficult to learn solo unless you happen to also be living in the community that speaks that language, it is more hands on. I don’t care how well you can read and absorb info, with languages, you need interaction.
I’m sorry if I was rude to groman. This is obviously a problem that goes very deep in our current university/higher education system.
Here are the two main problems, restated for clarity and ease of debate:
[ul]
[li]People who love research but cannot educate are being handed classroomsful of undergrads for a semester. The professors are apparently completely unprepared – as are a distressing number of the students – and everyone is done a disservice: The professors who would be better in a lab or library advancing the field are forced to deal with curricula and tests, and the students who need a real teacher are forced to deal with uninspired and (apparently) lazy professors with all the charisma of a sack of wet dog crap.[/li][li]People who love teaching but are not so hot at publishing papers (the standard metric of how far one’s advanced the field, apparently) cannot advance professionally because professional advancement is not tied to teaching skill. So the people who really should be professors, as opposed to employees of some research lab, always get shat upon by a system that lives by the ‘Publish or Perish’ mentality. (And being moved to a second- or third-tier college with a corresponding pay cut is getting shat upon.)[/li][/ul]
There are exceptions. Richard Feynman comes to mind in the field of physics, and I’m sure there are others I don’t know about. But a Feynman comes along much less than once a generation, yet our universities seem to expect everyone to have his mix of research and teaching ability.
That’s not always true. There are a great many professors who choose to work at second- or third-tier universities or colleges because they value teaching. MsMicco is an example. She has passed up offers for positions at first-tier universities as well as administrative promotions because she wants to continue to teach. Her collegues at first-tier unis typically teach a 1-2 load (one course one semester, two courses the next). She typically teaches 3-4 or 4-4. She still does well-respected peer-reviewed research, but less prolifically than she would with a lower teaching load. Still, she and many of her collegues choose this career course.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that they get paid considerably less at teaching-oriented universities than they would get at research institutions. But I don’t think they consider that they are being shat on by the system because they chose their course knowing full well how the system was set up. As an analogy, I run a small IT shop. As a business owner, I make much less than I would make at a large corporation, but I get to choose my clients and projects. Am I shat on by the IT industry? The snide or mercenary answer is “yes”, but that ignores the reality that some people choose to take advantage of things other people see as a problem.
micco, I appreciate dedication when I see it and I appreciate the dedication of you and your wife. But my point is this:
Universities should choose whether they want to be research or teaching institutions. If they choose the former, they should be done with the charade of moving undergrads along and focus on advancing the field. If it’s a field anyone cares about, grants and investments will be forthcoming. If they choose the latter, they should tie professional advancement to teaching ability and nothing else. They may well stop advancing the field (although some important work has been done by undergrads before) but they will produce people who actually got taught by people who wanted to teach.
You do have a good question here, and there have been some good answers already provided in this thread. I’ll just add a few more thoughts.
The higher the level an instructor teaches at, the more the balance swings from being an expert in how to teach to being an expert in the subject matter you are teaching.
“Teaching” means different things at different levels. The things that a person who teaches kindergarten does, and the things that a person who teaches graduate school does, are totally different. A course in education for college teachers would probably be of some value, if done right, but it would have to be specifically geared toward college teaching, and even then, a lot of the stuff about how to teach English, for example, would be pretty much irrelevant to someone teaching math, or vice versa.
College teachers tend to be regulated by their individual institutions rather than by a state board of education or some such. To a larger extent than in high schools, it’s up to each college or university or department within a university to train its teachers, decide what qualifications are required, and monitor the quality of the teaching. (When I entered grad school with a teaching assistantship, part of Orientation Week included some training (not extensive but at least nontrivial) in how to teach: how to lecture, how to design good tests and grade them fairly, etc. But not all departments at the university cared equally whether their teachers knew how to teach.)
A lot of what I know about teaching at the college level comes from being on the receiving end of it. From all the classes I sat through in my own college years (none of which were education classes per se), I got a pretty good feel for how teaching works, and what to do and what to avoid if I were in a teaching position.
Some of the most wonderful teachers at the college level have never had any formal training in how to teach, and any such training might even do them more harm than good. They know their subject matter, and how to explain it. On the other hand, some of the worst college teachers are bad for reasons (like apathy) that no education course could fix.
This implies that undergraduates don’t benefit from being exposed to and participating in world-class research. Maybe it doesn’t matter for all fields, but I can certainly attest that actual, grown-up, honest-to-God, name-on-a-publication research is a very important facet of undergraduate education in astronomy and physics.
I admit to not having read perfectly every single response in this thread, but… what is it that makes a given school a “good” place to go for your education? Make that for your initial college education. Assume that you’re into academics only (no sports program influence for you), you’re undergrad and hence not doing research, and you plan on leaving with your Bachellors and picking someplace else if you feel like continuing.
If the premise that “it’s up to the student to learn on their own” is valid, then what makes University of Michigan any different than, say, University of Phoenix?
And it’s entirely possible I’m completely wrong, in my solution if not my assessment of the problem.
But the way it seems now, too many people’s time is being wasted, too much money is being misspent, and too many really bad classes are being taught in our current higher education system. That doesn’t mean the system is without merit. It does mean it needs drastic change.
Exposure to research is valuable but it doesn’t mean researchers should have to teach in order to keep their positions. That cheapens teaching, which is a skilled profession that requires things many people simply do not have, with predictable results.
It would be nice if researchers were simply occasional speakers in a classroom taught by a real teacher, giving insight and information without being burdened with syllabi and tests and so on. In turn, the more promising students could work closely with the research team in lieu of some of their classwork for credit.
This would isolate researchers from the classroom, create a genuine career path for teachers, and instill in students an appreciation for the subject that can only come from learning from people who want to teach. It’s entirely possible that universities shouldn’t bifurcate into research and teaching institutions, but research and teaching need to be rewarded and compensated in different ways.
IMO, it depends in part on how clearly you know what field you want to pursue. If you have a very clear-cut idea on your major and are very enthusiastic about it, it can be very good to go to a research-oriented university that excels in that field. On the other hand, if you don’t know very well what you want, it might be better to go to a smaller teaching-oriented school where you might find inspiration for a future career through well-taught classes.
I’ve always been very interested in Biology. As an undergraduate I went to Cornell, which is well-known for excellence in the field. Most of my courses, as it happened, were quite well-taught, but I think I also benefited from exposure to some of the top names in the field.
A more rigorous school is worth more on your resume since presumably the quality of graduates is going to be higher
A school that attracts more bright people is going to be better since education is a social activity
A school with more resources is going to be better than one with less, ie: better library, research equipment better lecturer/student ratioetc.
A “party school” is more likely to tempt you to not to focus on academics whereas a more scholarly school may be more conducive to learning.
Weather, transportation, the town, the people, etc.
In social sciences and arts, a school whose political values roughly align with yours will probably net you better marks if maybe less critical thinking about your position.
Interesting discussion. I’ve taught at both the pre-college and college levels and I admit that I do have different expectations from my students. I expect my college students to be adults who do not require spoon-feeding in the classroom. I make this clear from the first class that they are expected to do the assigned work and the reading before coming to the lectures. I will not be checking up on them except when they get tested. For most students, this works out just fine; for others, it doesn’t, and I suspect that that is the source of criticism in my student evaluations.
But back to the original OP question about why profs are not taught to teach … thinking back at my graduate education, to tell you the truth, I don’t see where that pedagogical training will fit in. Mind you, I’m talking about the specific graduate math program that I was in. With the courses, seminars, qualifying exams, research, it was a pretty crammed, pressure-packed program as it was. And the objective was always to just get it done and graduate. And there were absolutely no requirements related to being a good teacher. So how were we expected to learn to teach? Essentially by doing it, and by observing others teach. The assumption was that if you can prove you are a good enough scholar to graduate and you’ve been given some opportunities to teach, then you can teach. This is obviously an erroneous assumption for a lot of profs. But as others have already pointed out, scholarship (as in papers published) is generally more valued than teaching ability in academia. Notice that there are no Nobels (or Fields Medals in my world) awarded for teaching, and no one cares if these winners can teach or not. If they can, great. If not, they’re great scholars and that’s more important. Of course, this is not true at all colleges, and I’m only speaking about the handful I’ve been associated with.
Well, if you pick a college that doesn’t offer graduate-level degrees (like a small liberal arts college, or even a community college) to start at, you’ll have a better chance of avoiding some of the complaints that have come up in this thread. Also look at whether the school’s primary focus is on teaching, at the average class size and student-to-faculty ratio, at the quality of students they admit, at what programs/majors/courses they offer…
Does U.S. News & World Report still publish their annual list of the “best” colleges?
If you’re an undergrad and you’re concerned about the quality of teaching in your courses, then make specific suggestions on your end-of-semester course evaluations. In too many cases, students seem to be in a dramatic hurry to fill these things out in two minutes, without putting any thought into what they say. Believe it or not, most of your professors are genuinely interested in your views, and are happy to make changes if they believe that it will help the students to learn.
But a word of warning is in order here: be honest with yourself about the issue. Don’t praise the teacher just because you got an A, and don’t rag on the teacher just because you got a C. Students too often seem to equate the grade they receive with the quality of teaching. I’ve seen a bunch of cases where, if i made a graph of the student grades in the class, and made another graph with the student evaluations, these graphs would be almost identical when placed on top of one another. It is possible to receive a good grade from a poor teacher, or to receive a poor grade from a good teacher.
Also, in filling out your evaluations, offer constructive criticism, not just epithets and insults. I got back an evaluation once on which the only comment was “Section was completely useless.” Not only does such a comment make it hard for me to know exactly what you didn’t like, but the attitude and the lack of elaboration makes it rather unlikely that i will take the comment seriously at all. And this applies just as much to unqualified praise. If all you write is “Section was great” it doesn’t really help very much. Tell me what was good about it.
When I was in grad school, those of us who wished to start teaching were required to take a class called “Problems in Teaching Freshman Composition.” Obviously, this was for prospective English teachers; I don’t know what they did in other divisions. After passing this course, we were allowed to teach a class, with the help of a faculty mentor who would check over the syllabus, give pointers, and look at the first batch of papers we had graded. It helped a great deal to be able to look at other professors’ syllabi as well.
Aside from that, though, a lot of it was a “learn as you go” deal for beginning teachers. You find out quickly what works and what doesn’t, which assignments are most effective, how much one class can differ from another, which textbooks are worth using again, and a host of other things that you weren’t expecting or could not predict.
I don’t see how this would be practical. I bet many people who discover they’re really interested in research academia as a career only dicover it once they are at university. I certainly didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do as a high school student. I think research universities would be devastated by the lack of undergrads coming through the system, and I think teaching universities would be devastated by the lack of access to real research.
I will admit that profs that show complete disregard for teaching are bad, especially so if the research value they add is not up to scratch either. Personally, at the college level, I prefer being taught by people who’s main focus is the material, not necessarily teaching the material. At the college level one should be self-sufficient enough to take on a lot more of the responsibility for one’s education.
If you feel that you’re not getting value for money with this setup, then perhaps a university is not for you. I would recommend a technical school or some diploma where they can tell you what you need to know.
It wasn’t a strawman, I genuinely thought that was what was implied.
Most good libraries, if not supported by tax dollars, will charge a lot of money to become a member, not as much as tuition, but still a lot.
I think it’s akin to complaining your new car didn’t come with a chauffeur. Universities would MORE value by just making the knowledge available through lectures that make reasonable assumptions and don’t start over from the beginning every time. Through using real books instead of crap text books. Through eliminating things like attendance policies, graded homework and continuous evaluation. If you want to know how you’re doing in a class, you can always ask the professor, why do you need anything other than a final grade for a final exam/project?
All too often I see students actually BALKING and trying to GO OVER THE PROFESSORS HEAD to the dean, because the professor refers them to good books that explain things as opposed to explaining it him/herself. If you believe that content that can be conveyed in 3 hours a week for 16 weeks is sufficient and efficient, then more power to you! How awful of us to expect people to learn simple things themselves and reserve office hours only for things they tried but couldn’t understand on their own.
They’re paying to ask questions. They are paying to learn. They are paying to read, and be able to challenge, discuss and analyze what they are reading in a group of their peers and knowledgeable professors.
I am not posing as a teacher. I am not a teacher. I am a student. I go to school to learn, and instead my time is wasted in group bonding exercises, guided library tours and doing problem sets for things that were already covered in class and in the book. For some people repetition is key. I am not one of those people! The only way for me to learn something and retain it is to get as far ahead as possible, then the basics will stick. I don’t understand how anybody can think that being free to learn the way you know how to learn can be equated to paying for a piece of paper? Who else knows how to use your brain better than you do?
Like some other posters who replied, I don’t see why they should choose. Sorry to keep using my wife as an example, but she (and many others I know) would not want to work for a teaching-only university any more than she wants to work for a research-oriented one. She loves both aspects of her job and chose a place that allows her to do both.
Both my undergrad and graduate work were done at first-tier research universities. I saw a lot of professors who had no interest in teaching. But despite their thinly-veiled apathy toward students, I learned from them. In fact, I think I learned more from them than I would have learned from a very good teacher who didn’t have their research chops. I can read the books on my own, but what you gain from a professor is some insight into how to think and how to solve problems. Regardless of the classroom skills of the teacher, you stand to gain more from a great researcher teaching a lousy class than you do from a great teacher with little real experience in the field. It’s certainly debatable whether you can learn the skills of a genius, but at least being exposed to a genius gives you an opportunity to try. And I don’t think it’s debatable to claim that you’re simply not going to be exposed to great minds on the cutting edge of their fields at a teaching-only institution.
GQ may not be the place for this kind of opinion, but I simply could not disagree more with your assertion that researchers have little or no place in the classroom teaching students who want to become researchers. I do agree with you that teaching and research have to be measured and compensated independently, but in the real world, it’s simply not realistic to expect every institution to reward them equally. A world-class research institute gets that way by devoting assets to research. This has a trickle-down effect of providing a great place for people to learn to be researchers even if they only pay lip-service to teaching.
I’d like to add a layer to micco’s train of thought here.
Even if a professor or instructor in a course seems somehow deficient in the classroom (boring, communicates poorly, seems apathetic, etc.), very commonly that same professor will be very accomoodating to interested students who take advantage of office hours (or even of stolen moments like walks across campus) to ask well-considered questions about the field.
I had one anthropology instructor, Mr. R, in college who was new to teaching – pretty shy in front of the class, a little bit of a stutterer, and not always 100% prepared to answer questions on the fly. Some folks in the class decided to tune Mr. R out, do the readings, and pass that way (which one could do – he was an easy grader). However, me and a few other students started striking up conversations with Mr. R after class about topics relating to the lectures. Mr. R, in these post-class bulll sessions, “magically” was able to speak at length about just about anything related to anthropology – and if he didn’t know the answer to something, someone he worked with probably did … and he would go ask them. This led to a few other instructors (and even some personal friends of Mr. R) coming to our class as guest lecturers.
In short: those who were truly interested in the subject got a lot more out of the class by applying just a little extra effort. In this case, the side benefit was the guest lecturers. Not only did the students in the class get exposed to the knowledge of more than one instructor, Mr. R got to witness examples of more effective lecturing than he himself was capable of delivering at the time.
I seem to recall that Mr. R gained quite a bit of confidence during that semester. A win-win situation for all.