Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!haven!h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu!muvms3!edm002 From: edm002@muvms3.bitnet Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Are there still good teachers? Message-ID: <10433@muvms3.bitnet> Date: 3 Dec 89 15:10:36 GMT References: <1345@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <552@shuldig.Huji.Ac.IL> <2049@csm9a.UUCP> <555@shuldig.Huji.Ac.IL> Organization: Marshall University Lines: 52 In article <555@shuldig.Huji.Ac.IL>, shaig@shum.Huji.AC.IL (Shai Guday) writes: > In article <2049@csm9a.UUCP> fhadsell@csm9a.UUCP ( GP) writes: > %In article <552@shuldig.Huji.Ac.IL>, shaig@shum.Huji.AC.IL (Shai Guday) writes: > > Did student evaluations form the sole basis for these changes or were > they merely contributing factors? Most schools/departments with an engineering/research basis do not evaluate faculty primarily on teaching skills. Although this is slowly changing in some institutions, the standard evaluation method in the research/scientific school or dept. is publication and/or fundraising through grants. Student evaluations might be used marginally to reinforce pre-established trends (for good or bad faculty), but I'd suspect that few institutions give credible support to teaching as a primary factor in faculty assessment. > > One item not mentioned, which I am wondering about, are there any > requird courses for Master and Phd degrees in which they can aquire > the basic teaching skills? After all, teachers must be licensed by > some Board of Ed., what about Profs? No requirements for teacher-training courses generally exist in higher education; the licensing function to which you refer is for grades K-12 (American grade system, for those reading this in a non-US context). Higher education has claimed open or tacit exemption on a couple of grounds, historically. First, the tradition of academic freedom in higher education is much stronger than in public ed--and licensure has historically been used in other situations (e.g., publishing) as a method of governmental control over ideas. Second, the nature of the process in higher education has always been assumed to be something special, not part of the mass educational system, even when reality belies this image. The professor, especially in the German university model that we copied so carefully in the USA in the 19th century, was foremost a researcher. In the course of his research (and I use *his* deliberately), the professor would be able to transmit new knowledge to a select number of students--and the emphasis is on *select*. This image doesn't fit the mass higher-education scene in the USA today, but, like outdated images of physicians that are used to strengthen or retain their control on society, the images live on. Since my own work is in higher-education administration, I could bore you with *screens* full of information about the curricular and personnel history of the Western university, so I'll close for now. At any rate, the key issue is that we have only recently encountered higher education as a mass cultural phenomenon on the same scale as elementary and secondary education, so we don't have the curriculum in place to address the problem of the professor as mass educator. Here at Marshall, for example, we're offering a trial course next semester through our College of Education that is essentially teaching methods for graduate assistants. -- edm002@muvms3.bitnet,Marshall University Fred R. Reenstjerna | I stick my neck out 400 Hal Greer Blvd | for no one. Huntington, WV 25755 | ---Humphrey Bogart (304)696 - 2905 | CASABLANCA, 1943 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com