Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!cbosgd!mandrill!nitrex!rbl
From: rbl@nitrex.UUCP ( Dr. Robin Lake )
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: PHDs getting hired for teaching school jobs
Message-ID: <589@nitrex.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 87 19:26:07 GMT
References: <8712162035.AA09800@bill.ads.arpa> <39@hrsw2.UUCP>
Reply-To: rbl@nitrex.UUCP ( Dr. Robin Lake )
Organization: The Standard Oil Co., Cleveland
Lines: 39

In article <39@hrsw2.UUCP> bakken@hrsw2.UUCP (David E. Bakken) writes:
>In article <8712162035.AA09800@bill.ads.arpa>, jleech@BILL (Jay Leech) writes:
>> 
>> I believe that it would be better if people teaching computer science (in
>> teaching schools)  had PHDs in education, with a lesser degree in CS.
>
>I'd be happy if some had even a minor in education.  :-)
>-- 
>Dave Bakken
>Boeing Commercial Airplane Company
>uw-beaver!apcisea!tahoma!hrsw2!bakken 		(206) 234-2039
>(generic) disclaimer: these views are my own, not my employers.


Over the past decade or so, I've been asking new faculty (and some well-used
faculty) at the various institutions I visit whether anyone ever bothered
to teach them how to teach.  NOT A SINGLE FACULTY HAS ADMITTED TO ANY FORMAL
TRAINING IN TEACHING, either course design, curricular design, delivery,
evaluation, etc.  On occasion I still do site visiting and, if anything,
the situation appears to be getting worse!

There were one or two whose spouses were in education and had some appreciation
of instructional methods.  In my own case, I had a graduate student who spent
a few years in my program who was destined for a Ph.D. in Educational Psych
and politely informed me how disasterous my teaching was, how to correct it,
and what the underlying prinicples were.  What a blessing!  It even makes
presentations to Senior Management far easier (what we're really trying to do
is teach them why they should approve our proposals...).

The saddest two things are:
1.  An institution that grew from a well-thought-of state teachers college
and still retained that expertise, but didn't bother to get it to their faculty
in other areas.
2.  The teachers and textbooks that try to teach a student to WRITE a
programming language before they teach them how to READ it!  Maybe icon-based
languages will help that problem???

-- 
Rob Lake
{decvax,ihnp4!cbosgd}!mandrill!nitrex!rbl