Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!udel!princeton!mccc!pjh
From: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching
Message-ID: <123@mccc.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 88 16:26:08 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
Reply-To: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Organization: Mercer College, Trenton, NJ
Lines: 42

Those are arguments I've frequently used, but they don't quite hit the
spot.  I guess it depemnds on your model of the educational process.  If
it's a cooperative model, it assumes that the instructor and the student
have the same goals -- learning and/or high grades.  This is the model
that is probably least often found in real life, as typical
undergraduate students are going through that time of their lives when
they are concerned with many more things than "just" book learning.  I
include "lessons of life" in the list of those things; this is the
period during which adolescents are usually learning to take the first
step into adult life, and it is a whopper of a step for most.)

Another model is the one you proposed: the instructor is an adjunct to
the learning process.  It usually doesn't work very well except with
exceptional students who don;t need an instructor in the first place.

A third has the instructor as motivator, based on the idea that a person
will learn more about something that interests him/her.  I know, I know
- if he/she's not interested, what's he/she doing there in the fist
place.  There are a variety of answers, none of which are germane.  Our
job as instructors is to facillitate the learning process.  To me, this
means making classes interesting (for me, it's done with personal
enthusiasm in the classroom), giving timely feedback (my biggest
failing), giving indidual help outside the classroom, expecting a
reasonably high leve; of performance, etc.

Of course, the bottom line is that students who are turned off are not
goimg to learn no matter what, BUT -- there are some/many marginal
students who will learn, given just a little motivation.

At my college, administration "de-motivates" students by discouraging
faculty from enforcing prerequisites, and enrolling more students than
can fit in the classroom or lab.  The former is done because we are nice
guys -- if a student really wants to take a course, etc.  The latter,
because a certain number will drop out, making the actual enrollment
match the design classroom/lab max.  (Did I hear a comment about
self-fulfilling prophecies?  Never mind.)

-- 
Peter Holsberg                  UUCP: {rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Technology Division             CompuServe: 70240,334
Mercer College                  GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690               Voice: 1-609-586-4800