Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!hci!gilbert
From: gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching
Message-ID: <160@glenlivet.hci.hw.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Jan 88 14:19:18 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU>
Reply-To: gilbert@hci.hw.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton)
Organization: Scottish HCI Centre
Lines: 32

In article <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> hsd@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU (Harry S. Delugach) writes:
>The curriculim did provide three courses which I found then (and since)
>to be of great value
>
>1. Educational psychology 
>
>2. Classroom methods 
>
>3. Student teaching/presenting 

As someone with a degree in Education, I would add curriculum design,
curriculum evaluation, philosophy of education and sociology of
education to the list.

Without some sensitivity to curriculum design and evaluation, teaching
is a waste of time.  It's easy to think that a course is a success if
there are no explicit aims/objectives and no attempt to evaluate their
satisfaction.  Philosophy is an essential training for aim and
objective design.  Without philosophy's critical approach, it is easy
to motivate a course with inconsistent, unoperationalisable nonsense.
Sociology - in the US, anthropology, soci-anything smacks of commies ;-) -
is essential for understanding conflicts between the aim of a course
and the ideologies of different student populations.  For many
students, neither education nor competence is the goal of a course -
it's just another credit towards a status qualification with economic
benefits.  Grades count, but what they reflect is less important.
Sociology is also useful for revealing conflicts between the producers
and consumers of graduates.
-- 
Gilbert Cockton, Scottish HCI Centre, Heriot-Watt University, Chambers St.,
Edinburgh, EH1 1HX.  JANET:  gilbert@uk.ac.hw.hci   
ARPA: gilbert%hci.hw.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: ..{backbone}!mcvax!ukc!hci!gilbert