Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!nyser!njin!princeton!phoenix!dykimber
From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity
Message-ID: <4993@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 21 Dec 88 06:08:56 GMT
References: <4550@homxc.UUCP> <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2082@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <9237@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 29

In article <9237@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes:
>But look who teaches the intro courses at the majority of American
>universities:  teaching assistants.  What are their *teaching*
>qualifications?  None.  You do not need an education in education to be
>considered qualified to practice education at the college level (ironic,
>isn't it?).  I cannot think of any other profession where this is true.
>
>Why does this happen?  Although it is more important for professors to
>be teaching the fundamentals, they are the only ones who know enough to
>teach the advanced courses.  So what happens?  Students don't get a
>good base on which to build, and they really have to struggle all of
>their college life.  Will this change?  Probably not; universities are
>not all that interested in educating Joe Student.

But who cares?  Why do we want to kill a fly with an elephant gun?  As far as
I'm concerned, an advanced graduate student is just as qualified to teach an
introductory level course as a professor.  I don't see any good reason to
suppose that professors are better than graduate students at teaching material
that they know equally well.  And what does teaching ability have to do with
training as a teacher anyway?  I think that at the university level, where
students are supposedly reasonably self-motivated (or can at least convince
themselves to be so when appropriate), there's no particular reason for
teachers to go through any training program.  At least, I've never noticed
anything other than a negative correlation between teaching ability and
teaching education (I've had more good university level teachers than I
had in high school).  I think it's entirely appropriate to have professors
teach mostly upper level courses in situations where the student/faculty
ratio is high and there aren't enough faculty members to teach the courses.

                                                   -Dan