Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!dykimber From: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) Newsgroups: comp.edu Subject: Re: Student and Course Integrity Message-ID: <5050@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 29 Dec 88 07:32:19 GMT References: <4550@homxc.UUCP> <4847@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <2082@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> <9237@ihlpb.ATT.COM> <4993@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <9283@ihlpb.ATT.COM> Reply-To: dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 110 In article <9283@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >In article <4993@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes: >>As far as >>I'm concerned, an advanced graduate student is just as qualified to teach an >>introductory level course as a professor. > >I agree. The real question then becomes: Are professors qualified to >teach? My guess is that most are not adequately trained for this job. Well, one of the points I was trying to make (I think in a different passage, actually) was that the original poster was subscribing to what I think of as a common misconception in this message-chain. People keep posting angry messages stating how horrible it is that the people doing the teaching at the highest levels of education aren't trained as teachers. One person will say this is true of TA's, then someone else will say that it is true of professors also (affecting a very sad tone), and then a third person will respond with "here! here!" (sorry, but I've seen this little gem about a dozen times on the net in the past week, and it still kills me). My point, aside from all this rabble rousing (I know this is uncharitable, but you get the idea), and which I see I sort of made in the next citation (below) is that I don't think there's any good evidence (certainly that's been posted here) to show why we should bother putting these people through teacher training. Will it make them better teachers? Will it make only the bottom of the lot better, or will it help only the already competent? Will it hurt? Are there some things you can't teach about teaching? My guess is that teacher training will only make a very small percentage of people even marginally better at teaching, and this only if done well. I don't even want to discuss how we might arrive at a system of training teacher trainers. In any case, this has to be the null hypothesis (as opposed to launching into an expensive and painful teacher training crusade). Personally, I would guess that a better way to get good teachers would be to install some sort of testing for aptitude, and to teach only what empirical research dictates. >>And what does teaching ability have to do with >>training as a teacher anyway? > >That is (supposedly) what they are getting paid to do! Would you hire a >house painter to paint a Rembrant for you? No, but there's probably good reason to believe that training in house painting will help you learn to paint a house. Most people probably don't even know the basics. I'm guessing. But where's the evidence that teacher training helps teachers? It's already been pointed out on this newsgroup that the only trained teachers most of us ever come into contact with are K-12 teachers, the bulk of whom I think are just awful teachers. At least as far as I can remember. My point was that unless we can show that these people would have been even worse without the teacher training, we don't know that it's helping their teaching ability, and even so we don't know if it would be equally effective at the university level. >>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. > >Then why not give all the students a Usenet account and a list of phone >numbers and let them go home and save $15,000 a year? If I don't need to >be taught, why do I need to pay the school. $60,000 is a *lot* of money >just for a piece of parchment. Hey, that's not what I said. A university provides certain other things than raw reading resources (which in any case exceed usenet), including on-demand guidance and instruction, expert help, and zillions of other things. All I said was that you don't need to put university level teachers through teacher training, which I don't think would help their teaching in a way that would benefit university students. I didn't say that you don't need any of the university facilities at all. Particularly the teachers. >>At least, I've never noticed >>anything other than a negative correlation between teaching ability and >>teaching education >And who is to blame for this? The universities, where education is >taught. If a college can't even teach how-to-teach correctly, which is the >subject a college should be *most* proficient in (considering that is what a >college is supposed to do -- teach), how can we expect any other >discipline to be taught well in college? You keep assuming that teaching ability CAN be taught. Why? Every educational experience I've ever had contradicts this. (Well, in the aggregate at least - there are local exceptions.) At best, as far as I'm concerned, potential teachers can be taught some higher level cognitive self-monitoring strategies that will help them out. But unless the right people are there at every level, I can't see it helping much. >>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. > >I think that it is entirely inappropriate to have high student/faculty >ratios in the first place! I'd much rather have a well-produced >videotape instead! What? That's terrible! Are you serious? I can't imagine learning anything from a videotape on a regular basis. I thought that learning had advanced a long way from the time when people thought that all there was to teaching was dumping knowledge into students. I've learned such a small percentage of what I've learned from lectures and such a large percentage from smaller classes and that sort of thing, that I'd be hard pressed to justify lectures at all if it weren't for certain numbers problems. -Dan p.s. this posting has been off the top of my head, and I may contradict myself without warning. the substance, however, is what i believe. p.p.s. i'm completely in favor of forming the new group (sci.edu?), and i don't think whoever said it would be unavailable to most of its readership was correct. (sci.philosophy.edu?)