david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp (DAVID LLOYD-JONES) (05/04/91)
Replying to: grant@psych.toronto.edu (Stuart Grant) >Orga: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto > > >Calling the education faculty math courses wimpy, and making math teachers >take "regular" math courses is not the answer. The quality of math >instruction will improve if teachers are given more training in the >teaching of math. Teaching math is difficult, Motivating students and >getting across abstract concepts that the students have not used before >is, I believe, the greatest difficulty. > >So, I think math instruction can be best improved not by teaching the >teachers more math, but by giving them more teaching skills, including >additinal training in how to teach math. > This assumes that there is a body of knowledge, "knowledge about the teaching of...." I would be interested to know if you have evidence for this. * * * It will not satisfy me to be told that "effective teachers do thus and so." What I need are examples of things which can be taught to people who are not effective teachers with the result that they become effective teachers. If it is your claim that ineffective teachers can learn the techniques which effective teachers use -- and in so doing so then change into effective teachers -- then I would require some evidence for this claim. The claim is often made, with the assumption that it is self-evident. I do not believe that it is self-evident, and think it highly likely that it is false. -dlj. ---
news@dirac.physics.purdue.edu (news) (05/06/91)
discipline skills with considerable interest as I have recently commenced a doctoral program in Physics Education and frequently deal with some of these concerns. From: danmac@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu (Daniel L. MacIsaac) Path: maxwell.physics.purdue.edu!danmac POLITICAL & SOCIAL CLIMATE Certainly in North America. the educational profession lacks anything like an appropriate level of social, political and financial recognition. In other cultures, teachers are greatly respected and paid (eg -- the European title PROFESSOR means something, as does SENSEI elsewhere). I am from Canada where grade school teachers are paid 2-3 times better and respected somewhat better than the US. Here in Indiana, hundreds of teachers have recently received layoff notices regardless of Gubernatorial and Presidental 'commitment' to education and the voting population does not seem very upset. One of my colleagues breaking into the profession here in Indiana substitute teaches for the sum of $35/day (no benefits) in the hopes of eventual amployment. I subbed in Canada for $100/day (no benefits) and found it nerve-wracking; I suspect that flipping burgers would be more lucrative and less stressful here in the US. My limited experience (came to the US in Jan) has revealed that education has little or no prestige in Indiana; it seems to be the favourite political whipping-boy. Even in enlightened institutions like Purdue the field is treated with scorn and there is literally no percentage in a professor in (for example) Physics working very hard on improving undergraduate instruction as there is little or no recognition for doing so, and perhaps even less time or financial support. TEACHERS AND DISCIPLINARY CONTENT SKILLS It is widely recognized that the majority of teachers in science and mathematics never develop abilities beyond amateur status. Therefore, teachers teach from the level of amateurs, not experts and therefore must present a stilted view of their discipline. This does not mean that this is necessarily a fatal problem to be rectified by bringing in professionals (this was tried in the post-Sputnik cold war hysteria and failed to produce results after an enormous amount of $$ were spent in the US), but it is a problem that must be recognized. A partial solution is to educate teachers to a given level of competence (require all HS teachers have an undergrad degree in their field, then a BEd afterwards), and promote the study of subject discipline philosophy for these teachers. Certainly the majority of the students will not become mathematicians or scientists themselves, but require both probelm-solving and judgemental skills to participate in and make public policy for a modern technical society. These can be taught from an amateur expertise with a philosophical overview. In any event, I don't think that the entire disciplines themselves are worthy of instruction to grade school students; certainly the ethos and unspoken attitudes of the sciences and mathematics are not all worthy of instruction. I TA'ed an undergrad Physics lab course this term for Physics majors, and taught 40 students of whom one was black and none were female. This is fairly representative of the department as a whole. Part of the reason teachers are given what little respect and appreciation they do receive is because we tend to view then as moral and responsible individuals working to improve society, or at least to emphasize the better features of society in their instruction. John Dewey wrote considerable amounts concerning the role of schooling in societal evolution. TEACHERS AND NON-DISCIPLINARY SKILLS Some comments have expressed reservations that teachers do not require skills beyond their subject discipline. Eg: > It will not satisfy me to be told that "effective teachers do thus and so." > What I need are examples of things which can be taught to people who are > not effective teachers with the result that they become effective teachers. There are MANY non-subject area skills required of teachers and a great deal of expertise (and even artistry) is required to be an effective grade school teacher. Universities are full of gifted research or theoretical scientists and mathematicians who cannot teach to adults, let alone children. Some examples of the skills and understanding required include human development (try teaching junior high school some time with 30 mid-puberty students :^), psychology, developmental psychology and cognition (how human beings learn and how we can teach accordingly), counselling, classroom management and discipline (I have taught on a native reserve and have seen teachers struck in anger), an ability to really listen to others (the rarest skill of all in people), technical and budgetary skills, and political ability. These are only partially teachable; after teacher preparation is done at a university, teachers will continue to train themselves in their professions all of their lives (as well as enduring largely politically-motivated inservices) and will often return for graduate training as well. I'm over 100 lines into an opinionated, inflammatory unreferenced babble so this is probably a good place to stop. Please email follow-ups to me personally as well as posting, as I don't read all of the groups I seen cross-posted to in the ehaders of this thread. I only read sci.edu and comp.edu. Dan [Physics] '...is a narrow and rigid education, probably more so than any other except perhaps in orthodox theology' -- T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Dan MacIsaac, Physics Ed Grad Student, danmac@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu [Physics] '...is a narrow and rigid education, probably more so than any other except perhaps in orthodox theology' -- T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Dan MacIsaac, Physics Ed Grad Student, danmac@maxwell.physics.purdue.edu
marti@saturn.ucsc.edu (Marti Atkinson) (05/07/91)
>>So, I think math instruction can be best improved not by teaching the >>teachers more math, but by giving them more teaching skills, including >>additinal training in how to teach math. >This assumes that there is a body of knowledge, "knowledge about the >teaching of...." >I would be interested to know if you have evidence for this. Actually, there is a rather large literature on the best ways to teach mathmatics, physics and a great variety of other subjects. The SESAME graduate program at UC Berkeley deals with exactly that subject... researching the best ways to teach math and science classes. Marti Atkinson University of Calif. at Santa Cruz marti@saturn.ucsc.edu marti@uccrls.BITNET ..!ucbvax!ucscc!saturn!marti
manis@cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) (05/23/91)
In article <fb44621488e92822eb24@rose.uucp> david.lloyd-jones@rose.uucp (DAVID LLOYD-JONES) writes: >This assumes that there is a body of knowledge, "knowledge about the >teaching of...." > >I would be interested to know if you have evidence for this. There is indeed a body of knowledge about the teaching of mathematics. To be precise, there are two such bodies, one developed by mathematicians and teachers who have attempted to teach mathematics, and one developed by educational theorists who teach mathematics methods courses. I took a mathematics methods course some 15 years ago as part of my teacher-training program. On the first day, we spent the afternoon doing anything we wanted to with Cuisenaire rods (those coloured wooden rods they use in elementary school). I built a house. It was a very nice house. I had a lot of fun. I felt good. I learned nothing about teaching mathematics. Later on we built more houses. -- \ Vincent Manis <manis@cs.ubc.ca> "There is no law that vulgarity and \ Department of Computer Science literary excellence cannot coexist." /\ University of British Columbia -- A. Trevor Hodge / \ Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1W5 (604) 228-2394