bls@cs.purdue.EDU (Brian L. Stuart) (01/05/89)
In article <9302@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: > >In article <1077@l.cc.purdue.edu> cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: > >>Teaching should be done by those who UNDERSTAND the subject. > >I disagree (in part, anyway). Teaching should be done by those who can >CONVEY the material to others. You're both right (at least in my opinion). In the eight years I've spend in three institutions of higher learning and in a small amount of teaching at various levels (from 1st grade to graduate school), I've become convinced that both of these conditions are necessary (and perhaps sufficient :-) for all teachers. The vast amount of traffic regarding bad teaching in the secondary schools and in colleges is really refering to two different problems. The most pre- dominant problem with secondary school teachers is that they do not have a sufficient level of understanding in the subjects that they teach. Incidentally, the understanding must be of a `why' nature as well as a `how' nature. Alot of us have had high school teachers that knew less about their subject than we did. On the other side of the coin, we've all had college teachers that clearly knew their subject, but couldn't "teach their way out of paper bags." Many times these same teachers get tenure because they do good research and can bring in the grants. Personally, I don't feel that this is a good basis for determining who teaches. There is plenty of room in industry for those who do good research but can't teach. I don't pretend to have a solution to the problem of teaching. However, I do suggest that we start by 1) requiring that all teachers demonstrate a sufficient level of understanding in the subjects that they teach (at least a Bachelor's level of training for secondary school teachers and at least a Master's or Ph.D. level for college teachers) and 2) requiring that ALL teachers demonstrate a proficiency in teaching. (OK maybe I should be sent to a remedial writing class for that last sentence :-) In regards to point number 2, I don't feel that education degrees are the answer. In high school, almost all of my teachers had education degrees, but none did at the three colleges I have attended. There was almost no difference in the proportion of good teachers to bad teachers. For me the best sources of imporving teaching were not the seminars given by ed and ed psych specialists, but they were simply studying those teachers that I thought did a good job and trying to incorporate some aspects of their style into my own. This is getting a little long winded, so I won't go into what I think makes a good teacher (unless there exists someone who cares) except to say that maybe we can take a lesson from the Socratic method and lead students into finding the answers for themselves rather that just dumping the results on their collective laps. Brian L. Stuart Dept. of Computer Sciences Purdue University Disclaimer: My opinions in no way reflect those of the University, the Department or any of its faculty. In fact I may have offended some of them in this discourse.
reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) (01/05/89)
In article <5775@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bls@cs.purdue.edu (Brian L. Stuart) writes: >On the other side of the coin, we've all had college teachers that clearly >knew their subject, but couldn't "teach their way out of paper bags." >Many times these same teachers get tenure because they do good research >and can bring in the grants. Personally, I don't feel that this is a >good basis for determining who teaches. There is plenty of room in >industry for those who do good research but can't teach. Some universities have research professorships. For those who are there purely for the research this is a viable alternative. However, I don't think smaller universities can afford to have professors who don't teach. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826