4 ms·

You seem to be confusing grade school and university. The lecturers and professors you will find at university are not experts in pedagogy, and the vast majori

You seem to be confusing grade school and university. The lecturers and professors you will find at university are not experts in pedagogy, and the vast majority will never have claimed they were. They are experts and leading active researchers in their chosen field. They have devoted their professional life to studying and extending the state of the art of knowledge in their chosen field. If you want to study a subject at university level, it's likely that some of the material that you would learn at university is not yet in published books, because the only people who currently know the material are the researchers at your university who just discovered it, and are trying hard to find the time to write a book on it, around furthering their research, writing papers for journals (which they need to do, and which books do not count towards) and giving however many classes of lectures a week that they've been told to get on with, without a vast amount of training. In grade school, the material you will learn are basics of subjects that have been understood for a while, and written and refined in books some time ago. The material can be understood by people competent (but not necessarily expert) in the field, and can therefore be passed on, or spoon-fed, by people who are expert professional teachers. This is required in grade school, because students in grade school are not yet adults, and generally don't yet have enough self-discipline and self-awareness to put in the work now for later benefit without being shepherded the whole way. When you get to university, it is presumed that you are mature enough to have the self-discipline and self-awareness to figure out partly for yourself how to learn from the people who are the most advanced in the world in your chosen field, rather than the best teachers. That presumption seems to have worked out pretty well for modern universities for the last 500 years. Maybe university is not actually the place you want to be.

relkor 11y ago
I seem to have missed the part of university where we were learning things not yet in published books. If you think that undergraduates are reaching the cutting edge of research as part of their reguarly scheduled syllabus, I don't know what to say to correct this impression. You seem to forget that not every university is Stanford, where there are true leading experts that students can engage with beyond the context of class. There is no global university level. The trope of students conducting cutting edge research as undergrads is based on a few outliers who are widely publisied. The experience for the vast majority of us down in the trenches however is limited to the simplified model of physics that is safe for undergrads. Basing your expectations for a university education on the behavior of the top %0.001 of students is like expeciting your minivan to handle as well as a Grand-Prix racecar. My question to you is then "Why the hell did society decide to co-opt researches into passing on the information, rather than create a new class of specialists like society has done for every other field of human endevor?"
- sklogic 11y ago
  > I seem to have missed the part of university where we were learning things not yet in published books. You had an access to the teachers, who are all supposed to be active, well-connected, bleeding-edge researchers. You had a fair amount of their time allocated for you solely and more of that time for your class. Now, it was 100% your responsibility to extort all the bleeding edge knowledge from them, to loiter around their laboratories, to get a summer job as a lab assistant, and all that. This is what universities are for. > like society has done for every other field of human endevor? What? When did it happen, exactly? The master-apprentice model is still alive and kicking in most of the professions. There are no alternatives to it. Dedicated pedagogues can teach you to read, write and count your fingers (on one hand). The rest must be passed on by the real professionals.
  - aries1980 11y ago
    > You had a fair amount of their time allocated for you solely and more of that time for your class. Talking (and not teaching) to 200 ppl over 2 hours is not time allocation to "me". That is something I could watch without the presence of the teacher. There is no added value in this case compared to any MOOC class. University courses should follow the possibilities what technology has to offer and focus on really teaching. The rest can be watched at home. > Now, it was 100% your responsibility to extort all the bleeding edge knowledge from them. Yes, 18 yrs old kids have the power and character to chase and force teachers without a backfire. You might be such character, but not everyone is such persuasive as you, yet they can be a great scientist.
    - sklogic 11y ago
      > Talking (and not teaching) to 200 ppl over 2 hours is not time allocation to "me". I'm not talking about the lectures (they're useless unless most of the time is spent on Q&A). There is always a certain amount of time teachers must spend with their students individually, upon request. Smart students use that time, the others may not even know they've got a right to harass their teachers occasionally.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
geofft 11y ago
> If you want to study a subject at university level, it's likely that some of the material that you would learn at university is not yet in published books, because the only people who currently know the material are the researchers at your university who just discovered it, and are trying hard to find the time to write a book on it, around furthering their research, writing papers for journals (which they need to do, and which books do not count towards) and giving however many classes of lectures a week that they've been told to get on with, without a vast amount of training. I'm curious what universities work this way. MIT's CS program very much does not, at the undergraduate level. I can think of one graduate-level class by Adam Chlipala (the semester he was hired) where there was a bunch of material that was not yet in a published book, but was in an unpublished book freely available on his website. I didn't have time to learn it properly then, but I'll probably go back to the online book now, because it is one of the best places to learn this. I can't think of any other classes, and certainly not any undergraduate classes, that were like that. All of them taught from well-worn textbooks, or from a curated set of published research papers. Maybe I just went to a poor-quality university?

relkor 11y ago

I seem to have missed the part of university where we were learning things not yet in published books. If you think that undergraduates are reaching the cutting edge of research as part of their reguarly scheduled syllabus, I don't know what to say to correct this impression. You seem to forget that not every university is Stanford, where there are true leading experts that students can engage with beyond the context of class. There is no global university level. The trope of students conducting cutting edge research as undergrads is based on a few outliers who are widely publisied. The experience for the vast majority of us down in the trenches however is limited to the simplified model of physics that is safe for undergrads. Basing your expectations for a university education on the behavior of the top %0.001 of students is like expeciting your minivan to handle as well as a Grand-Prix racecar. My question to you is then "Why the hell did society decide to co-opt researches into passing on the information, rather than create a new class of specialists like society has done for every other field of human endevor?"

sklogic 11y ago
> I seem to have missed the part of university where we were learning things not yet in published books. You had an access to the teachers, who are all supposed to be active, well-connected, bleeding-edge researchers. You had a fair amount of their time allocated for you solely and more of that time for your class. Now, it was 100% your responsibility to extort all the bleeding edge knowledge from them, to loiter around their laboratories, to get a summer job as a lab assistant, and all that. This is what universities are for. > like society has done for every other field of human endevor? What? When did it happen, exactly? The master-apprentice model is still alive and kicking in most of the professions. There are no alternatives to it. Dedicated pedagogues can teach you to read, write and count your fingers (on one hand). The rest must be passed on by the real professionals.
- aries1980 11y ago
  > You had a fair amount of their time allocated for you solely and more of that time for your class. Talking (and not teaching) to 200 ppl over 2 hours is not time allocation to "me". That is something I could watch without the presence of the teacher. There is no added value in this case compared to any MOOC class. University courses should follow the possibilities what technology has to offer and focus on really teaching. The rest can be watched at home. > Now, it was 100% your responsibility to extort all the bleeding edge knowledge from them. Yes, 18 yrs old kids have the power and character to chase and force teachers without a backfire. You might be such character, but not everyone is such persuasive as you, yet they can be a great scientist.
  - sklogic 11y ago
    > Talking (and not teaching) to 200 ppl over 2 hours is not time allocation to "me". I'm not talking about the lectures (they're useless unless most of the time is spent on Q&A). There is always a certain amount of time teachers must spend with their students individually, upon request. Smart students use that time, the others may not even know they've got a right to harass their teachers occasionally.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

geofft 11y ago

> If you want to study a subject at university level, it's likely that some of the material that you would learn at university is not yet in published books, because the only people who currently know the material are the researchers at your university who just discovered it, and are trying hard to find the time to write a book on it, around furthering their research, writing papers for journals (which they need to do, and which books do not count towards) and giving however many classes of lectures a week that they've been told to get on with, without a vast amount of training. I'm curious what universities work this way. MIT's CS program very much does not, at the undergraduate level. I can think of one graduate-level class by Adam Chlipala (the semester he was hired) where there was a bunch of material that was not yet in a published book, but was in an unpublished book freely available on his website. I didn't have time to learn it properly then, but I'll probably go back to the online book now, because it is one of the best places to learn this. I can't think of any other classes, and certainly not any undergraduate classes, that were like that. All of them taught from well-worn textbooks, or from a curated set of published research papers. Maybe I just went to a poor-quality university?