4 ms·

When I was a professor I tried an experiment a few times of offering extra classes during the lunch break. These covered interesting and important areas that we

When I was a professor I tried an experiment a few times of offering extra classes during the lunch break. These covered interesting and important areas that we just didn't have time to get to in class. The topics covered weren't on the final exam and were totally voluntary. Out of a class of 100 I would get around 10 or so students come to these classes which were more tutorial than lecture. It was great experience teaching students just interested in learning. The most interesting aspect of the exercise was the students were drawn pretty evenly from across the performance spectrum. There were students who got A's in everything, but there were also a number who we're just scraping through the degree. I was quite surprised at which students came.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I'd probably be in the middle of the perfomance spectrum of your group. I learned in my own pace, followed things that interested me, which meant that I could have bad grades (mostly from ignoring assignments) but still have a keen interest in the subject. That is, if anyone would tell me this is a thing. I always thought that office hours are mostly for a) helping people who didn't understand some part of a lecture, and b) dealing with formal stuff - grades, extensions, absences, etc. It was pointed out to me just around the time I was finishing my education that I could have just come to talk about the subject matter, and a lot of the staff would be more than happy to tell me about it. This is one of my two biggest regrets from the university - that I didn't come to professors and asked them, only limiting myself to occasional after-lecture chat. (The other one being that I completely ignored party life and thus didn't take the chance to meet and befriend many smart people studying various sciences and arts.)
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I used to have the occasional student that would "drop in to chat”, but I think most were too scared to do so. In the natural sciences you have labs which are smaller and more informal where students were more comfortable chatting about science. I had lots of interesting conversations in labs and even occasionally about the subject. I had always wished that we could have a more informal learning process where the professor’s job is to guide the student through the subject, but this is not really compatible with the industrial-scale higher education system we have today. In the end you feel you have accomplished something if at least a few students have learned something. On a bit of a rant at no stage in your performance evaluation as a professor are you ever judged on what your students learned. No effort is made by the university to measure how effective your teaching is or if your students have gaining anything from the course. Entertain the students and hand out A’s like confetti and the university is happy.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    If I may give an unsolicited hint (with standard disclaimer of n=1 anecdote-neq-data) for the sake of other students who are like I was: make sure your students know they can drop in to chat about science, and that's totally fine and you'd be happy to talk to them. The experience of primary and secondary education I had has taught me that teachers generally are not that accessible, and only few of them know stuff outside curriculum. It's not that they don't want students to come to them, but it was never encouraged. Managing their opinion of you, on the other hand, was paramount to getting by, especially if you're not their favourite pupil who gets straight As on all tests. You also didn't want to be seen in your class as lickspittle (yay the dysfunctional world of schoos). I carried that attitude with me to the university, and didn't realize until it was too late that situation is different now - that those (still intimidating) professors and PhDs are really willing to share their knowledge, and they're often national, or even world-class experts in their particular domains. Sometimes what a young person needs is an explicit permission and reassurance - that yes, they can stop by to chat about things. Like the article said - the means and opportunities are there. People are just not using them, and don't even think they should. EDIT: A side note - the other big thing I learned only after getting close to befriending several faculty members (I'm generally likeable person, I find it easy to establish good relationships with people even above my status level). Initially I used to believe that a lot of our professors, like high school teachers, didn't know shit about what they're teaching, and that they totally sucked at doing it. But then one day I was chatting with a lecturer about her plans for next years of the course, and she got emotional and told me something important - that she doesn't like this subject, doesn't know much about it in the first place; it's not her domain of study and she simply was told to teach the class. This was an eye-opener, later confirmed - quite often that professor or PhD that comes across at stupid, miserable or annoying is simply forced to teach things he doesn't know or care about, and if you come and ask him about his research field instead, then he turns out to be quite a different person - smart, excited, and suddenly capable of teaching effectively. It's a big failure of university management that members of faculty have to teach things they have zero interest in.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      My students all knew they could drop in whenever they wanted - it was the standard within our department so it was nothing unusual for our students. Even given this the vast majority never took advantage of this and I would usually only be visited by less than 5% of all students in a semester. Edit. In response to you edit this is very common. I had to teach all sorts of subjects at very short notice (the worst I was only given 3 days notice). I taught many subjects where the last contact I had had with the area was when I was an undergraduate. Makes for very stressful teaching.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I'd probably be in the middle of the perfomance spectrum of your group. I learned in my own pace, followed things that interested me, which meant that I could have bad grades (mostly from ignoring assignments) but still have a keen interest in the subject. That is, if anyone would tell me this is a thing. I always thought that office hours are mostly for a) helping people who didn't understand some part of a lecture, and b) dealing with formal stuff - grades, extensions, absences, etc. It was pointed out to me just around the time I was finishing my education that I could have just come to talk about the subject matter, and a lot of the staff would be more than happy to tell me about it. This is one of my two biggest regrets from the university - that I didn't come to professors and asked them, only limiting myself to occasional after-lecture chat. (The other one being that I completely ignored party life and thus didn't take the chance to meet and befriend many smart people studying various sciences and arts.)

danieltillett 11y ago
I used to have the occasional student that would "drop in to chat”, but I think most were too scared to do so. In the natural sciences you have labs which are smaller and more informal where students were more comfortable chatting about science. I had lots of interesting conversations in labs and even occasionally about the subject. I had always wished that we could have a more informal learning process where the professor’s job is to guide the student through the subject, but this is not really compatible with the industrial-scale higher education system we have today. In the end you feel you have accomplished something if at least a few students have learned something. On a bit of a rant at no stage in your performance evaluation as a professor are you ever judged on what your students learned. No effort is made by the university to measure how effective your teaching is or if your students have gaining anything from the course. Entertain the students and hand out A’s like confetti and the university is happy.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  If I may give an unsolicited hint (with standard disclaimer of n=1 anecdote-neq-data) for the sake of other students who are like I was: make sure your students know they can drop in to chat about science, and that's totally fine and you'd be happy to talk to them. The experience of primary and secondary education I had has taught me that teachers generally are not that accessible, and only few of them know stuff outside curriculum. It's not that they don't want students to come to them, but it was never encouraged. Managing their opinion of you, on the other hand, was paramount to getting by, especially if you're not their favourite pupil who gets straight As on all tests. You also didn't want to be seen in your class as lickspittle (yay the dysfunctional world of schoos). I carried that attitude with me to the university, and didn't realize until it was too late that situation is different now - that those (still intimidating) professors and PhDs are really willing to share their knowledge, and they're often national, or even world-class experts in their particular domains. Sometimes what a young person needs is an explicit permission and reassurance - that yes, they can stop by to chat about things. Like the article said - the means and opportunities are there. People are just not using them, and don't even think they should. EDIT: A side note - the other big thing I learned only after getting close to befriending several faculty members (I'm generally likeable person, I find it easy to establish good relationships with people even above my status level). Initially I used to believe that a lot of our professors, like high school teachers, didn't know shit about what they're teaching, and that they totally sucked at doing it. But then one day I was chatting with a lecturer about her plans for next years of the course, and she got emotional and told me something important - that she doesn't like this subject, doesn't know much about it in the first place; it's not her domain of study and she simply was told to teach the class. This was an eye-opener, later confirmed - quite often that professor or PhD that comes across at stupid, miserable or annoying is simply forced to teach things he doesn't know or care about, and if you come and ask him about his research field instead, then he turns out to be quite a different person - smart, excited, and suddenly capable of teaching effectively. It's a big failure of university management that members of faculty have to teach things they have zero interest in.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    My students all knew they could drop in whenever they wanted - it was the standard within our department so it was nothing unusual for our students. Even given this the vast majority never took advantage of this and I would usually only be visited by less than 5% of all students in a semester. Edit. In response to you edit this is very common. I had to teach all sorts of subjects at very short notice (the worst I was only given 3 days notice). I taught many subjects where the last contact I had had with the area was when I was an undergraduate. Makes for very stressful teaching.