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Most professors at those institutions care very little about the teaching part of their job. The incentives they face make it that way.

georgecmu 16y ago
Do you know this from personal experience or is it just one of those things that "everyone knows"? My experience of both real-life lectures and podcasted ones suggests otherwise.
- lftl 16y ago
  Podcasted lectures probably show an enormous selection bias, in that professors who don't care about teaching probably have no desire to make their lectures available to a wider audience. That aside I will concur that "professors don't like to teach" is probably much more anecdotal than evidence backed.
  - danielford 16y ago
    You also have to be pretty confident about your teaching ability to put that stuff up on the internet for everyone to see. I'd like to put some of my lectures online in a year or two, but currently they don't meet the Khan standard. Regarding research professors, the chair of the department I was a graduate student at once said that your teaching can only hurt your career; it can never help it.
- ewanmcteagle 16y ago
  Personal experience and the experience of colleagues. I spent 11 years in the undergraduate/graduate system both learning and teaching. It's also something you can learn if you ever have to look for work in academia. It's very rare that anyone cares about your teaching credentials. Typically undergraduate education is at the bottom of a professor's concerns. First is research/publications/funding. Next are graduate students and their research. Undergraduate teaching is an 'in the time left' activity.
- elai 16y ago
  Professors have four jobs: fundraiser, researcher, teacher and tester. They're evaluated in that priority in most universities. They have a few assistants for their various jobs, but it's mainly on their shoulders. A university professor's job should really be separated into four separate jobs, and universities can provide much better services in each area. A teacher who can just concentrating the best of teaching, a marker who can provide flexible final examination services so people can take their finals on their schedules, a fundraiser who's actually focusing on fundraising and not being miserable doing it, and a researcher who actually just researches and is not hired by a corporation.
ionfish 16y ago
I think it may be unfair to say that they don't care, but certainly the incentives weigh against spending their efforts on teaching (against, say, writing a paper or yet another grant application).
- georgecmu 16y ago
  To the best of my knowledge, teaching professors take course evaluations very seriously. If grants and papers is all you care about, then you take a different track (scientist vs professor).
  - blahedo 16y ago
    You are misinformed. At the vast majority of college/university-level schools, the faculty incentives run strongly toward research and weakly (or not at all) towards teaching. It is definitely not the case that the grants-and-papers types gravitate to "scientist" positions in preference to "professor" positions. Put another way, if you are someone who is primarily interested in teaching at the college/university level, and are not as interested in research ("grants and papers"), there are very, very, very few stable employment opportunities for you.
    - elai 16y ago
      A lot of community colleges consist of just teachers, being disconnected from the need to do research. All they do is teach, and often just have a masters. I've usually also found they are significantly better at teaching their subjects than universities, especially in mathematics.
      - blahedo 16y ago
        Ah---this is true. However, most community colleges do not have computer science programs, and many that do have it as a one-class-per-term appendage off another department (usually math). But for people in other fields, community college[1] does indeed often pose an opportunity for "just teaching" at the post-secondary level. [1] which non-US readers might call simply "college"---a typically two-year program, post-secondary, often with a large number of vocational programs but usually also teaching a general education curriculum that might enable one to transfer into the second or third year of university.

georgecmu 16y ago

Do you know this from personal experience or is it just one of those things that "everyone knows"? My experience of both real-life lectures and podcasted ones suggests otherwise.

lftl 16y ago
Podcasted lectures probably show an enormous selection bias, in that professors who don't care about teaching probably have no desire to make their lectures available to a wider audience. That aside I will concur that "professors don't like to teach" is probably much more anecdotal than evidence backed.
- danielford 16y ago
  You also have to be pretty confident about your teaching ability to put that stuff up on the internet for everyone to see. I'd like to put some of my lectures online in a year or two, but currently they don't meet the Khan standard. Regarding research professors, the chair of the department I was a graduate student at once said that your teaching can only hurt your career; it can never help it.
ewanmcteagle 16y ago
Personal experience and the experience of colleagues. I spent 11 years in the undergraduate/graduate system both learning and teaching. It's also something you can learn if you ever have to look for work in academia. It's very rare that anyone cares about your teaching credentials. Typically undergraduate education is at the bottom of a professor's concerns. First is research/publications/funding. Next are graduate students and their research. Undergraduate teaching is an 'in the time left' activity.
elai 16y ago
Professors have four jobs: fundraiser, researcher, teacher and tester. They're evaluated in that priority in most universities. They have a few assistants for their various jobs, but it's mainly on their shoulders. A university professor's job should really be separated into four separate jobs, and universities can provide much better services in each area. A teacher who can just concentrating the best of teaching, a marker who can provide flexible final examination services so people can take their finals on their schedules, a fundraiser who's actually focusing on fundraising and not being miserable doing it, and a researcher who actually just researches and is not hired by a corporation.

ionfish 16y ago

I think it may be unfair to say that they don't care, but certainly the incentives weigh against spending their efforts on teaching (against, say, writing a paper or yet another grant application).

georgecmu 16y ago
To the best of my knowledge, teaching professors take course evaluations very seriously. If grants and papers is all you care about, then you take a different track (scientist vs professor).
- blahedo 16y ago
  You are misinformed. At the vast majority of college/university-level schools, the faculty incentives run strongly toward research and weakly (or not at all) towards teaching. It is definitely not the case that the grants-and-papers types gravitate to "scientist" positions in preference to "professor" positions. Put another way, if you are someone who is primarily interested in teaching at the college/university level, and are not as interested in research ("grants and papers"), there are very, very, very few stable employment opportunities for you.
  - elai 16y ago
    A lot of community colleges consist of just teachers, being disconnected from the need to do research. All they do is teach, and often just have a masters. I've usually also found they are significantly better at teaching their subjects than universities, especially in mathematics.
    - blahedo 16y ago
      Ah---this is true. However, most community colleges do not have computer science programs, and many that do have it as a one-class-per-term appendage off another department (usually math). But for people in other fields, community college[1] does indeed often pose an opportunity for "just teaching" at the post-secondary level. [1] which non-US readers might call simply "college"---a typically two-year program, post-secondary, often with a large number of vocational programs but usually also teaching a general education curriculum that might enable one to transfer into the second or third year of university.