3 ms·

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 pap

by 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.

by 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.