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There’s no evidence teaching degrees make people better teachers. ::: It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the cor

There’s no evidence teaching degrees make people better teachers. ::: It's easier to pick a good teacher than to train one: Familiar and new results on the correlates of teacher effectiveness Neither holding a college major in education nor acquiring a master's degree is correlated with elementary and middle school teaching effectiveness, regardless of the university at which the degree was earned. Teachers generally do become more effective with a few years of teaching experience, but we also find evidence that teachers may become less effective with experience, particularly later in their careers. These and other findings with respect to the correlates of teacher effectiveness are obtained from estimations using value-added models that control for student characteristics as well as school and (where appropriate teacher) fixed effects in order to measure teacher effectiveness in reading and math for Florida students in fourth through eighth grades for eight school years, 2001–2002 through 2008–2009. Research highlights ▶ Majoring in education is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ University attended for college is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ Acquiring a master's degree is not associated with teacher effectiveness. ▶ Teachers become more effective with a few years of teaching experience. ▶ Teachers may become less effective later in their careers. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775710001755 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

mlyle 4y ago
I've already read this research. The problem is that there's massive selection biases at work. It doesn't mean taking more people without teaching credentials results in an equal or greater quality of education. e.g. I am a high school dropout who's doing pretty-damn-well at teaching. I do not think this means we need more high school dropouts teaching, though. I've learned a whole lot reading the pedagogy literature and reading about the kinds of strategies that credentialed teachers are required to learn during their practicum and student teaching. It's difficult to imagine that these courses of study are not useful. (The research does probably mean that programs intended to incentivize existing teachers to get graduate degrees are probably flawed, except for some special cases in e.g. secondary math education)
- WalterBright 4y ago
  In my voyage through the public school system, I never noticed any particular methodology used to teach. I agree that specialized techniques help with specific learning disabilities, I've seen it in action. But for ordinary kids (the vast majority), the teacher just walks through the textbook for the class. The smarter kids just read the textbook and learn it themselves, as the teacher is moving too ssllooooooowwllyy. Frankly, the teachers didn't know what to do with me. Some wanted to be rid of me. Some liked me. I don't recall learning much from any of them. My history teacher would show Mr Magoo movies. I'm not kidding. My auto shop teacher would show drag racing newsreels. I did like my wood shop teacher. He taught me how to use machine tools and not cut my fingers off (he'd lost his in a table saw). That's paid off dividends for me my whole life since. But I don't think that required special teaching training. I learned how to use metal working machine tools in college from the head machinist, who simply enjoyed showing me how to run them.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > But for ordinary kids (the vast majority), the teacher just walks through the textbook for the class IMO: This is a terrible way to teach. Even for very highly curriculum-driven classes like the microeconomics class I'm teaching. My block periods are 1 hour 16 minutes. This is a long, long time to be giving dry lecture or popcorn-reading a textbook. Bell-ringer activities and exit tickets. Gimkit to break up long lectures and get an instant reading of mastery. Appropriate strategies towards looping and unit construction. Pacing, formative vs. summative assessments. Just how to effectively create discussions is tricky. Everyone looked a bit zoned out when we're talking about consumer surplus. "EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS EXPERIENCED CONSUMER SURPLUS." Huh? "EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS EXPERIENCED CONSUMER SURPLUS. Tell me when!" a few seconds of silence... eventually "Uhm.. there was a thing of candy and it had 4 pieces, and said 25 cents on it. I thought it was 25 cents apiece and I brought a dollar to the counter, but I got 75 cents back..." "Boom! That's 75 cents of consumer surplus!" Cue everyone sharing their concept of it and internalizing it when I had been losing the whole class. I didn't have training. But I did have a year where I didn't have many classes to teach and I had a very masterful teacher on the other side of the wall and I could listen to him and learn some of what he did. And I've read a whole lot about pedagogy and research from the National Training Laboratories about what are best practices. > My history teacher would show Mr Magoo movies. lol. I'm about to show a 2 minute clip from a cartoon where a shopkeeper says that it's Christmas Eve and that they're going to "jack the prices to the moon" because the customer has no other choice to illustrate elasticity of supply and demand. > He taught me how to use machine tools and not cut my fingers off I teach robotics, and that means teaching the use of machine tools to middle school and high school students that have no common sense. It is stressful. I agree no one trains you for that :D

mlyle 4y ago

I've already read this research. The problem is that there's massive selection biases at work. It doesn't mean taking more people without teaching credentials results in an equal or greater quality of education. e.g. I am a high school dropout who's doing pretty-damn-well at teaching. I do not think this means we need more high school dropouts teaching, though. I've learned a whole lot reading the pedagogy literature and reading about the kinds of strategies that credentialed teachers are required to learn during their practicum and student teaching. It's difficult to imagine that these courses of study are not useful. (The research does probably mean that programs intended to incentivize existing teachers to get graduate degrees are probably flawed, except for some special cases in e.g. secondary math education)

WalterBright 4y ago
In my voyage through the public school system, I never noticed any particular methodology used to teach. I agree that specialized techniques help with specific learning disabilities, I've seen it in action. But for ordinary kids (the vast majority), the teacher just walks through the textbook for the class. The smarter kids just read the textbook and learn it themselves, as the teacher is moving too ssllooooooowwllyy. Frankly, the teachers didn't know what to do with me. Some wanted to be rid of me. Some liked me. I don't recall learning much from any of them. My history teacher would show Mr Magoo movies. I'm not kidding. My auto shop teacher would show drag racing newsreels. I did like my wood shop teacher. He taught me how to use machine tools and not cut my fingers off (he'd lost his in a table saw). That's paid off dividends for me my whole life since. But I don't think that required special teaching training. I learned how to use metal working machine tools in college from the head machinist, who simply enjoyed showing me how to run them.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > But for ordinary kids (the vast majority), the teacher just walks through the textbook for the class IMO: This is a terrible way to teach. Even for very highly curriculum-driven classes like the microeconomics class I'm teaching. My block periods are 1 hour 16 minutes. This is a long, long time to be giving dry lecture or popcorn-reading a textbook. Bell-ringer activities and exit tickets. Gimkit to break up long lectures and get an instant reading of mastery. Appropriate strategies towards looping and unit construction. Pacing, formative vs. summative assessments. Just how to effectively create discussions is tricky. Everyone looked a bit zoned out when we're talking about consumer surplus. "EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS EXPERIENCED CONSUMER SURPLUS." Huh? "EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS EXPERIENCED CONSUMER SURPLUS. Tell me when!" a few seconds of silence... eventually "Uhm.. there was a thing of candy and it had 4 pieces, and said 25 cents on it. I thought it was 25 cents apiece and I brought a dollar to the counter, but I got 75 cents back..." "Boom! That's 75 cents of consumer surplus!" Cue everyone sharing their concept of it and internalizing it when I had been losing the whole class. I didn't have training. But I did have a year where I didn't have many classes to teach and I had a very masterful teacher on the other side of the wall and I could listen to him and learn some of what he did. And I've read a whole lot about pedagogy and research from the National Training Laboratories about what are best practices. > My history teacher would show Mr Magoo movies. lol. I'm about to show a 2 minute clip from a cartoon where a shopkeeper says that it's Christmas Eve and that they're going to "jack the prices to the moon" because the customer has no other choice to illustrate elasticity of supply and demand. > He taught me how to use machine tools and not cut my fingers off I teach robotics, and that means teaching the use of machine tools to middle school and high school students that have no common sense. It is stressful. I agree no one trains you for that :D