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This is true of being a professor as well (I certainly didn't understand what teaching really was about until I starting doing it). I've always thought that ou
by sramsay 13y ago
This is true of being a professor as well (I certainly didn't understand what teaching really was about until I starting doing it).
I've always thought that our graduate students should be made to take acting lessons, because there's an element of second-order persuasion you have to do in a classroom that's hard to learn and difficult to describe but that shares some similarity to acting -- or maybe just rhetoric in the very ancient sense.
You can't just purvey information and mumble something about its importance. Ultimately, you're modeling what it means to be an intellectual -- trying to give your students certain habits of mind by showing them how those habits play out in practice.
We also spend an enormous amount of time trying to devise strategies for dealing with students who just don't get it (and you quickly learn -- or better learn -- that this might be the most important part of the job).
I could say more, of course. It's a very subtle set of skills -- more art than science, as they say. It's hard to do it at the college level, and I think it's far, far harder to do it at the elementary level, where the stakes are much higher.
- barry-cotter 13y agoWhat kind of third level institution do you work at? One is under the impress that going from passable to outstanding in teaching has much, much less effect on one's chances of getting tenure than going from mediocre to good in your research.
- umanwizard 13y agoThey never said it was particularly important for career advancement. How did you read that into their post? Also, what's with the condescending sneery tone?
- adestefan 13y agoBecause every time a post on education comes on HN everyone thinks they know all the answers. The comments end up turning into a "Well this is the real reason..." or "Everyone needs to be just like..." The discussions end up being so worthless that I now flag every education related post on HN because it's just not worth the time here.
- jedmeyers 13y agoWhy do you think it's called master of Arts in teaching, and not master of Science?
- sanderjd 13y agoAnd yet, being outstanding in teaching has much, much more effect on one's students' chances of learning things. Is the university system (excepting "third level institutions" apparently) just a scam perpetrated against its students?
- cle 13y agoI don't think so. I think access to the best minds in the field is much more important than good teaching. Bad teaching is an opportunity to learn how to learn independently--an extremely valuable skill.
- sanderjd 13y agoGreat teachers inspire their students to learn independently. That's pretty much the most important part of the job description. I think it's debatable whether great teaching or access to great minds is more important, and probably varies depending on the student and what stage of their education they're in. But either way, for the access to work at all, it has to really be access; receiving a dry lecture on introductory material from a great mind doesn't really give you access to that mind. But sure, the best students will seek out projects that give them real access, and those experiences will probably be incredibly valuable. There is definitely a huge value in the university system just putting you in the right place to learn surrounded by the right people to learn from, but I hate the disrespect for actual teaching that I sometimes see when people talk about universities.
- scott_s 13y agoA lecture is a performance. When at the front of the class, I always felt like I was on stage, and accordingly, I was always "on". I was conscious of everything I said, and every movement I made, because everything went into the performance. That is one of the main reasons that giving a lecture is tiring - it's work to be "on" for over an hour. The other main mental work is, as you said, devising strategies for explaining material to students who don't understand it the first time. It requires patience and self-control (if you betray any sense of frustration, you will lose them) on top of the difficult task of figuring out what their exact misunderstanding is. And I agree, it's harder to do the more basic the material gets. Explaining advanced systems concepts to computer science juniors was much, much easier than explaining basic programming concepts to people with no prior programming experience. The more knowledge and concepts you have in common with your students, the easier it is to appeal to things you know they already understand - and you have the advantage of being able to use some of your areas jargon.
- mathattack 13y agoThe skill levels are more disparate in intro classes too.
- mathattack 13y agoHere's the rub... I'm not aware of any Phd programs outside the Education departments that require formal teaching training. You might get an apprenticeship as a TA if you aren't an RA, but coursework in becoming a better teacher? Never. This is a prime example of the system being set up to support research more than teaching. On the flip side, I've read research that says graduate degrees in education don't improve teaching results for high school. (Graduate degrees in the subject matter do.) An open question on teaching... Do any liberal arts colleges have formal teaching improvement programs? If they're not trying to research and product Phds, perhaps their approach to the profession is different?