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College!
BlakeJustBlake:
Yeah, we had a Pre Cal teacher kind of like that, some students made a complaint and passed it around for anyone who wanted to sign and gave it to the head of the Math Department. Surprisingly, she's teaching my Calculus class next semester.
jhocking:
--- Quote from: Linds on 01 Aug 2008, 12:16 ---Out of four years, I had only one professor who sucked and she was in my senior year. Her lectures were horrible and she blamed the class for most of us failing our midterm. (It was her damn fault, because her fucking syllabus was wrong and she wouldn't admit it. And she tested us on stuff we hadn't learned yet.)
--- End quote ---
This is somewhat off-topic, but your post relates pretty directly to the evaluations I got from a course I taught in the spring. Those evaluations were shockingly polarized, with the range going from the person who rated me 110% to the person who commented that "he have to stop." Among the things I deduced from those evaluations, and thus a change I intend to make in my future teaching, is that I really need to prepare a better syllabus.
Putting it in terms of the advice people are giving here, well blakejustblake's comments about classes that you don't really need to attend to get anything out of, where everything you need is already in the syllabus/course website? Well, I tend to take the opposite approach, and my problem is that I'm too extremely the opposite.
ampersandwitch:
Joe Hocking: He have to stop.
benji:
--- Quote from: Linds on 01 Aug 2008, 12:16 ---You must just have crappy professors, then. Seriously.
--- End quote ---
I actually had brilliant professors for the most part. My experience was great. I work in academia though (basically, I train college professors to use learning management software), so since leaving school, I've met plenty of profs who's attitude is "teaching is just a hoop I have to jump through to get funding." I've also met plenty of professors who were passionate about teaching. There are good and bad teachers everywhere, but some institutions encourage people to emphasize teaching over research and some do it the other way around. Going to a teaching school means that you'll have a higher proportion of professors who are really passionate about teaching. Going to a research school means that you'll have a higher proportion of teachers who are really well known in their fields and (if you're in the sciences) it might be a little easier to end up assisting on original research. Of course, it is also true that it's more of a continuum then a binary. Most schools balance the 2 to some extent. But if it comes down to a situation where you need to hire a new professor, and you've got 2 candidates, and you look at their CVs and you're thinking "well, this one has more teaching experience and the class really loved the test lecture he gave but this one is involved in some really exciting research which she'll bring with her if we hire her," which one you end up hiring says a lot about where the school's (or the department's) priorities are.
I probably sound more cynical then I am. I tend to view the system from the perspective of administrators and professors more than from the perspective of students these days. I love the academy and again, there are great professors everywhere. There are also duds everywhere.
jhocking:
I do want to throw out one counterpoint though that, while not affecting the basic truth of the situation you describe (some schools prioritize teaching, some prioritize research,) does complicate the situation as far as teaching effectiveness. One has to keep in mind that the more classes a given teacher is running simultaneously, the less they can focus on any specific class. It is possible for too much teaching focus to dilute how effective people are at teaching.
Or more to the point and looking at things from the other direction, it is perfectly possible for a person who avoids teaching too many classes and who focuses on research to like teaching and be good at it.
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