Rant - grad students should not be allowed to teach undergrad classes.

[ElFenix]

sounds like a lab, almost all labs everywhere are taught by grad students.

skoorb - if you can post from work when are you going to pass me?

 

[notfred]

Originally posted by: zzzz
wow, you got one bad grad student teacher and you say they should not be allowed to teach? You think if his teaching abilities somehow depend on the grad school? If you get a professor who is a bad teacher, will you say "don't allow Professors to teach?"

whoever taught you to read shouldn't be allowed to teach.

 

[Jzero]

I'm sure GSI's dislike being there as much as you do, its extra work for them. Most Universities force their Grad Students to teach. Just imagine how it would be like if you were in there shoes.

This represents a fundamental defect in the way we run our higher education system. It's not just TAs, either. At my school there were no TAs. A crappy teacher is a crappy teacher. What is a normal professor if not a TA who has a few more classes under his belt?
To get a job teaching in a normal public school system, you have to be CERTIFIED. I'm not implying that certifying teachers is the magic bullet that will weed out all the bad teachers, but at least these people have SAT THROUGH classes on pedagogical theory and HOW TO educate. There is a world of difference between HAVING knowledge and BEING ABLE TO CONVEY that knowledge to someone else.

For some reason, we have decided that at the collegiate level and above, the only criteria for teaching others is having sat through the classes yourself. You don't have to know any techniques of education. You don't have to be certified in any way other than having a graduate-level degree (or be a TA/GSI). You don't have to be speak fluent English. You don't have to do a thing. Consequently, you get horrendously bad teachers who were hired based on their theses and their resumes.

I once sat through a prospective teacher's lecture at my school. She essentially gave an 80-minute presentation of her doctoral dissertation on neural networks to a room full of undergraduates many of whom had not even taken the topical AI class. Her presentation was meaningless. If you are evaluating a teacher's fitness to teach an undergrad class, then why don't you have her prepare a lecture based on UNDERGRAD material, and instead of just reading the abstract of your thesis, actually TEACH a class to people who have the foundation of knowledge to be able to understand what you are teaching and then SEE IF THEY GET IT! If they don't, maybe we should think twice about hiring her!

For some reason it doesn't work this way.

The end result is you get these outrageously halfassed professors who want nothing more than to do research, and they end up seeing their duties of educating, teaching and mentoring students as an obstacle that gets in the way of that research. They were hired for their research potential, their background of knowledge, and not a thought was given to the potential fraud committed upon PAYING CUSTOMERS who will be sitting through these classes.

Some of the best college teachers I had were the ones at the Community College. Know why? The people teaching at Community College TEACH BECAUSE THEY WANT TO TEACH. Sure, there are exceptions, but you don't get as many of those windbags teaching because they work for a university. The best teachers I had at the university level were 1) a guy who was a corporate executive and had no PhD who gave up his cushy career because he WANTED TO TEACH and 2) a guy who worked all day as a corporate DBA and moonlighted at the college because (you guessed it!) HE WANTED TO TEACH. No PhD either. The rest of them were a waste of resources. The best professors were the ones with real world experience and not just degrees. And people wonder why I consider a "doctor" to be "someone who took more courses" and nothing more.

I don't know I kinda liked my moms shedule growing up. She'd teach at calpoly from 10am- 2:30pm (4.5 hours) and always be home before we left for school and when when came home. As an added bonus she was able to be on vacation when us kids were outta school. Plus she made close to six fiqures.

Sounds pretty nice. I have lost count of the number of professors I have met who have the exact same "cushy" lifestyle, yet continuously bitch about how they are overworked and underpaid and that is why they don't have time to help their students.

Screw that.

If you don't want to teach, get a new job.

That is why I am very much in favor of forcing schools to DROP the non-profit facade, and STOP hiding behind the guise of education.
A university is a BUSINESS and NOTHING ELSE. The students should be considered PAYING CUSTOMERS and they should be treated as such.

 

[todpod]

Here at Clarion University most of the classes are taught by PHd's, I don't think that there are any TA's. I think its silly to pay a Drs salary for someone to teach 4 or 5 freshman english or math classes

 

[Jzero]

I can't believe no one had a comment on my rant!!!

*cries*

 

[miniMUNCH]

I went to Cal Poly Pomona...spent a total of $11,000 on tution, software, and books during my 4.5 years there...not a single TA ever and all but maybe 3 or 4 of my classes were taught by PhD's with serious industry experience and the other classes wee English 1B, Psych 101, one Calculus class, and intro to EE.

 

[amnesiac]

You guys have CSCI TA's that speak ENGLISH?? Every TA I had while I was in computer science was a FOB who could barely speak a lick of English and got pissed when we didn't know what the fsck he/she was talking about.

Thank god I'm in Psych now. I love my TAs.

 

[crypticlogin]

I ask "why does it matter? it seems apparent that I know how it works" or something like that, and he gets all pissy "fine, I'll take your program, but you're losing points!

With that kind of attitude, I'd start watching my back and make *damn* sure everything you turn in is 110% correct. Otherwise, you don't have a leg to stand on when you get something wrong and want to argue for points back.

 

[CJZ]

The majority of my TA's during college (UCLA) weren't too bad. I only had a few "evil" TA's.

The one that I can't forget "taught" p-chem lab. His idea of teaching was to yell at the students and hit on one of the girls. One time a student forgot to place a stopper on a bottle and the entire class was filled with a nice cloudy gas. Since I was standing near him he vented at me and demanded to know why I had left the stopper off. When I pointed out to him that I hadn't used the bottle, he proceeded to berate me for not having capped the bottle when I had noticed that it was uncapped. I then told him that I hadn't noticed the bottle was uncapped until he had pointed it out. He just said, well you still should have capped it. WTF?

All the students had evil smiles when they filled out the TA evals.

 

[RossGr]

You all are missing a rather subtle point of the system. The fact of the matter is the best way to learn a subject is to teach it. Grad students who are teaching undergrads are in the process of getting a very good fundamental understanding of the subject matter. This is a very important part of the process.

Don' t you undergrads realize that you are not the real reason for the existance of the university, you simply pay the bills! The reason for the university is research, undergrads are a necessary evil, poorly tolerated by some.

BTW: I felt I was a pretty good TA, Calculus and Differential equations, I spoke the language and got along well with the students. The real key, I enjoyed it.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: RossGr
.

Don' t you undergrads realize that you are not the real reason for the existance of the university, you simply pay the bills! The reason for the university is research, undergrads are a necessary evil, poorly tolerated by some.

BTW: I felt I was a pretty good TA, Calculus and Differential equations, I spoke the language and got along well with the students. The real key, I enjoyed it.

LOL. That is so true at the research universities. Calculus and Differential equations...no no I "paid the bills" 3x with calc2 and 2x with diviQ. Damn trig subsitutions..


I wonder if that's why these places like Devry, ITT and communiy colleges are becomeing a real alternative though. Anyway this attitude can't be a good thing.