The Importance of a Good Teacher

[lostintime]

Sometimes I want to change career plans and become a teacher--maybe that will be my backup plan. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel that a good teacher/prof/TA/instructor will make your life just SO much better if they are enthusiastic about the topic and put a little more effort into turning a potentially dull topic more interesting. Many times, I've turned to love topics that I originally thought were boring because of a stimulating teacher and lost hope in subjects that I was originally interested in. I know it should really be based on the content, but somehow the instructor has that much power over your learning experience.

 

That's why I'm so against making these top-notch researchers teach undergrads. Yes, they're very very knowledgeable, the top of their fields, yada yada. But many of them stutter, stumble, don't look over the notes before class, make mistakes left and right and don't correct themselves after, and are basically not suited for teaching at an undergraduate level. Perhaps they mentor better one-on-one, I don't know. But who made up this rule that all profs must teach undergrad courses? Because sometimes I feel that it's really ruining my education:(

[Smurfette]

I agree that great researchers do not necessarily make great teachers. (There are some researchers that do not teach, but most do not have that "luxury").

 

At the university level (especially graduate courses and upper undegrad courses), it is difficult to find someone who is a great teacher and also very knowledgeable about their subject area such that they can act as mentors to students who want to enter that field. It is also quite expensive to hire a whole different set of people to teach. Therefore, it's not such a terrible idea to make researchers do some teaching. I think a better solution might be to encourage/enforce training for profs. Many profs aren't great teachers because they don't know how, not because they simply don't care. If profs who didn't do well on their evaluations were made to do teacher training programs, they might do a better job (if nothing else, they'd have the incentive of not having to do the training program the following year).

[Sparkles]

I completely agree with you 100%. I personally love school and learning. I would be a full time student forever if I could just skip all the homework!!! My favorite classes are always the ones with my favorite teachers! I've come to the conclusion I enjoy every subject.....as long as there is a motivational teacher!!

[Jochi1543]

Yeah, I agree on the evals....once you are tenured, no one cares what your students think of you. Student evals do matter for profs who have not been given tenure yet, though. I remember filling out bazillions of them for the Provost's Office during my senior year as part of their tenure evaluation process. All of my profs had been good though.

[The Law]

I hate having bad profs. I HATE IT.

I mean, I have a prof this year... who really doesn't care how his students do in his class. The entire class is frustrated because it took FOREVER to get just 1 mark back, and the distribution for our exam was really odd. His lectures are so boring! And all he does is take the figures from the text book and put those as his notes.

 

You just have to put up with profs like that though, it happens.

[Jochi1543]

My fave are those types that won't give you a 1-day extension even if you are in a hospital with a skull fracture, but can literally take MONTHS to return a basic assignment to you.