From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Re: Curriculum Cutbacks
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 93 21:24:06 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Originator: clin@step.eng.umd.edu


In article <C0JwKr.Foq@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>In article <93005.223602U38026@uicvm.uic.edu> <U38026@uicvm.uic.edu> writes:
>>Along with this, some professors are increasingly unavailable to help
>>students because of their research obligations.  TA's are overburdened
>>with school work, teaching and also conducting their professor's
>>research.  Students who need <169>hands on<170> instruction can't get
>>it; many end up dropping various classes or getting poor grades as a
>>result.  A student has a right to see and talk with the instructor, to
>>get needed direction about <169>how to<170> and <169>what to do<170>
>>when faced with homework problems.  Students need an opportunity to ask
>>questions, engage in dialogue and get a thorough understanding of
>>concepts.  But these <169>basics<170> of education are becoming harder
>>to get at UIC.
>
>If you want faculty who can keep up with the changes, and teach quality
>courses instead of plug-and-chug, you need to have the researchers as
>the main group in charge, and this means having substantial numbers of 
>graduate assistants.  Also, prospective teachers should be strongly
>encouraged to be TAs.  But so many people can only do so much.  Most
>instructors, even top researchers, are not that hard to see, but they
>are not going to baby-sit the students.  But it is often a great mistake
>for a student to ask an instructor on how to do a problem.  I try to 
>assign homework a full week in advance, so that a student can ask 
>questions other than how to do a problem, and if that is what a 
>student is after, I will refuse.  The problems will be gone over,
>and other than contributing to a grade, being told how to do a problem
>is likely to keep the student from learning.  But students more and more
>seem to want to memorize a useless catalog of procedures.
>

    The advantages of having a researcher is that one assumes that he
or she knows the subject matter that is being taught quite well.  However,
some people are good at being introspective about the way they learn, and
others are not.   Some people are good at estimating what the students
know, and others are not.   For example, you may know fact "A", and use
it all the time, and your colleagues may also know this, so you automatically
assume the students know it when this may not be the case.

    You may even hear people who complain "those students just don't know
how to think" or that they want the answers without thinking.   While I'm
sure this is true with some students, others want to learn, but just have
no idea how it is done.   Often the people teaching just attribute it
to not trying hard enough.   It's easy for them to say how to answer
a problem, but not how to think about the problem (assuming we are talking
about science or math, etc.).   Since people rarely have to explain how they
came up with the idea, it's not surprising that they have a hard time 
explaining it.

    I think some thought needs to be given to how to think about problems,
because otherwise, the teacher could just say to do all the problems in
the book, and come back next year, and that will be that.  One doesn't
want to babysit, but to pass on the benefit of experience.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu