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27 Comments
- bruuks, on 12/01/2008, -0/+29Having Profs (and TA's, lab techs, etc.) who speak the same language as the students is usually conducive to improving education.
- Barackalypse, on 12/01/2008, -3/+12You've got it all wrong, boring impersonal recitations in large lecture halls are really preparing you for life in the real world. If you are educated by charismatic grad students using "more engaging, interactive curricula" you will be utterly unprepared when you find yourself working for an administrative imbecile of a boss solving boring, non-interactive problems.
While exaggerated for effect, I am serious, this generation of kids raised on the "learning should be fun" theory and fed undeserved praise so they have good self-esteem do not hold up well to adverse situations at all. After 4 years of engineering school, I was well prepared for work, no matter how bad my job was it was always better than fluid mechanics or differential equations lecture. - Androne, on 12/01/2008, -0/+8300% agree. I had a class last year that was relatively easy and over half the class failed due to poor communication between TA, prof and student. We were given false information on what the exam focused on and questions about assignment questions were poorly answered in tutorial. Worst feeling ever is going into an exam thinking you got all the information and realizing you shouldn't of listened to the TA in the first place.
- TheCash, on 12/01/2008, -0/+5Tell me about it. My biochem prof had an accent so thick, the damn class should have come with subtitles. You'd think a person who is asked to repeat themselves at least ten times per class would go get some oration lessons.
- TheCash, on 12/01/2008, -0/+5The hell is a teaching fellow?
- bruuks, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3I'd be asking for some money back if I were you, from your UNIVERSITY. Although, technically, you should have learned how to spell before starting university.
- bruuks, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Sadly, they're usually brilliant people. They're just unable to communicate their brilliance effectively.
- josephbloseph, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3A teaching fellow is grad student who acts sort of like an assistant to a professor (not like an assistant professor). One typical scenario is that a graduate student of the sciences. They would have a reasonably light course load (light in hours, but heavy in theory) while running lab or discussion sections of undergraduate courses, for which they often receive a stipend (and in many cases, running these courses is mandatory when you are accepted into a program). The benefit of discussion sections to undergraduate students is that they typically have a better instructor-to-student ratio, so the students can better have questions addressed.
- gnomemage7, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3It's just another term for a TA
- Barackalypse, on 12/01/2008, -0/+3Did you have labs in any of the following subjects?
Statics
Dynamics
Mechanics of Materials (not materials science, I'm talking stress, strain, bending moments, etc)
Thermodynamics
Heat Transfer
I'm guessing you had labs in things like materials science (ohh, look, grain size), mechanical measurements and instrumentation (reading gauges and doing RMS calculations!), manufacturing engineering (you too can program a CNC machine!), and ergonomics (measure people and read more gauges!). Basically every lab I was ever a part of had nothing at all to do with actual engineering which involved understanding of mechanics, design theory, and materials selection. - rossisdead, on 12/01/2008, -0/+2Are you saying that one way of learning should be good enough for every student in a class, and that a student must not be meant for an entire field because they need a different way of comprehending the information at hand? I hope to god you're not a teacher.
- HarveyTian, on 12/01/2008, -2/+3All the math, science, and even literature that you learn in your college years may or may not be useful in the real world. However, learning how to learn on your own and utilize your social network for help is a skill that's likely far more valuable.
- TheCash, on 12/04/2008, -0/+1So why didn't they just say TA? Some people just have to use big words to feel better about themselves. Yeesh.
- josephbloseph, on 12/01/2008, -0/+1Learning doesn't need to be fun, that's not what this article is about. Learning needs to be effective. I went to engineering school too; I had a lot of labs and discussion sections, many of them just as important as the lectures, mostly due to the effectiveness of the TFs.
- DOCNM, on 12/01/2008, -1/+2Since when do TAs prepare the curriculum?
Also, for a grad student applying for a postdoc, teaching experience as valued next to nothing, especially compared to the publication record and actual research. So why would anyone waste time preparing classes for uninterested morons who only want they degrees to get a job instead of spending time working on his or her own experiments? - Raptor007, on 12/01/2008, -0/+1I'm so glad I went to a mid-sized university. The biggest class I ever attended was a gen-ed class of about 80 people. The upper-level CS and math courses could get down to single-digit student counts; there was so much interesting discussion in those classes!
Ah, I miss college. (I went to Central Washington University, btw.) - TheCash, on 12/04/2008, -0/+1Intelligence is worthless if it can't be put to practical use. The fact that this individual didn't give enough of a damn about their teaching standards to get some english lessons showed their ego was more important to them then their job.
- josephbloseph, on 12/02/2008, -0/+0My major was Biomedical Engineering. I didn't take materials or heat transfer, but I did take a few engineering electronics/signals classes with lab components that covered design. Along with a bunch of biology and chemistry lab courses. All of which were run by TFs, as were the discussion sections.
- Baderade, on 12/01/2008, -0/+0If you're not lopping Mechanics of materials, thermodynamics into materials science, that's a pretty fail department. How the hell can you teach materials science without thermo and going over stress/strain/elastic modulus, etc? That's like teaching a mechanic that pressing the gas makes the car go. Great, now why, and specifically HOW?
- brianloving12, on 12/12/2008, -0/+0I enjoy teaching and particularly love the challenge of being a more effective teacher and try and read up on the latest research in active learning methods.Students try this site for your bright future:
http://test-help.org/praxisii.htm - renjumk, on 12/04/2008, -0/+0This blog is informative, visitors will surely be benefitted, Its our pleasure to read informative content on this useful blog. The informations on Undergraduate Education is also published on our website www.teachingsolutions.org
- marthasmith12, on 12/13/2008, -0/+0To crack CBEST with flying colors log on to :
www.cateachingsolutions.com/cbest.html - frankhardy12, on 12/10/2008, -0/+0With hard work and, no less importantly, the right rica test preparation, you should find it easy to pass the rica and start your academic career in this field.
www.cateachingsolutions.com/rica.html - josephbloseph, on 01/14/2009, -0/+0Sorry for the necropost, but if you were still curious, some universities have a distinction between TAs and TFs; TAs in my undergraduate experience were usually people in the same program as I was, only a year or two ahead. They would be able to help out with some of the material, in that they exhibited enough of an understanding to pass the same course when they had to take it. They wouldn't be left to actually run any classes or discussion sections, but there were generally enough of them to get more 1 on 1 time than with TFs or any sort of professors. TFs were usually in masters or PhD programs, or even doing postdoc research in the same department, and were generally thoroughly versed in the subject matter and it's applications. They would lead discussion sections, and occasionally step in to handle lectures if the regular instructor had a conflict. Often times they are committed to academic research as a career, and are likely to move into some level of a professorship, which may or may not be at the same institution, where as TAs were often just doing a job from semester to semester.
- superm1ke, on 12/01/2008, -8/+4ok... tell me when something is accomplished not talked about
- generalzod1, on 12/01/2008, -7/+2Why is this on the front page.
- aletoledo, on 12/01/2008, -7/+1While I agree that many lecturers are boring and shouldn't be drolling on and on, I disagree with the idea that lab is where all the learning takes place. There is a vast amount of knowledge to be learned on some subjects and breaking out to smaller groups isn't the answer to this problem. What the author is really saying is that these children aren't able to grasp the concepts well enough and need more individual attention. Maybe this should be a clue that they aren't meant to be in such a field and rather should change to something they enjoy instead.
The whole push to a get children into college programs seems driven by money rather than knowledge. Maybe after healthcare is nationalized, they should go after the education system and make that free as well. Many other countries have a not for profit system, why shouldn't the US as well. After all, if healthcare is such a fundamental right, then education should be as well.
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