Good Teachers

[mahagonny]

con't

To the question 'do I, Mahagonny, believe in the value of research for teaching, mentoring quality and effectiveness' the answer is yes of course, but a lot depends on who is doing it or whether they are part of a cooperative department of faculty with mutual respect as opposed to infighting isolation and cliques, which is what I find some of the time. As well, there is such a thing as being an excellent teacher through staying current in one's field by keeping up with current research, without the pretense or necessity of seeing oneself as an innovator.

[Aster]

Going by the online student rating sites for teachers. Top features are...

- Physically Attractive
- Entertaining
- Easy A's
- No Textbook
- Easy Tests or No Tests
- Lots of Extra Credit
- Class Attendance not Required

[Larimar]

Going by the online student rating sites for teachers. Top features are...

- Physically Attractive
- Entertaining
- Easy A's
- No Textbook
- Easy Tests or No Tests
- Lots of Extra Credit
- Class Attendance not Required

Sounds like such students don't want a class. They want a movie.

[Langue_doc]

They want an A.

[little bongo]

Many do, certainly. And many of them are happy to earn it in a challenging class. Though I am a bit sad that I never earned a "hot pepper" rating next to my name in the Rate My Professors site before they removed that rating.

Hey, is this 50 posts? I'm getting a cookie.

[Ruralguy]

Nobody has rated in me in over a decade, yet some profs are rated every semester at my school. So I guess I never got anyone angry enough or pleased enough to bother writing anything.

[Kron3007]

Then too the tenure track has its issues, for example how much can you cut corners on teaching in order to publish your way into your next promotion? How much of a fool are you if you worry excessively about great teaching?

What is your opinion of a good professor?

Good Professor may not always instantly translate as good teacher. Does an OK teacher (who doesn't suck in the classroom, but is no superstar), but who has great research productivity and is an excellent mentor, with lots of external funding, just an Average Professor? Is the fantastic engaging teacher with little research output and no funding automatically a Good Professor? I suppose it may depend on who you ask, where you are, and what your job description is.

I guess you would like to talk about how well the tenure track works instead of the situation for higher ed teachers, generally. OK.

Strong research productivity doesn't necessarily benefit the student that that particular professor has the opportunity to work with, (Though they are paying for it) and in some cases, not the department either, but it's the path to promotion, or not, if they decide to let your finish off your career at associate level. So if that professor is not great in the classroom, it's an expensive way to get a run of the mill classroom performance, and maybe small numbers of students serviced to boot.

Unless of course you are including graduate studies.  In that case the research program is paramount (at least in some fields).



 

[Aster]

Unless of course you are including graduate studies.  In that case the research program is paramount (at least in some fields).

Yeah. I'd argue that graduate studies is an entirely different animal deserving of its own separate discussion. But it would be a super short discussion, revolving around a much smaller list that had little at all to do with the professor's personal attributes or pedagogy styles. I'm not even sure if "good teacher" would be an appropriate descriptor to use for graduate studies?

[mamselle]

I'd say, "good advisor" might be the more significant personage to look at for graduate students.

M.

[Kron3007]

Yes, but the initial question was what makes a good professor, which often includes both levels of "teaching".  Definitely a different skill set (even for teaching graduate level classes), and I'm sure there are plenty of professors that are good at one and not so good at the other.  Likewise, I'm sure there are professors that are good at teaching hands on lab skills, but perhaps not as good at the theoretical (and vice versa).       

I don't know that the discussion would be much shorter though.  Advising graduate students is no less complex than teaching a class, and in some ways much more IMO.

[Aster]

Yes, but the initial question was what makes a good professor, which often includes both levels of "teaching".  Definitely a different skill set (even for teaching graduate level classes), and I'm sure there are plenty of professors that are good at one and not so good at the other.  Likewise, I'm sure there are professors that are good at teaching hands on lab skills, but perhaps not as good at the theoretical (and vice versa).       

I don't know that the discussion would be much shorter though.  Advising graduate students is no less complex than teaching a class, and in some ways much more IMO.

Heh, in my field, you can condense it into a single item: funding support

[HigherEd7]

Thank you! Great discussion by everyone

[aside]

Well, almost everyone. My contribution was virtually useless.

[larryc]

What great teachers have in common is a love of their discipline and respect for their students.