Understanding the mindset of a teaching university

[eigen]

I also sympathize with the OP. I largely felt the same way at first where I am now. I don't think I was quite as disdainful of my colleagues, but neither did I fully appreciate their abilities.

As much I might sympathize, I really do have to say, OP, that you really don't have much time to course correct. Or at least not as much as you think you might.

You don't have to be friends with everyone or even think that they are brilliant, but you do have to respect your colleagues. You also have to find  away to appreciate the best of what you have.

This is the core issue to me. Being frustrated with teaching or realizing you don't like it much is one thing. Being completely disdainful of people who focus on it, or your colleagues as a whole, is another.

[mahagonny]

I also sympathize with the OP. I largely felt the same way at first where I am now. I don't think I was quite as disdainful of my colleagues, but neither did I fully appreciate their abilities.

As much I might sympathize, I really do have to say, OP, that you really don't have much time to course correct. Or at least not as much as you think you might.

You don't have to be friends with everyone or even think that they are brilliant, but you do have to respect your colleagues. You also have to find  away to appreciate the best of what you have.

Sure, who wouldn't sympathize to some degree. Most of the students we get are not like we were. And nowadays so many need high GPA and scholarship assistance, letters of recommendation, and will wear you down pleading for it. And they're working part time.

[Ruralguy]

Most students in my day weren't so hot, and I, not even being particularly great, but maybe above average. was probably  thought to be a dullard by my profs, assuming they even cared. I think we overly romanticize our day as students.

[secundem_artem]

OP - you should be looking right now at your faculty handbook to see what the T&P criteria are.  Yours may be different but at my place (regional Master's comprehensive) our criteria are excellent in teaching and in one other of service and/or scholarship.  You spent 5+ years learning how to research.  You will have a far shorter time to learn how to teach well enough that at your 3 year review, your department chair is not making threatening noises about the need to get your shirt together.

I have basic science colleagues who work with undergrads in their labs and still manage to publish in high quality journals and present at international meetings.  Depending on your handbook this kind of mentoring may also count as teaching.

Back at your R01, you could be out there on the ragged edge of your discipline.  I  hope you can find a way to be happy with continuing to be research active, if not at the forefront, in your current situation. 

If nothing else, whatever you do, don't let your current colleagues get any sense that you believe teaching, or the institution's mission, is below you or your abilities.  If you go down that road, be sure to bring in enough grant money to buy your way out of all teaching or I can promise you that faculty have long memories.

[polly_mer]

Most students in my day weren't so hot, and I, not even being particularly great, but maybe above average. was probably  thought to be a dullard by my profs, assuming they even cared. I think we overly romanticize our day as students.

Many of us also end up teaching at institutions that are much less selective than the institutions we ourselves attended.

I noticed the drop in student motivation and preparation as I moved between institutions that had standards (i.e., actually turned away qualified students because the institution only had N slots for J*N qualified applicants with J > 1) and institutions that were continually scrambling for any students who could come up with the money because it was again late July and we were a good 10-20% short on projected enrollment.

[tuxthepenguin]

Most students in my day weren't so hot, and I, not even being particularly great, but maybe above average. was probably  thought to be a dullard by my profs, assuming they even cared. I think we overly romanticize our day as students.

Many of us also end up teaching at institutions that are much less selective than the institutions we ourselves attended.

I noticed the drop in student motivation and preparation as I moved between institutions that had standards (i.e., actually turned away qualified students because the institution only had N slots for J*N qualified applicants with J > 1) and institutions that were continually scrambling for any students who could come up with the money because it was again late July and we were a good 10-20% short on projected enrollment.

I'm going to assume you always did your best to teach them. Our value as instructors comes from providing the opportunity for students to do better than they would have without our classes. The top students would be just fine without taking my classes. They're smarter than me and they'll go on to do good things. The only reason I can teach them is because I have decades of experience in the field. The ones that never stood out in high school are the ones that motivate me. I'd hope that anyone taking a job at a teaching university is ready to work with them.

[Ruralguy]

What the good students need are adequate challenges. It is indeed a challenge for a typical faculty member to present work to one of the best students in generation and have them get much out of it other than just a stack of A papers. The fact that they'f be OK anyway may or may not be true (probably true, at the very least in terms of functional SES, etc.). In any case just OK should probably not be OK.

Nonetheless, we do mostly have to aim for the masses.

[tuxthepenguin]

What the good students need are adequate challenges. It is indeed a challenge for a typical faculty member to present work to one of the best students in generation and have them get much out of it other than just a stack of A papers. The fact that they'f be OK anyway may or may not be true (probably true, at the very least in terms of functional SES, etc.). In any case just OK should probably not be OK.

Nonetheless, we do mostly have to aim for the masses.

Yeah, I could challenge the top students, but it would require a change in curriculum. There's not much I can do given the constraints of my university. We do let our best majors take grad classes. Some of them really struggle with studying ten times as much as they did in their undergrad classes and not even being in the top half of the class.

[Ruralguy]

I can't say I have the solution to really challenging the tippy top, but I do find that some, though not all, really get a fire in the belly for scholarship if the right opportunity is handed to them. In fact, that happens even with some bottom students.

[polly_mer]

I want to agree, Tux, but I cannot agree with those exact words.

I'm going to assume you always did your best to teach them.

Yes, I always did my best to teach the students who were making an effort to learn.  However, I lost patience quickly with the students who didn't want to learn, yet wouldn't go do something else, and were insistent that they should get to pass classes without demonstrating mastery or even going through the motions to show willingness.

As I have written many times in various places:

We can teach underprepared people who are highly motivated.
We can teach undermotivated people who are highly prepared.
We can teach adequately motivated people who are adequately prepared.
It's a waste of energy all around to have people in college who don't want to be there and are making no effort to take advantage of the learning opportunities.

Our value as instructors comes from providing the opportunity for students to do better than they would have without our classes.

I disagree with these exact words. 

Our value as teachers is helping people learn material more efficiently and/or more effectively than they would be able to learn on their own.  Few people can teach themselves, say, thermodynamics easily just by deciding today to learn thermodynamics, even with the internet and many, many, many published textbooks.  My value as an instructor is a combination of selectively winnowing the material into a reasonable path and being the guide to help over the known rough patches for the beginner who has an appropriate background, but not expertise here. 

The top students would be just fine without taking my classes. They're smarter than me and they'll go on to do good things.

Needing to learn something has very little to do with basic intelligence.  Again, in thermodynamics and even intro chemistry, physics, and math, the need for a teacher usually isn't related to student intelligence.  The need for the teacher is usually the efficiency in having someone who can provide additional examples and a brief discussion on individual problems. 

Even when one is quite intelligent, having someone else design a reasonable curriculum of foundational knowledge through more advanced info with some mindfully selected activities to reinforce the material is usually very helpful.  Reinforcing prequisites that will make the overall experience smoother is extremely necessary when what is to be taught has a lot of background.

I agree that the person who already has the appropriate background and can plow through the textbooks themselves usually does not need a lecturer as well.  However, few people in their college years can just order a textbook and work through it themselves in isolation.  I know many professionals who do that, as I have, when we need to learn something new for which we have adequate background, but few people still in their college years have enough of a background and the discipline to do so.  Even then, the professional who is learning via textbook sometimes has need to ask someone questions on individual given points because being intelligent is not the same as knowing everything.

The ones that never stood out in high school are the ones that motivate me.

I don't think of students in terms of their past performance under other conditions.  The questions for me are always:

* Does the person in front of me want to know whatever this class is supposed to teach?
* From where is that person starting?
* What is the best way to reach that individual where they are?

I agree that there is value in having higher ed institutions that take less prepared students and help them succeed.

It's a different skill set to be working with people who have failed to pick up the basics during previous instruction than to be teaching people who are encountering the material for the first time.

It's a different mindset to accept and thrive when, because of complex personal circumstances, many to most of a given section will not satisfactorily complete the course this term and the professor's job is to continue to hold the course while recording the students' performance.

I could accept that the students started in a different place and would often not complete because of their complicated lives in which college could not be their highest priority.

The part that drove me nuts was the students who flat out refused to try and then insisted that they should pass anyway because college is about checking boxes instead demonstrating mastery of given material (regardless of whether they learned it in the class or knew it from elsewhere).  If you already know it, then test out and go on to something more challenging or at least new.  If you don't know it, then step up and learn it or go do something else where you don't need to learn it. 

The two main points of college are:

1) An effective mechanism to learn things that would be otherwise even harder to learn
2) Certification that at one point someone demonstrated sufficient mastery in a given subject