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Trenchant_Troll
ad hominid
Registered: Mar 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 25409 |
Please. You can just rape and dismember more college girls at this job than with the pizza one. Admit it for godsake! We will understand!
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I wanna be a part of the problem for a change.
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09-08-2006 01:29 AM |
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Roshigoth
The Cheesemeister
Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Myrtle Beach, SC
Posts: 15176 |
The whole "reading from powerpoint" thing has always been a pet peeve of mine. Fortunately, only a few professors I had did it in undergrad, and in law school, it's almost entirely relegated to informational lunch meetings (such as "How to plan your schedule next semester" or Career Services "How to succeed during OCI").
Glad you're happy there. 
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09-08-2006 02:43 AM |
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SocialParasite
100% pure failtanium.
Registered: Jul 2000
Location: Beatrice, Nebraska
Posts: 18875 |
Give it a while and you'll hate your job, Tal.
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The pinnacle of Failbot technology.
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09-08-2006 02:50 AM |
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plum
Last Man
Registered: Jan 2004
Location:
Posts: 2045 |
First of all, let those bitches know that you're a man. Forget everything you've been taught. Forget everything you're supposed to teach them.
It's your class, you make the rules, and if anyone doesn't like it, promptly show them the door.
What happens there is your world, the world of Tal, and nothing else. When your students leave, they WILL live and preach the gospel of Tal for the rest of their lives.
If you can't handle that kind of power, you have no business teaching.
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09-08-2006 02:59 AM |
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Talarohk
The Pedanticator
Registered: Feb 2003
Location: Oceanside, CA
Posts: 5181 |
I am really bad at figuring out when people are kidding, plum, so forgive me if you were and I am wrongly taking you seriously.
That's not really how I approach teaching. My job, as I see it, is to present the concepts and facts in a way that as many students as possible can absorb and internalize. I may have a favorite way of explaining and understanding the action potential, but if I use that method alone and it does not work for those students, then I have failed. Of course, the majority of the burden *is* on them to try to adapt their own minds to the concepts presented, but I have to make it as absorbable and clear as possible--otherwise, there's no point to me being there.
I am a pretty new teacher, so I am trying to observe the other folks in my department and learn from their methods. However, my class is my domain, as you said (and as my department chair has affirmed), and my methods are the ones which I choose. I just see my job as partially being adapting my methods to my students, just as they must adapt to me.
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09-08-2006 04:52 AM |
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fubar
ignorami ginormi
Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wookin pa nub
Posts: 10792 |
quote:
Originally posted by Talarohk
...My job, as I see it, is to present the concepts and facts in a way that as many students as possible can absorb and internalize. I may have a favorite way of explaining and understanding the action potential, but if I use that method alone and it does not work for those students, then I have failed...
The fact that you understand this early in your career puts you in a position to be a superior educator.
I can't tell you how many professors I had who taught things the same way they had been taught regardless of how effective it was with a new generation of students. I have tutored science and mathematics almost since I graduated from high school, and the one thing I have learned is that there are many different methods of learning.
I always thought of them generally in terms of dimensions (1D, 2D, 3D, 4D). The one dimensional student can read something and apply it. I find that these students require the least tutelage and are generally more proficient on their own at the given subject than the other three types.
The two dimensional students can get the general idea from reading about something, but they may need an oral\aural explanation to clear up any confusion. I find these types of students to be very fast learners, but not so fast as the 1Ds. The benefit of this kind of learning is that the person is usually more communicative and works better in an environment where data and ideas are shared.
The three dimensional learners have to read it, ask questions about it, and then see it done. These are usually the slowest learners in the bunch. These are the borderline students. They learn the basic concepts in school, but really don't reach an understanding of the material until they have applied the fundamentals a few times. This is not to say that these people aren't intelligent, quite the opposite. They just have their eureka moment after they graduate.
Then there are the 4Ds (edited per skalie's comment below). They just don't get it. If they have made it to college, they are at best almost passing. The problem I see most of them having is that they can't understand the "why" of it. That is, "Why do I need to learn this?" These are the people who might wind up going back to school in their thirties or forties and becoming one of the other learning types. They usually become 3Ds, sometimes 2Ds, and very rarely 1Ds. These are also the people most likely to wind up starting their own businesses.
These are just a few things I have noticed with the people I have taught informally over the last 16 years.
Good luck, Tal. Good educators are very difficult to find.
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Last edited by fubar on 09-08-2006 at 05:42 PM
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09-08-2006 03:02 PM |
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fubar
ignorami ginormi
Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wookin pa nub
Posts: 10792 |
I would like to add that most people fall into more than one of these categories depending on the subject.
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09-08-2006 03:24 PM |
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SimpleSimon
?
Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16731 |
Good explanation, fubar. Well put.
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When I was young I used to read about the decline of Western civilization, and I decided it was something I would like to make a contribution to. — George Carlin
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09-08-2006 03:34 PM |
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fubar
ignorami ginormi
Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wookin pa nub
Posts: 10792 |
Thanks Simon.
I took pre-Calculus and Calculus during my junior and senior years in high school. The teacher I had was a very short, slight woman who wielded her confidence like a combat veteran. You did not question her authority, yet her personality welcomed questions.
My favorite thing about her was that she always seemed to have several ways of explaining the same thing. And although she welcomed questions, there were far fewer in her class than in others I was taking at the time.
Since I was entertaining the idea of teaching, I asked her one day what her secret was. She told me that I was fortunate to have had her classes late in the day. She fielded questions and formulated answers in the first class, then applied successful explanations to the later class, thus reducing the number of questions.
I was always amazed at how many teachers failed to do this.
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09-08-2006 03:47 PM |
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skalie
the honourable
Registered: Sep 2001
Location: ........
Posts: 15059 |
You can use the term "4D", btw, that's "3D" with the added dimension of time.
[/guilty of]
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09-08-2006 03:51 PM |
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SimpleSimon
?
Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 16731 |
I never aspired too teach. I ended my working career doing just that. Fortunately for me it was in a field I was really very good at, teaching students self-selected for interest, and thoroughly screened for aptitude in, the particular subject. I did that for a goodly while, until the screening process was subverted and the candidate pool corrupted by political concerns. I resigned.
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When I was young I used to read about the decline of Western civilization, and I decided it was something I would like to make a contribution to. — George Carlin
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09-08-2006 03:52 PM |
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fubar
ignorami ginormi
Registered: Apr 2005
Location: wookin pa nub
Posts: 10792 |
quote:
Originally posted by skalie
You can use the term "4D", btw, that's "3D" with the added dimension of time.
[/guilty of]
I never thought of that. I guess that's why I was never good at physics.
[p]
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09-08-2006 03:54 PM |
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