"stoned professor"
Doubtlessly you've heard about the UF lecturer whose video was leaked to youtube. Here's a link that works as of this writing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFPsOMYwXNk
When I first watched this video, I was highly disturbed. My gut reaction was that this guy shouldn't be teaching. His lecture is rambling and covers very little material over the course of the hour. (The link I gave was only 5 minutes but there was a lot more originally, and it just gets worse and worse as it goes on.) To me, it doesn't matter if he is stoned or drunk or just completely unprepared -- his performance is an embarrassment. Anyway, I didn't really think much more about it until I read this article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/04/dude
In particular, the article is followed by a very interesting exchange of opinions. Some had the same reaction I did, others focused on side issues, and some even defended his lecture. Check out this excerpt:
First, any university professor who has stood in front of a class of American college students in recent years must develop a coping strategy for interacting on a day-to-day basis with the (1) lack of knowledge, (2) lack of motivation, and (3) general ignorance of an inordinate number of the “students” spaced-out in front of him. If, for some, feigning a heart attack and collapsing on the floor “works” (for effect), so be it. Is it professional? Frankly, that’s almost irrelevant to me ... so long as it is pedagogically effective for Professor Hall. - RWH
I don't have any degrees in teaching, cognitive sciences, or anything like that, but I do have a fair amount of experience teaching college students. I have taught classes at Purdue, where the students are mostly already well-educated and motivated, and I have also taught classes for community colleges and "proprietary education" (vocational/technical school), where students are less enthusiastic about learning for its own sake. I remember the advice given to me when I first started teaching at community college; "Don't lower your standards... but lower your expectations."
To some extent, I can appreciate the need for innovation to deal with this "reluctant customer" population of students, like the gentleman who said that that video was a natural response to market forces or whatever, but on the other hand I don't believe you are doing them any favors by catering to ignorance and laziness. I guess this is one of those issues that I am naturally very traditional about, or maybe it is a combination of factors such as my current frustrations with my own class of un-self-disciplined students, or the fact that mathematics is not a field that can be gracefully "watered down". Or maybe I've forgotten what it was like to be a habitual class-skipper and academic flodge.
Anyway, this is kind of old news (old for the internets, at least) so I'm going to let it drop. I'd just like to add that, since many of those students are going to school on their parents' dime, I think it would be prudent to make the video lectures available to the parents. I can appreciate the matter of protecting intellectual property rights (whatever those are) but more people need to be aware of what is happening in schools, especially the ones who are directly paying for it.
When I first watched this video, I was highly disturbed. My gut reaction was that this guy shouldn't be teaching. His lecture is rambling and covers very little material over the course of the hour. (The link I gave was only 5 minutes but there was a lot more originally, and it just gets worse and worse as it goes on.) To me, it doesn't matter if he is stoned or drunk or just completely unprepared -- his performance is an embarrassment. Anyway, I didn't really think much more about it until I read this article: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/04/dude
In particular, the article is followed by a very interesting exchange of opinions. Some had the same reaction I did, others focused on side issues, and some even defended his lecture. Check out this excerpt:
First, any university professor who has stood in front of a class of American college students in recent years must develop a coping strategy for interacting on a day-to-day basis with the (1) lack of knowledge, (2) lack of motivation, and (3) general ignorance of an inordinate number of the “students” spaced-out in front of him. If, for some, feigning a heart attack and collapsing on the floor “works” (for effect), so be it. Is it professional? Frankly, that’s almost irrelevant to me ... so long as it is pedagogically effective for Professor Hall. - RWH
I don't have any degrees in teaching, cognitive sciences, or anything like that, but I do have a fair amount of experience teaching college students. I have taught classes at Purdue, where the students are mostly already well-educated and motivated, and I have also taught classes for community colleges and "proprietary education" (vocational/technical school), where students are less enthusiastic about learning for its own sake. I remember the advice given to me when I first started teaching at community college; "Don't lower your standards... but lower your expectations."
To some extent, I can appreciate the need for innovation to deal with this "reluctant customer" population of students, like the gentleman who said that that video was a natural response to market forces or whatever, but on the other hand I don't believe you are doing them any favors by catering to ignorance and laziness. I guess this is one of those issues that I am naturally very traditional about, or maybe it is a combination of factors such as my current frustrations with my own class of un-self-disciplined students, or the fact that mathematics is not a field that can be gracefully "watered down". Or maybe I've forgotten what it was like to be a habitual class-skipper and academic flodge.
Anyway, this is kind of old news (old for the internets, at least) so I'm going to let it drop. I'd just like to add that, since many of those students are going to school on their parents' dime, I think it would be prudent to make the video lectures available to the parents. I can appreciate the matter of protecting intellectual property rights (whatever those are) but more people need to be aware of what is happening in schools, especially the ones who are directly paying for it.