<p>The sad truth of the matter is that professors at major universities are not hired or rewarded with tenure for their excellence or in teaching. That said, I would think it is also fair to ask whether teaching excellence would matter for most students out there.</p>
<p>Oh padad, you ask a hard question! I agree that many students would not necessarily appreciate teaching excellence. My kids have noticed that many of their fellow students don’t like any teacher who is perceived as ‘hard’ (and ‘hard’ can mean that they expect due dates to be followed, that they have to write long papers, etc). But many times you can learn more from the ‘hard’ teachers, if you are willing to work hard and study. And frankly, not all students are willing to do that. They just want a good grade.</p>
<p>xiggi,
One time my son had a terrible teacher in grad school. He was so frustrated! At review time he and most if not all of his fellow students did give bad (but accurate) reivews of this teacher. My son did note that this teacher was not rehired and that gave him some satisfaction, but he sure didn’t help him any. He ended up with a very lousy grad school class - what a waste of his time.</p>
<p>
I’m curious about this statement, since once one is hired one doesn’t have to keep being rehired. Was the teacher fired? Or was he an adjunct who contracted by the semester? Didn’t make tenure?</p>
<p>Do I miss something here, I always thought that TA mostly leads recitation periods which are just extra meetings to go over materials, homeworks, tests, labs, projects, etc… Some TAs are good and some are not great but they mainly provide alternative setting for students to keep their progress forward especially in a very large intro class where professors can’t possibly meet everyone individually in the class. I am not sure TAs are the main problem here. How about faulting the current culture of focusing on providing students with the “college” experience instead of actually focusing on teaching the students. What does having beautiful campus with manicured landscape, wonderful buildings and facilities, dinning services, dorms, gyms, recreation, etc. that are over the top have to do with education. That is where a lot money go and eventually how current cost become out of whack in relation with what it is trying to accomplish.</p>
<p>At SUNY Buffalo, there are freshman and sophomore courses actually being taught by TA’s, although they usually have several years of experience before they are put in a class to teach rather than in recitations and labs. In my experience, these classes have been smaller (i.e. not 180 students).</p>
<p>At University of South Carolina, TAs teach the freshman writing sections.</p>
<p>My daughter’s experience was HORRIBLE.</p>
<p>The TA did not provide even ONE written comment on ANY of the writing she did for the term.</p>
<p>She also received no grades whatsoever until her final grade.</p>
<p>fendrock, did your DD ask the TA why there were no comments or feedback?</p>
<p>I don’t think my d did ask – she is not assertive enough to demand what we, as adults, know is what should have been provided by the course.</p>
<p>The whole thing sounded like a nightmare.</p>
<p>They were supposed to post all their writing on some sort of blog thing.</p>
<p>This enabled the TA to count the number of words for each assignment and D got a 0 on one assignment because she was a few words short.</p>
<p>She did attempt several conferences with the TA who, rather than be specific about what she had written, said she should have used a different thesis or some such (I can’t remember the details.)</p>
<p>My overall impression is that the TA was harried and just could not find the time to actually read and comment on the assignments for a class of 20.</p>
<p>I do believe my d gave the TA a terrible review.</p>
<p>“I do believe my d gave the TA a terrible review.”</p>
<p>Hopefully it was constructive criticism. Students sometimes feel better if they can bash on the instructor, but it often it isn’t like it will get them fired or anything.</p>
<p>Often students have to rate the instructor on a scale of 1 - 10.</p>
<p>To xiggi’s point, university standards should be sufficiently high that it doesn’t depend on freshmen to provide TAs with the kind of feedback they need to improve their teaching.</p>
<p>And, in the case of this TA, her priorities were obviously elsewhere.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In an interview with Claudia Dreifus [Is</a> College Worth the Cash? - MORE Magazine](<a href=“http://www.more.com/2050/22280-is-college-worth-the-cash]Is”>http://www.more.com/2050/22280-is-college-worth-the-cash), this aspect of the problem was brought up and parents were implicated as well:
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In another article by Hacker and Dreifus [Are</a> Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Colleges-Worth-the-Pric/66234/]Are”>http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Colleges-Worth-the-Pric/66234/) they outline proposals, some certainly radical, “to set things right” and provide a list of schools they think are doing it right.</p>
<p>
I’m not even sure what this means. ALL instructors depend on students to give them feedback to improve their teaching. Where else would the feedback come from?</p>
<p>This TA, in my view, did not provide even the basics of teaching how to write.</p>
<p>Did she receive training prior to being assigned the class? Did anyone check to see she was meeting the expectations set for those teaching the course?</p>
<p>I just asked my daughter if she gave constructive criticism and she said she did. But it should be completely obvious to this instructor that she needs to give feedback during the course, and the administration should not tolerate instructors who do not actually teach how to write in a freshman writing course.</p>
<p>I am sure the TA would be much more likely to act on feedback from a supervisor than she would from an anonymous survey provided by a student.</p>
<p>By the way, the schools authors Hacker and Dreifus think are doing things right (for one reason or another) are:</p>
<p>University of Mississippi
Raritan Valley Community College (NJ)
University of Notre Dame
Cooper Union
Berea College
Arizona State University
University of Maryland - Baltimore County
University of Colorado - Boulder
MIT
Western Oregon University
Evergreen State Collee</p>
<p>
It’s my experience that most TA’s receive very little training, and in fact, professors themselves often don’t have formal training in teaching. They train by being TA’s, or they walk in cold and start teaching with only their experience as students to guide them. The TA’s are typically “supervised” by who ever is teaching the course, or by the main professor if several are teaching the same course, or by the department chair, but it is unlikely that person ever sits in on the TA’s class. The only way he/she knows how the TA is doing is if the students go to the department chair, although many departments have “mid-semester” reviews, where the students can express their concerns.</p>
<p>I think we are describing a phenomenon that contributes to poor education at a university.</p>
<p>It’s difficult as well as time consuming to teach someone how to write well.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising that a course taught by an inexperienced individual, someone who may or may not have been motivated to do a good job and who received no guidance, will not provide a good learning opportunity for the student.</p>
<p>The school should be focused on providing the good learning opportunity; they should not be depending on the students to police it.</p>
<p>It’s one of the things prospective students and parents should be considering when looking at schools. At SUNY Geneseo, for example, we were told in info session “the primary focus of the faculty is teaching the undergraduates”. I see that as a very positive thing. </p>
<p>At U of Rochester OTOH, we were told “the primary focus of our faculty is research.” What does that say about the attention to teaching at Rochester? Not so much. Not to say that all or even most of the faculty are poor teachers, BUT… For some students, that’s going to work fine, but for others, having a good instructor is paramount to getting a good learning opportunity.</p>
<p>The difference simply reflects that Rochester is a first class research institution whereas SUNY Genesceo is not even on the map. If I were a student in Biology, there will be little doubt that I would prefer being taught by a perhaps disinterested prof at Rochester than by some highly dedicated teaching prof at Genesceo, which I suspect would have little wisdom to impart and may even be misinformed.</p>
<p>Sylvan,
Yes, this teacher was an adjunct. HOpefully, this person will NEVER get tenure anywhere.</p>
<p>
It’s Geneseo, and thanks for showing your grotesque bias along with your inability to spell. Anything else I have to say in response to your post isn’t printable on a public forum.</p>