Have you experienced student life at a large public research university recently?
The well-documented trends of administrative bloat, publish-or-perish, exploitation of adjuncts and TAs for cheap labor, obsession with luxury campus amenities, etc etc. have all slowly degraded this "idealized" version of academia that many people have in mind (assuming such a thing ever existed in the first place).
I run into the same wall talking about this with my parents, who don't really seem to understand just what a racket the whole university system as become.
> Most full time teachers will atrophy because they don't have any real incentive to keep their knowledge and skills at the cutting edge.
Tenured professors also have no incentive to keep their knowledge and skills at the cutting edge. An oh boy do I have some stories about lazy professors, both as a student and TA.
> Because the culture of innovation that part-time researchers/part-time teacher bring is far more important to society in the long run than the short term gains gotten by full-time teaching staff.
Research and education are both important. Both have long-term gains. Research is hard, yes, but many people fail to recognize that teaching is also hard. We should fund both, and use a transparent pricing model.
If an 18-year-old takes on tens of thousands of dollars of personal debt, the benefit should be directly to them. The whole "coLLegE lOAnS aRe An InVEstMEnt in YoURselF!!" argument against free university education is naive from the start, but becomes completely absurd when that money isn't even used to directly fund education.
Yes, basic research is fundamental to the advancement of human society. So let's fund it publicly, through business or personal taxes on all members of society. Let's also recognize that higher education has massive long-term benefits to society as well, and make high-quality college education cheaper and more accessible by hiring dedicated teaching faculty who consult with research experts to design their curriculums. We can do both.
The current system is extremely inefficient at distributing the time and resources of research faculty. We don't need research faculty to regurgitate the same intro linear algebra lecture in-person over and over again every year.
The current system also forces research faculty (and graduate student TAs) to teach, who more often than not have no interest whatsoever in teaching. It is also extraordinarily difficult to get a well-paid college teaching job without a research PhD.
I would advocate for a system where research faculty are in charge of designing the curriculum and modernizing lecture materials as the times change. Rather than repeating the same lecture hundreds of times, have them make lecture recordings, which can be updated gradually over time. This frees them up to design better assignments and projects, rather than repeating the same lecture over and over.
It is well documented that students benefit from small classrooms. Hire qualified full-time teaching staff to lead discussions / labs / projects. Pay them enough that they don't need a second or third job, so they have the time to stay up to date. Personally, I would love love love to teach undergrad-level compsci or math if such an opportunity presented itself.
This is the role that TAs normally fill, but it is extraordinarily rare to find a graduate student who has passion and skill for teaching, as well as the luxury of enough time to do it well.
I have not studied as an undergrad at a large institution, but I have taught at one, and I have taught as a prof at teaching-only institute. There is very little difference in the quality of teaching. Guess what, when teaching only staff is asked to teach 6 courses in an year, they teach the same as a research prof who spends half their time in research and half their time teaching 3 courses.
I think there are many things wrong with academia and with university structures, and teaching quality is one of them. But the problem is not what you think it is. The problem is capitalism, and money-optimizations being the final decision maker rather than quality of teaching or research (which is also much worse than 50 years ago).
This is the same reason school education is so mediocre. You overwork school teachers, and don't pay them enough. And so even the best can't do much good.
You need more money from the state to go into education. And yes, full time teaching staff [1] to conduct recitations and office hours would help a lot. Smaller classrooms would help as well.
I don't agree at all with lecture recordings. As much as you want people in society learning, you also want a lot of people in society learning to teach. The long term intellectual benefits to society where people learn to teach others are enormous. It creates a culture of intellectual inquiry, which is different from attending a pre-recorded lecture or engaging in research or all the other things students/faculty at universities do.
[1] I have been told in German unis these are people with Masters who are waiting to go for a PhD. But they are essentially kicked out after 2 years because the uni recognizes that long-term full-time teaching staff degrades in quality.
> Guess what, when teaching only staff is asked to teach 6 courses in an year, they teach the same as a research prof who spends half their time in research and half their time teaching 3 courses.
> ...
> The problem is capitalism, and money-optimizations being the final decision maker rather than quality of teaching or research (which is also much worse than 50 years ago).
> ...
> You need more money from the state to go into education.
Absolutely, agreed on all points. Find people who are passionate about education and give them the time and resources to do it well. Build a culture of learning, mentorship, and open discussion. Let students and teaching faculty mingle as much as possible with research faculty while still keeping priorities straight.
Sure, in an ideal world, every student would get one-on-one tutoring from a brilliant researcher. But this doesn't scale well, and isn't necessarily a great use of the researcher's time. Teaching-only faculty are more than good enough until the student approaches the research level.
> I don't agree at all with lecture recordings. As much as you want people in society learning, you also want a lot of people in society learning to teach.
Oh I agree, perhaps I misrepresented myself. I'm not suggesting we replace traditional lectures with a big movie screen that plays pre-recorded lectures.
However, I think the current way of doing things -- where a professor inherits some slides she didn't create herself and reads them off in front of the class with no preparation whatsoever -- isn't the best either. This just goes back to finding passionate teachers and giving them the resources they need to be successful.
I do think pre-recorded lectures have their place alongside traditional textbooks, lecture notes, etc.. One downside of traditional lectures is that lecturers get very little feedback about their teaching style, and it's difficult to diagnose how students are really doing.
A handful of courses in my undergrad math program were run in an "Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL)" format. Rather than a traditional lecture, the professor breaks the class into small groups and asks a series of leading questions designed to help students discover a new concept on their own. The professor can adjust the pace and offer explanations as needed.
Here's an example [1] of some class handouts from a topology class. I borrowed them from a friend who took the class, and going through all the exercises on my own brought me a sense of clarity that I was never able to achieve from the standard lecture-based topology course I took. My friend felt the same way, and according to surveys done by the department, students overwhelmingly prefer the IBL format to traditional lectures. This format benefits professors, too, who get immediate feedback about their teaching methods and how well students are doing.
Funny, you link these notes. Because the prof is a full time researcher and seems to be teaching the same couple of courses over and over again [1]. Which is why you get the quality of the notes that you see.
Sure, some professors manage to do well at both research and teaching! It's great that some professors like her care about education and are experimenting with new classroom formats! My point was that traditional lectures are not always the best way of teaching.
And, I did not say it is impossible or even uncommon for research faculty to be good at teaching. However, being good at research does not automatically make one good at teaching, and there are other factors like time that prevent those who do care about education from giving their students a good experience in class.
In my own personal experience, and that of my classmates, the vast majority of research faculty simply do not have either the interest or the time to teach well. Out of the 30 or so math courses I took as an undergrad, I would say only about 4-5 of my professors put real effort into teaching.
I run into the same wall talking about this with my parents, who don't really seem to understand just what a racket the whole university system as become.
> Most full time teachers will atrophy because they don't have any real incentive to keep their knowledge and skills at the cutting edge.
Tenured professors also have no incentive to keep their knowledge and skills at the cutting edge. An oh boy do I have some stories about lazy professors, both as a student and TA.
> Because the culture of innovation that part-time researchers/part-time teacher bring is far more important to society in the long run than the short term gains gotten by full-time teaching staff.
Research and education are both important. Both have long-term gains. Research is hard, yes, but many people fail to recognize that teaching is also hard. We should fund both, and use a transparent pricing model.
If an 18-year-old takes on tens of thousands of dollars of personal debt, the benefit should be directly to them. The whole "coLLegE lOAnS aRe An InVEstMEnt in YoURselF!!" argument against free university education is naive from the start, but becomes completely absurd when that money isn't even used to directly fund education.
Yes, basic research is fundamental to the advancement of human society. So let's fund it publicly, through business or personal taxes on all members of society. Let's also recognize that higher education has massive long-term benefits to society as well, and make high-quality college education cheaper and more accessible by hiring dedicated teaching faculty who consult with research experts to design their curriculums. We can do both.
The current system is extremely inefficient at distributing the time and resources of research faculty. We don't need research faculty to regurgitate the same intro linear algebra lecture in-person over and over again every year.
The current system also forces research faculty (and graduate student TAs) to teach, who more often than not have no interest whatsoever in teaching. It is also extraordinarily difficult to get a well-paid college teaching job without a research PhD.
I would advocate for a system where research faculty are in charge of designing the curriculum and modernizing lecture materials as the times change. Rather than repeating the same lecture hundreds of times, have them make lecture recordings, which can be updated gradually over time. This frees them up to design better assignments and projects, rather than repeating the same lecture over and over.
It is well documented that students benefit from small classrooms. Hire qualified full-time teaching staff to lead discussions / labs / projects. Pay them enough that they don't need a second or third job, so they have the time to stay up to date. Personally, I would love love love to teach undergrad-level compsci or math if such an opportunity presented itself.
This is the role that TAs normally fill, but it is extraordinarily rare to find a graduate student who has passion and skill for teaching, as well as the luxury of enough time to do it well.