By CandidProf, who teaches physics and astronomy at a state university. He shares his thoughts and experiences teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can be truly candid. Read all of CandidProf here.

On my last post, I wrote about a student who was taking quite a bit of a colleague’s time.  Today, I wanted to write more about that topic.

[Thus starts a multi-part discussion of what today’s teachers face and the choices that they make. Miki]

Some students simply require more instructional time than others.

Sometimes they have gaps in their background that you need to fill in.  That means seeing you outside of class, since you can’t take up class time filling in gaps for everyone’s background.

Other students have difficulty mastering some topic in the class.  These students take more time.  In some cases, these students add significantly to my work load.

Unfortunately, the college administration likes to have bigger classes.  They see it is as more cost effective to have one professor teaching in one large class what would otherwise require several faculty members to teach several sections of the class. They don’t see the extra work on the faculty.  Administrators see you teaching the same number of hours, no matter how large the class, because they only look at the time spent lecturing and preparing for lectures.

They do recognize that three times the number of students would require three times the grading, but somehow that gets lost.  And they almost totally ignore the fact that three times the number of students likely means three times the number of students requiring addition effort.

Eventually, those out-of-class meetings take on as much time and effort as teaching an extra section of the class.  Of course, we don’t get paid for that.  Plus, we are still expected to teach the other classes, serve on committees, do research, etc., so our total productivity goes down.

But promotions and tenure often are based on those non-teaching duties, so that means that faculty wind up spending less time on the students who need extra time.  For some faculty members, that is just fine.  But for me it is a problem.

I take my duties as an instructor seriously.  But, I take my other duties seriously, too.

How would you handle the “extras?”

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One of my colleagues was talking to me a few days ago about a student who has already contacted her before the start of the fall semester.

Normally, this is a good thing.  I have a number of students who have already contacted me for the upcoming semester.

But I am still teaching summer classes, so I have not had time to prepare syllabi for the fall yet.

Instead, I direct these students to look at the syllabus on my web page for the previous semester.  I am using the same textbooks, so I’ll be covering the material in pretty much the same order.  I don’t mind if students ask if the coming semester will be using the same textbook.

However, my colleague’s student is getting to be a pest.  She has emailed numerous times, asking all sorts of questions, and asking for word lists of key terms, a list of homework, etc.  Now, that is a bit overboard.

As faculty, we have a duty to be available for our students.  I go a step beyond that, and I am available for prospective students, too.  However, being available doesn’t mean being available 24 hours per day.

I have a lot of students.  It would be nice if I could give each one an individual mentoring.  But, that is not how it works.  I hate to tell them “no,” but sometimes that is what you need to do, in order to have time to do your job.

I have to focus on my current students, all of them.  Sometimes I have a student who takes far more of my time than others.  They are always coming by my office.  If I have the time, then I am happy to spend time with them, but not if it keeps me from helping other students, doing my own research, and doing all of the other things that I have to do.

That’s the hard part of the job:  deciding how to apportion my time among so many different things.

I spend far more time with students and prospective students than most faculty, but I still get things done.

Knowing your limits is important.

Do you know your limits when apportioning your time? (from Miki)

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.

Last week I wrote about what is involved to be a good teacher. What I described takes a lot out of me.  It means that for every hour that I am in lecture, there are several hours outside of lecture associated with the class.  Every now and then, someone in the state legislature points fingers at the college faculty saying that we are overpaid because we don’t teach 40 hours per week.  A full load is considered only 5 classes per semester.  Depending upon the institution, some of that requirement is met by mentoring graduate students, and some is met by research in lieu of lectures.  But, that doesn’t look like much.  It doesn’t look like much, that is, until you look what some of us put into what we do.

For us, this isn’t just a job. It is what we do.  I feel responsible for my students.  I have dozens of students who sign up for the class expecting to learn something.  I feel that I am letting them down unless I give my all.  So, that is what I do.  And, that is what makes me successful.

Teaching is leading students.  You lead them to learning.  You can’t force the knowledge and understanding into them. You have to lead them to where they can learn.

Good leaders realize that leadership doesn’t stop at the end of the work day.  Sometimes, the leader has to put in extra hours just like everyone else.  As I see it, how can you actually be leading if you are not working as hard as those you are trying to lead?

What do you think?
Is teaching too easy?
Is compensation fair? High? Low?

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday—anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.

What I do is not just a job. I know a few college professors, and several pre-college teachers who see what they do as just a job.  They are not very good at what they do, though.  Sometimes, you have to do more than just stand in front of a class and talk.

Good instruction means taking time to prepare what you are going to say. Yes, I’ve taught for enough years that I can just walk into a classroom, with no notes and no preparation, and start lecturing.  And, my students would learn something.  But they would not learn as much as if I had actually prepared.  Now, I don’t often follow my notes.  I have gone over what I’ve got to say before I say it, and I’ve taught this material for so long that I am quite familiar with it.  Still, I prepare.

That preparation also means that I have to keep current in the field.  What new developments have there been?  What new discoveries supersede what the textbook says?  It is my job to know my field.  That means spending many, many hours reading journals.  It means going to conferences.  It means keeping up with my own research.

And, of course, I need to grade student papers.  I want to give reasonable feedback so that they can learn from their mistakes.  But that takes extra time.  I don’t have to do that.  I know several faculty who don’t give students any feedback.  But for my class practically every thing in the class is a learning experience.  There is a reason that I have certain students go out of their way to take my class.

I am not the easiest professor around. That is clear from the internet sites where students evaluate their professors.  However, I am thorough, fair and my students learn. So, those students that want an easy “A” take someone else’s class and those who want to learn take my class.

How tough are your kids teachers?

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I wrote a guest post for Sean over at FranchisePick in which I said, “Why does our society denigrate those who work low-paying jobs, when they’re honest, hardworking, pay taxes and even manage to raise families?”

Then in an email Sean said, “I think this is a good topic and one that’s had some controversy – especially when “McJob” was added to the dictionary despite McD’s protestations.

I have personally seen many many times training situations where teens and adults were being trained in basic manners and courtesy that they never learned from home or school.  We’ve got this snotty attitude instead of teaching the value of service.

My poor kids work… their friends pull up in brand new Audis they never had to work for.  You value what you earn.“

A couple of decades ago I read a study that showed how a lack of ownership tied to a lack of respect for private property leading to a casual attitude to its destruction. (I can’t find a URL, so if anyone out there has it please add it to the comments.)

I don’t think this has changed, in fact, I would posit that it’s gone much further—

• employers consider renters are less stable;
• single people are subject to higher turnover;
• car age reflects negatively on the owner;
• clothes labels are indicative of intelligence;
• and dozens more.

All this goes hand-in-hand with the writings of CandidProf and related posts and the angst found in thousands of article on the subject from around the world.

Am I nuts or is there a problem here?

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The last half of CandidProf’s post yesterday made me queasy, especially when he said, “In the city where I live, the local suburban school district had a case of a mathematics teacher who was noted for being far tougher than other teachers.  The parents of the students in this teacher’s class complained that their kids were working too hard.  The teacher gave far too much homework.  Too many of her students did not pass.  Eventually she was fired.”

In many cases these are the same parents who babble on about their strong ethical/religious (take your choice of which) principals and moral superiority and are oh-so-quick with their judgments of others.

They are the same ones who scream at the coach for not letting their child play; condemn the teacher when their child’s grades aren’t up to their expectations; complain that the boss is incompetent when their child is fired for poor performance.

Supposedly it’s parents’ responsibility to lead their children by providing a value structure, encouraging/supporting their growth and doing all those other leadership things about which we’re constantly reading.

I say supposedly because based on the very visible results very few are actually doing it.

The bad old times when the assumption was that the child is always wrong have been replaced with the assumption that everybody is wrong except the child—as long as the child is theirs and the family is of an acceptable social level with enough economic power to insist.

I’m not saying the old way was good, but it did produce stronger character than having every bump in the road smoothed out for you.

But, then, the children long ago stopped taking their direction from adults, preferring the advice and ‘wisdom’ of their peers.

The problem is that advice sans judgment; a false belief that whatever they screw up their parents can/will fix; or a strong ‘the rules apply to everybody but me’ attitude can have serious reprecussions.

So where exactly are we headed?

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts. Read the first half of this post here and all of his posts here.

Now, these are kids that don’t want to go to school in the first place.  Giving a lecture about school is boring to them.  It is not the way to reach out to them.  Instead of a Powerpoint presentation, I have some demonstrations.  I have a table full of equipment.  I show them several things, and then ask them questions about what they think will happen.  I force feedback.  They are not just going to sit passively.

Then I say that the mathematics shows that certain things will happen.  Lo and behold, what happens is what the math says will happen!  I pick some of the more showy demonstrations—things that I remember from decades ago, and things that my students still find exciting.  Then I show a couple of 30 second videos, such as the famous Tocoma Narrows bridge collapse (after showing a demonstration of a similar phenomenon).  I explain how each phenomenon relates to everyday life.

The kids wake up.  I get started only three minutes before they are supposed to leave.  The secretary asks the person in charge if I need to stop since it is time for them to go.  He decides that the bus can wait.  This is important.  Finally, someone is engaging the kids.

When I am done I caution the kids that this is all fun and it was what got me interested in the field.  But that if they want to study science and engineering they need to STUDY in high school.  They need to take the tough science and math classes even if they don’t want to.  They won’t make it in college if they are not ready to come here.

I don’t think anyone else told them that.  But it is wrong to lead them on to make them think that all they need to do is enroll in college to get a college degree.  Too many slackers in high school come to us with the same mind set.  They don’t make it.  And, I think that too many people let them think that they can get away with it.

Where I live, as well as in other states, there is a move to get more students to go to college, particularly the “at risk” students.  They try to get more of the students who had no plans on college to go to college.  BUT there is not much plan on what to do with them once they get here.  The state is moving towards “performance based funding.” But performance is not defined as teaching. Performance is not defined by how well students are prepared for the workforce.  Performance is defined by the number of students coming to college from under represented demographics.  Performance is defined by how many students complete classes and get degrees.  Performance is not defined by the quality of those degrees.

This tends to put us in a bind. They want more at risk students, most of whom are not prepared to go to college, to be accepted.  And they want those students to graduate.  So, come colleges drop standards.  They water down courses.  They put pressure on faculty to pass students no matter how poorly they perform.

Already, the beginnings of this movement have had their effects.  Degrees are weakening. And many American educated students are having difficulties competing in graduate school with foreign educated students.  At my institution, academic standards are still being held high.  But, if our funding is eventually tied to how many students finish, those standards will have to drop.  If standards drop all over the country, then what will a college degree mean?

We’ve seen this before.  The states took a look at pre-college education, and they saw that not enough students were completing high school.  Too many students failed classes.  They began tying teacher pay to the number of students who passed.  So students began passing even if they had not learned.  Any teacher that added work to students to make them learn more was disciplined.

In the city where I live, the local suburban school district had a case of a mathematics teacher who was noted for being far tougher than other teachers.  The parents of the students in this teacher’s class complained that their kids were working too hard.  The teacher gave far too much homework.  Too many of her students did not pass. Eventually she was fired.

Then word then came out that her students scored FAR higher on the state assessment tests and the SAT than other students in the district. But that did not matter.  Learning and scores on those tests are not performance measures.

Sometimes, I get very discouraged at the direction that education is heading.  But it is important to keep going.

Someone needs to hold to standards, and that is what an effective leader does.  You hold the standards even if it is unpopular.

Is this is what “no child left behind” means?

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.

Knowing your audience is important for any public speaker.  That is particularly true for someone who is teaching.  You need to know where your students are coming from.

A few days ago, one of the local high schools brought several bus loads of students to campus for a college day.  They wanted us to give presentations to the students on why they should go to college and what sort of things that they could study when they got here.  These were summer school students.  The students who take summer classes at college are often the better students, the ones who are trying to get ahead.

The summer school students in high school are normally different.  A few are working ahead, but most are in summer school because they failed classes and are having to go to summer school in order to advance a grade.  These are students who don’t want to be there, and often don’t want to go to school at all.  These are what they call “at risk” students.

They are the ones that are unlikely to go to college in the first place, but the school is trying to do the right thing.  These are high school freshmen.  They still have a chance if they buckle down and study hard for the next few years, but if they continue to not take high school seriously they won’t be ready for college when they finish.  Even if they go to college, they are unlikely to finish.

These students are bussed to the college and they are led around to different departments where somebody gives some presentation about their areas.  We are given a specified time period.  They have me following someone talking about the health sciences.  The kids arrive late.  The previous presentations have all run over.  The person in charge tells us that we’ve got about 1/3 of the time that we were allotted, since they are running late and need to catch the buses.

The person before me gives a standard sort of thing, like probably everyone else had one all day.  She has a Powerpoint presentation.  She talks about what is offered, what programs of study are available, and what jobs in those fields entail.  It is pretty standard; each slide has too much information (lists and such).  I know that these can be interesting fields, but the presentation is boring even to me.  The kids are falling asleep.  She races through her presentation, but it still takes as long as mine was planned to take.  There’s no way she could have finished in the allotted time if she’d gone at normal speed.

Then it is my time. (Cont’d Thursday, July 10th)

Is this a good approach to motivating high school students?

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write really candid posts.

An uncaring and ineffective professor does not even take into account the possibility that students are not properly prepared for their class. The students who are ill prepared will not have a chance.

So, you have to learn where your students are. What do they know? What do they not know? If a large number of them don’t know the shape of the Earth, then be sure to cover that. If they don’t understand a certain type of differential equation, cover that in class. But, a good leader also recognizes when success is not possible.

Occasionally I have a student who has no chance of succeeding in the class. That is tough for me, because I want everyone to succeed. But, I have students who sign up for calculus based physics even though they do not even have a good grasp of algebra and have never had calculus.

I have students who take the second semester class after taking the first semester class somewhere “easier” where they did not cover as much material as we do in our first semester class. Unfortunately, the second semester class builds on the concepts covered (or supposed to be covered) in the first semester.

There is only so much that I can do. Physics is intense enough. I cannot teach algebra, trigonometry, and calculus AND physics. If students are missing some things, then I can help them and explain those few things. But, I cannot teach them an entire course’s worth of material in a few minutes when they come by my office.

Eventually, you have to realize that some of them need to stop, drop the course, and go back and take the other classes that they need in order to succeed in your course.

It is very difficult having to tell a student that he or she is completely unprepared for the level of your class and needs to go back and learn the basic things needed before signing up for the class again. You know that many of them will just quit rather than doing that. But, you also know that they won’t succeed if they stick with it. That is something that a good professor will occasionally have to do, though.

How prepared were you for college?

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CandidProf is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at a state university. He’ll be sharing his thoughts and experience teaching today’s students anonymously every Thursday— anonymously because that’s the only way he can write truly candid posts.

I teach physics and astronomy. Physics, in particular, is a very mathematical subject. That means that students are expected to be able to solve complex problems. The introductory astronomy for non-majors also has some mathematics, though it is very simplistic. Both classes require reading and studying. Unfortunately, most of my students come to college not having learned these skills at the level needed to be successful in college. While teaching any student is difficult, teaching the unprepared ones is particularly challenging.

There are many reasons that students are not well prepared. Where I teach, the state has mandated a series of tests. School funding is tied to these tests. The more students who do well on the tests, the more money the school gets. So, there is pressure to teach to the test, not to prepare students for college or a career. Unfortunately the tests are not good predictors of how students will fare in college. These tests are fairly simplistic. Students learn to memorize key words. This word matches that word. If you ask them the shape of the Earth, they will say that it is round. That is the answer as worded on the test. But, round in what way. A surprising number of my students don’t realize that round means spherical. Many of my students envision Earth as a disk. Anything that is not tested is seldom taught in school. So, my students come to me with great holes in their knowledge and skill base.

Students need to be properly prepared in order to be led to learning. An Army officer cannot lead troops into battle that have never fired a weapon. No matter how good of a leader someone is, he will fail if he tries to lead troops that have never been trained. No matter how wonderful a corporate leader someone may be, he will be unsuccessful in leading an airline that does not have anybody who knows how to fly an airplane. The best surgeon on Earth will lose his patient on the operating table if he tries to head up a surgical team composed of himself and people taken from the street who have never even seen an operation, much less assisted in one. The most loyalty inspiring leader on the planet will fail as a fire chief if no one in his fire department has ever had any fire fighting training.

Now, these may be extreme examples, but similar principles occur in education.

What do you think?

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