50
If I understand correctly, the professor has:
assigned readings
facilitated online discussions
given written assignments and quizzes, and graded them
But:
the professor does not himself participate in any activities (lectures or discussion)
the online discussion format does not lead to many useful interactions with peers
the professor gives only ...
22
I'm teaching in a philosophy department and I believe students definitively sometimes need explanations and/or explications to clarify concepts before even being able to use them in a discussion. The distinction between the ontic and the epistemic planes is a case in point. Also, you cannot just have them "discussing" things aimlessly in the mere ...
15
Whether to share-or-not (assuming that you yourself, not your university, own the rights to what you've created) is strongly a matter of personal preference... I don't see a universal mandate.
Many years ago, I did pay careful attention to copyright control, and so on, but eventually I got the impression that it was simply not the case that people were ...
12
If you don't provide model solutions, it is fairly likely that one of the more advanced students will end up providing their answers to the other students. It doesn't count toward the grade, so it wouldn't be helping someone to cheat. And most of these students will be friends from being in the same courses many times. So a different way to frame it would be,...
8
Note that if you pass the "agrégation" (i.e. successfully pass the exams) but don't teach after, then you cannot call yourself "agrégé de mathématiques" (as it's reserved for people who then teach) but you are allowed to say on your CV that you successfully passed the exams (I think it's "reçu au concours de l'agrégation", but ...
7
How can the students know if they have solved an exercise correctly?
Eventually your students are going to leave university and apply what they have learned in your class in their new jobs. When that happens, there will be no solution manual. Better to learn now how to convince themselves that the solution is correct. They are being trained to become the ...
7
Yes, you're right to be frustrated with what your teacher does not teach, but the problem may be more with remote learning than with the class itself. From what I've read, many students do not like their remote learning experience as discussed in How College Students Viewed This Spring's Remote Learning for example.
I've taken online courses in coursera.org ...
6
First, the CAPES and the agrégation are not "exams" in the sense of a final exam that grants a diploma if you get a minimum grade. They are civil service entrance examinations, in the sense that they are a competition between all applicants and the top performers get the job. Putting on your CV that you went to a job interview, got the job, and ...
6
How can the students know if they have solved an exercise correctly?
I have to confess that I underestimated this one. I always thought that in mathematics one knows when one has proven something, but many students obviously don't. However, that is what the tutorials are for. It might be relevant to add here that the tutorials are happening via zoom, and ...
5
Sorry to disappoint you, but this sounds like a perfectly good teaching method, especially for philosophy. It is akin to the Socratic Method in which the "teacher", Socrates or Plato, asks leading questions and then reflects on the answers, especially if they are seriously wrong.
The instructor is, I think, trying to teach you to "think", ...
4
Some physicists teach more mathematics. Some physicists teach more applications. It's just a matter of university, teacher, and student preference. Yes, the way you are taught will influence your career.
I do not think these preferences have anything to do with the country. A large portion of physicists have experience with multiple countries. And ...
4
OK, I'll say the elephant in the room. For most students Philosophy 101 is very likely a course taken purely to meet general education requirements. This is just as true at traditional four year institutions as at community college. Actual philosophy degrees only make up less than half of a percent of total four year degrees.
Most people in your class have ...
4
I've been struggling with this for months. I think I've found the answer to my implied question in the words of another textbook author, Ken Saladin.
"...tell students what they should know about, but not what to know about it."
Following Saladin's advice, I've re-titled the summary sections Summary of Learning Objectives. Each summary section now ...
5
I am I just being prudish?
You or your university own the copyright to your course material, protecting your copyright is perfectly reasonable.
Is this common practice that I just never happened to encounter?
It certainly happens; I don't know of any statistics on the frequency, so can't comment on whether it's common practice.
Is
there a potential ...
4
I would also refuse a request for my teaching materials from a random stranger, especially one not in my department.
Many faculty I'm aware of devalue teaching. The "real" part of being faculty is doing research, and teaching is just a burden that occasionally has to be carried. I've always detested this attitude, and personally think teaching is ...
3
So, there's a lot of decent advice in this thread but the question (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be asking four things:
Is this a normal way to teach? (prevalence)
Is this an acceptable way to teach? (quality)
Will I be expected to learn under these circumstances going forward? (predictability)
Are my feelings about this situation valid? (validation)
...
3
This is ultimately a personal decision for you to make and it's likely that the question will be closed.
I assume that you now have adequate background to be a TA for this course, so you've overcome the difficulties that you had when you first took the course. Let me suggest to you that your experience in struggling with this course as a beginner is ...
3
Perhaps what you have discovered is that different institutions, and different professors within them have different practices around this. I was an undergraduate more than 50 years ago and some professors at the time posted (in a locked display cabinet outside their office) the solutions to the latest assignments. This made it harder for them to propagate ...
2
From what I understand, you
(1) don't write model solutions, and
(2) only grade a small part of their homework.
In my book, either of (1) and (2) is well defensible, but (1)+(2) together hurt your pedagogy. Teaching (particularly at the undergraduate level) is not just about conveying concepts but also about destroying misconceptions. If your students are ...
2
I would expect a professor at this level of class to lecture (that is, teach). It is important to guide students through the material.
Due to COVID restrictions, one could use virtual meeting strategies (e.g. 'Zoom', etc.) to protect people. However, there should be view-able lectures.
What does your course catalog say about the course? What does the ...
2
In addition to all of the other, good ones: It is worth keeping in mind that "teaching" is not the same as "lecturing", even if maybe in your past, teaching has always taken the form of lecturing.
At its core, "teaching" means "facilitating learning", and that can happen in many different forms. Lecturing is one ...
2
Is this common practice that I just never happened to encounter?
What I have seen increasingly is that associations ask their members to contribute their course material to an online repository. Furthering the discipline by sharing best practice and avoiding duplication of effort is the kind of service that fits well with such organizations.
Being in a ...
2
I agree with Buffy's answer here that, in principle, your professor's teaching method here is sound - and, in fact, for particular kinds of subject matter, may be much preferable to a more "traditional" structure. But I also agree with cag51's answer, that it sounds like this may be a poorly executed example of an otherwise sound teaching strategy. ...
2
In general, I feel that if some of the material is openly available (and can be found using search engines), then it's ok to ask but if I were to receive such a request for material that is not openly available I would be a lot more careful.
I fact I have actually done basically this: I find some chapter of course notes and I will on occasions email the ...
1
Different people learn in different ways. It may be that the way your professor is expecting you to learn is the way that he finds most effective for him to learn, and he assumes it will be most effective for you too.
A perfect teacher provides resources and opportunities to suit many different learning styles. There are not many perfect teachers.
If you ...
1
If students do not speak loudly when directly asked to speak loudly, it probably means they do not know how to speak loudly. This is not intuitive because most people think everyone knows how to speak loudly naturally, but I suspect many people misunderstand the mechanics of speaking loudly. In particular, people think they speak loudly by moving their ...
1
You need to give solutions to some (a few) of the questions. You can not expect students to rediscover in a semester every technique which took (the greatest minds) many years to discover.
I like to tackle the problems and learn how to solve as much as I can by myself. Fortunately I often can and I know I got it right. But sometimes I get stuck, and I can ...
1
There is no official definition of teaching prep.
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
