Re:Why Don't Professors Share Teaching Practices the Way The...
by bsder on Monday November 28, 2016 @02:12PM
(#13057627)
The big problem is simply how much time it takes to teach effectively.
Teaching even a single class (2 lectures/3 hours each per week+new homework assignments so students can't copy your old ones+answering questions in email+office hours) when you are fully engaged is a 40 hour per week commitment for 12-14 weeks.
If you are required to teach more than 2 classes, your teaching quality suffers. If your research needs priority, your teaching quality suffers.
Improving pedagogy is wonderful, and I'm glad people are looking at it. However, what everybody actually needs is the time to put it into practice.
The fact that teachers are woefully underpaid for this kind of thing just makes everything worse (Most lecturers I know get less than $5000 for a 12-14 week course--they could make more at McDonald's or WalMart).
Teaching even a single class (2 lectures/3 hours each per week+new homework assignments so students can't copy your old ones+answering questions in email+office hours) when you are fully engaged is a 40 hour per week commitment for 12-14 weeks.
If you are required to teach more than 2 classes, your teaching quality suffers. If your research needs priority, your teaching quality suffers.
Improving pedagogy is wonderful, and I'm glad people are looking at it. However, what everybody actually needs is the time to put it into practice.
The fact that teachers are woefully underpaid for this kind of thing just makes everything worse (Most lecturers I know get less than $5000 for a 12-14 week course--they could make more at McDonald's or WalMart).