If you think it matters that your kid's classes be taught by a professor: Why?

[Anonymous]

I'd definitely rather classes be taught by a professor because that's kind of the point--to learn from someone experienced in the field. That being said, I occasionally had TAs that were way better teachers than my actual professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you paying $85,000 a year to have a 23 year old grad student who might not even have a Masters yet teaching your child?

Exactly. For that you can send your child to a community college for almost nothing and he or she can take honors classes there which are often taught by professors with a Ph.D. who have been teaching for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are you paying $85,000 a year to have a 23 year old grad student who might not even have a Masters yet teaching your child?

Not a good answer...but here is the actual answer from an interesting essay from the WSJ:

"College is one of the few products whose consumers try to get as little out of it as possible, because its market value is tied to the credential, not to the education that it is meant to represent, says Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University and author of “The Case Against Education.” He believes that 80% of the value of graduating college today is the signal it sends to employers, and that few students outside of the hard sciences learn much of real value.

[Anonymous]

Sorry if it's already in this thread (I'll scroll through and look) but is there a resource that provides a percentage of classes taught by tenured professors vs. TAs vs. adjuncts?

[Anonymous]

My son is at a LAC, has only had professors, even in lab sections. He really loves the lab instruction, and at these small schools, all those professors have been in their own labs often and recently.

I went to a large R1 university. All my math, lab and language teachers were grad students. The math ones were good. But my son is getting a much better education than I did, similar major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is at a LAC, has only had professors, even in lab sections. He really loves the lab instruction, and at these small schools, all those professors have been in their own labs often and recently.

I went to a large R1 university. All my math, lab and language teachers were grad students. The math ones were good. But my son is getting a much better education than I did, similar major.

Almost identical situation. The level of interaction with faculty at a SLAC, even in intro level classes, is amazing.

[Anonymous]

It's always been so weird to me that we require all these qualifications to teach elementary and secondary school, but anyone in a PhD program with zero teaching pedagogy is apparently qualified to teach a class. I remember that time of my life when all my friends were TAs... Some of them were really good at it and loved it. Others complained about their students all the time. It's two of the latter that are the only ones I know still teaching--they got tenure. Fancy schools, too.


The simple reason I want a full professor teaching *is* simple: I want to have someone be compensated for their labor fairly as it is both morally right and incentives them to do a good job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn't make you a good teacher, especially at research institutions. The focus is on research and research dollars, teaching is just a requirement. They have zero training in developing or delivery curriculum - they have zero incentive to do it well. Some will but many have to ensure they are bringing in the funds for the department. For my kids I want to make sure they being taught the topic by someone who is knowledgeable and committed to education. That is easier said than done.

This has been changing--there is more emphasis on evidence that you are a decent teacher in hiring now, even at research institutions, and even at research institutions about 30-40% of your evaluation is based on your teaching.

Right. But at the end of the day, who are they going to promote to full professor? Someone who did 30-40% good teaching? Or someone who brought in $9 million dollars in funding? They don't support professors becoming teachers, so while they can focus on it and put it in your evaluation, its not something they are going to suggest "hey you, you got a bad teaching evaluation - go take some classes on how to teach" they are just going to switch around the importance and focus on the strengths.

[Anonymous]

Because I pay $90k/year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I pay $90k/year.

^^ and in Stem I was taught by some TAs that did not have a grasp of the English language.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My TAs in college (t10) were awful.
Incoherent
Unorganized
Some barely spoke English

+1

[Anonymous]

NP. don't have time to read all of this. My Ds in aerospace engineering at UVA found many of the TAs difficult to understand. He left for another major

[Anonymous]

I think there's a value to undergrads having instructors at all stages of the academic career path, because they all bring different kinds of expertise, experience, etc., from the young and freshly minted to the senior and very experienced.

Big reasons to want full-time, ongoing faculty in courses is the chance to develop a relationship over several years with profs who can watch a student develop and be in a position to write for them at the end of their degree and for years beyond. A TA or adjunct professor is very unlikely to be around through and beyond any given student's undergraduate career and, well-intentioned as they may be, they are not being paid to be fully available to students in an ongoing way.

I write as someone who loved teaching when I was a grad student and have taught on the tenure track and off at both small colleges and large universities. No question that the students I taught as undergraduates from intro through senior courses at the small college where I was tenure-track were the ones I remember and remain in touch with and can continue to support in various ways long after graduation.

[Anonymous]

90 K per year should buy you proper instruction by Professors who bring strong teaching skills and a lifetime of experience in the field to the classroom. A TA can do a good job teaching undergrads, but seniority in a field brings in a whole additional dimension altogether. It is appalling how little faculty at top schools teach (sometimes as little as one course a year - that is only for PhD students).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:90 K per year should buy you proper instruction by Professors who bring strong teaching skills and a lifetime of experience in the field to the classroom. A TA can do a good job teaching undergrads, but seniority in a field brings in a whole additional dimension altogether. It is appalling how little faculty at top schools teach (sometimes as little as one course a year - that is only for PhD students).

Meant to say "that too only for PhD students."