Students being taught by postgraduates: opinions?

[jbob]

No doubt there are people who will be bad teachers even with training, and there will be people with natural ability to do so. But the same can be said of driving, and on the whole, I prefer if drivers undergo some training, even if it won't be successful with some of them.

That's a bit of a tenuous conflation of different skills, Johnny, but I know what you mean.

My point is simply that university is a different ball game to school; the student is there for a course of directed study - it's down to them what they make of it. Given those conditions, why is it neccessary, or even desirable, that the person leading the course should be anything other than an expert in his/her field? Students are adults (by definition), and should be able to grasp that the lecturer is there to give focus to the study of their choosing. Nothing else. In practice, most of my lecturers do far more than this, but really only because they have to.

With regard to teacher training, the current obsession is to recruit graduates. I have never really understood why someone who scraped a 2:2 in Media Studies is going to make a better primary school teacher than someone without a degree and a genuine enthusiasm and experience with working with kids. But the graduates are the ones getting all the funding and the opportunities.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

why is it neccessary, or even desirable, that the person leading the course should be anything other than an expert in his/her field? Students are adults (by definition), and should be able to grasp that the lecturer is there to give focus to the study of their choosing. .

An example of why not: a friend, who was a math major, took an advanced math course in one of the upper years. Small class, maybe ten people in it. All math majors.

The prof failed six of them. When six math majors fail a course, it's an indictment of the prof, not the students.

I think that there are many areas of study at uni where independent reading etc can counteract a bad prof. Most history courses, psychology etc, are that way. I think it might be more critical to have good teachers in the sciences, philosophy, etc.

It's an interesting argument: what is harder: learning sanskrit or number theory in university, or learning how to read, or how to add and subtract, in grade 1?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Also, to the extent that a tenured professorship is the ultimate soft touch, why shouldn't the fuckers be forced to take a couple of courses so that they can be at least semi effective teachers?

I had another prof: he couldn't speak english that was intelligible to the average listener.

By about halfway through the course, I could maybe make out a third of what he was saying. It was a bit of a class joke to ask him a question, and hear what came out of his mouth in response.

Eventually, he offered to leave the university in exchange for a full professorship. The dept gave him the professorship.

 

[gaijingirl]

Well, arguably academics aren't really there to teach - they lead the course and direct the study in accordance with their knowledge of their specialised subject.

I think that's true to a certain extent - however even this takes a certain amount of skill. In the case of the two lecturers I have spoken about. The effective one leads extremely good seminar courses - where we are made to do the work, give presentations etc etc. It's a hard course to take but we learn lots. The less effective one, doubtless is extremely knowledgeable but basically unable to teach or direct study. And after all I am doing a "taught" MA - not a purely research based programme. I think it's a little bit pot-luck with the current system as to what you get and the question being asked in the OP is if "pot-luck" is good enough when we are paying for the course ourselves.

Here in the UK, there are plenty of misguided graduates with PGCE certificates that are completely unsuited to a career in education. But because funding is available, and a reasonable graduate wage with bonuses on top is offered, it has led to an influx of 'certified educators' that are incapable of actually doing the job well. (Though I should add that there are plenty who can!)

Again, this may well be your experience so obviously I'm not going to disagree with that. However, when I did my PGCE it very quickly weeded out those who were unsuitable. About a third of the teacher trainees on my course were either asked to leave, left of their own volition or had nervous breakdowns!! I was largely impressed with the other teachers in schools - although some were clearly much better than others - during this time but have only taught in UK schools for one year - so maybe longer would reveal otherwise. But certainly it is better regulated than postgraduate education and overall less of a lottery - IME.

I was speaking to my brother-in-law who has just resigned as a lecturer at Cambridge university. He has been teaching there for many years now and was compelled to do so throughout his PhD and subsequently in order to gain a research position. He has resigned as he finally has found a position where he can continue to research and write, but not teach - which he is absolutely delighted about.

There's that ratemyteachers.co.uk site - I wonder if anything similar exists for lecturers. If not, I imagine it's only a matter of time before information sharing on the quality of teaching at various universities becomes commonplace and an unofficial (if not official) ranking system is put in place, forcing universities to better consider who is teaching/lecturing etc... Hopefully this will put an end to teaching by those who don't really want to.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

During my undergrad, some of the worst lecturers were some of the most senior professors, so I'm not entirely sure whether experience = teaching skill.

Also I've got a friend doing a PhD atm who lectures on an undergrad programme, and whilst I've never seen her lecture I know that her preperation period for each one seems really long (20 or so hours per hour lecture) so in some ways I wonder whether her lectures may be more fresh than some of the professors who have been giving almost the same lecture for a number of years.

She asked me to do a guest lecture once which I declined due to the amount of work I have for my own course, I'm not sure how the logistics and for want of a better word, legality of that would have worked.

 

[Dissident Junk]

Sorry for the bump - but I have only just discovered this thread.

One little question . . .

As Jbob said earlier, why does everyone presume undergraduates are there to 'be taught' and that lecturers are 'teachers'?

They are not. They are there to direct a student's studies. A degree is about 'you educating yourself', the first stage in an academic process that ultimately ends at Phd level with three years of solitary research.

This 'lecturers are teachers' attitude, I think, is now a primary problem in humanities subjects, where you are getting kids turn up without having read the books or concepts in question, not read any secondary materials (never mind anything else), and expect to get good grades by regurgating points mentioned in seminar.

This is not how to do a degree, as far as I am concerned. Seminars are there as a space for students to discuss their own ideas and approaches towards a subject, not to be told by a lecturer what to write in an essay.

And this is why I got my best grades at undergrad level in courses where the lecturers were rubbish - precisely because I did hours of my own research and didn't bother going into lectures or seminars unless I needed something clarifying.

I suspect undergrads are using the systems they developed to pass their A' levels at university level and it is not appropriate, but, instead of realising this, they are complaining.

Interestingly, my old university has had to drop more advanced courses (and texts) over the last six years because undergraduates can no longer cope with the material.

 

[Roadkill]

I think there's a fair bit of truth in what you're saying there, Dissident Junk.

 

[equationgirl]

When I was graduated in 1995, I was in the last year at my uni doing a non-modular course, where the materials are taught over a 30 week period with chance to use the holidays to catch up on all the tutorials and supplementary work during the holidays.

Moving to a modular system (teaching the work in 3 blocks of 10 weeks, with an exam at the end of each block) has meant that a lot of the subject material I was taught has had to be pruned somwhat, as the students are unable to cope with some of the more advanced work.

I did engineering, where a lot of the later work builds on earlier stuff, and as so many of the students were struggling with the easier stuff due to time constraints of the modular courses, the course bears more resemblance to A levels than anything else.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

I think there's a fair bit of truth in what you're saying there, Dissident Junk.

aye, seconded

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

Where on earth are you?!

Permanent academic positions are so thin on the ground that there should be hundreds of well-qualified people just desperate to apply for a lecturing job. I can hardly believe that somewhere would be so short-staffed that it had to use a student as a lecturer...or are they just being cheap?

Id rather not go into the specifics for obvious reasons but the person in question had a Msc in a different subject, knows fuck all about the subject hes lecturing and I have no idea at all how he got the job.As I understand it he is going to do his phd/was doing it
As a way of trying to hide the fact he knew nothing about the subject I was doing my diss on he used to bawl me out, put me down, patronise and tell me "I cant look at this, now bring me what Ive asked for" when I was asking him to tell me which parts of my work he felt were most relevent/deserved attention/further discussion ( which as a supervisor was his role was it not?)
In the end I couldnt work with him, reported it was promised another supervisor, was never appointed one.I completed my work the best I could with no help nor advice whatsoever and Im dissappointed with it. As far as Im aware its not even been marked.
I now cannot even be in the same room as him without quaking.
It means I will now get a max of a 2:2 if Im lucky I suspect and I have absolutely no idea what I can do about any of it.

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

Well, arguably academics aren't really there to teach - they lead the course and direct the study in accordance with their knowledge of their specialised subject.

Helps if they
A-specialise in the subject they are lecturing on
B- have any knowledge of the subject they are presenting.
The person employed in my university knew neither. He was lecturing to 3rd years and felt it most appropriate to start every lecture with "you lazy students who dont make any effort blah blah"
In an effort to cover his own very significant shortcomings

 

[jbob]

I think you'd agree that your case is an exception rather than the rule.

I'm very surprised that you have a Masters student in a different subject supervising. Do you mean subject or field? If the latter, than this is not that unusual for supervisory roles. Most academics specific field of interest is understandably narrow, but they will have broad general knowledge of the subject as a whole. For example, my supervisor is an expert in renaissance lit, while I am looking at postmodern lit, but he's knowledgable on that too.

 

[LilMissHissyFit]

No different subject
he knew nothing at all about the degree we were studying. He had studied something slightly related ( in that it was a social science)
Thats where the connection ended.Like I said he even asked a prison officer where he kept his keys and also pointed at prisoners and said "are these prisoners?" when we visited a prison.You would think studying criminology as a 3rd year you wouldnt be lectured to by people who didnt know such basic things.

He wasnt a masters student, he had a masters but no Phd and had been employed as a lecturer.
You do expect the person supervising your dissertation to know something about the area you are studying.

 

[jbob]

I agree, at the very least you'd expect your supervisor to be knowledgable on the subject. It sounds appalling. You really should follow this through and make a formal written complaint to the Head of School. List all incidents of bullying, together with the other areas of incompetancy, and stress how it has affected your studies.

You may well have to be persistant, but as it is going to affect your final grade, I think you have nothing to lose. University's have to take complaints of this nature seriously, particularly nowadays.

 

[hatz]

As Jbob said earlier, why does everyone presume undergraduates are there to 'be taught' and that lecturers are 'teachers'?

They are not. They are there to direct a student's studies. A degree is about 'you educating yourself', the first stage in an academic process that ultimately ends at Phd level with three years of solitary research.

This 'lecturers are teachers' attitude, I think, is now a primary problem in humanities subjects, where you are getting kids turn up without having read the books or concepts in question, not read any secondary materials (never mind anything else), and expect to get good grades by regurgating points mentioned in seminar.

This is not how to do a degree, as far as I am concerned. Seminars are there as a space for students to discuss their own ideas and approaches towards a subject, not to be told by a lecturer what to write in an essay.

And this is why I got my best grades at undergrad level in courses where the lecturers were rubbish - precisely because I did hours of my own research and didn't bother going into lectures or seminars unless I needed something clarifying.

I suspect undergrads are using the systems they developed to pass their A' levels at university level and it is not appropriate, but, instead of realising this, they are complaining.

Erm, well as someone who has studied a humanities degree, I'd have to disagree with you, at least from my experience.

At no point did I think that the people who took your classes - which were intended as discussions and opportunities for further questions about things you were unsure on, either as things were mentioned in lectures, or as things you came across in your reading - were meant to sit you down and TEACH you in the sense of primary/secondary education.

People who took a class - so a 'teacher' or 'lecturer', but for the sake of semantics as often they weren't lecturers as such (hence this discussion) I will use the word 'teacher' despite the implications of a secondary school environment - were expected to lead discussions, answer questions that may arise, point out alternative viewpoints and generally provoke further thought. To do this it is necessary to have at least the basic facts on a particular subject so that appropriate guidance could be given. Some teachers didn't fill that criteria, and whether I had paid for my education or not, I would feel cheated. I had come there to learn and to come away from a class having a) not thought about anything new, and b) feeling utterly discouraged about a particular topic/subject is not great.

To say that students nowadays (I graduated from my BA in 2005) rely on the information they get in seminars rather than doing their own readings or forming their own judgements is wrong. We were always expected to have done at least the basic reading for that week (if for example we only had a small interest in that topic) and usually more. Every course, every week, would require hours of reading. That's just the way it was and that seemed normal.

What I disliked was that despite having read a wide cross-section of literature, and having formative ideas and opinions, I would go to class and find no outlet to discuss these ideas, and thus would come away feeling like I had wasted my time, or even that I had been completely wrong to think such thoughts in the first place.

Which is why I think anyone who takes a class/seminar group/whatever should have suitable training, enthusiasm and depth of knowledge. Otherwise, what's the point, other than to discourage more people away from education/academia in general.

 

[snoogles]

No different subject
he knew nothing at all about the degree we were studying. He had studied something slightly related ( in that it was a social science)
Thats where the connection ended.Like I said he even asked a prison officer where he kept his keys and also pointed at prisoners and said "are these prisoners?" when we visited a prison.You would think studying criminology as a 3rd year you wouldnt be lectured to by people who didnt know such basic things.

He wasnt a masters student, he had a masters but no Phd and had been employed as a lecturer.
You do expect the person supervising your dissertation to know something about the area you are studying.

That's pretty terrible. I guess he must have known somebody in an influential position, perhaps? You definitely have grounds for complaint anyway. It is not difficult to find suitably qualified people in criminology, you have every right to demand that your institution replaces this guy with someone who knows what he's talking about. Make some noise - you have nothing to lose...

Apart from that, I guess my general views on this area may be different from others, as I'm in the sciences. When I was a PhD student, I did quite a bit of teaching (voluntarily, as I like it) and got good feedback. There were plenty of others though (notably those for whom English was not their first language) who did not seem to 'click' with the whole thing, despite being quite knowledgeable themselves.

At the end of the day, some people are good teachers, some are not. In my field, it is somewhat irrelevant as to whether they are PhD students or lecturers - in my experience, both groups have a suitable level of knowledge; teaching skills just vary with the individual. The real difficulty is that academics are hired to do research; your teaching record is pretty irrelevant when it comes to finding a job, all that counts are the papers you publish and the grants you obtain. Postgrads know this too, and teaching is often viewed as a distraction from the important stuff that will help them land a job. Most receive some kind of training, but it's not enough - you are never observed/tested by a more experienced teacher, for example, as happens in secondary school teacher training. Perhaps this may change in the future - as students begin to demand more for their fees, we may see the emphasis shift slightly. It won't happen if students aren't vocal about it though - make yourselves heard!