Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Killfiled, was DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution

[Vern Green <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

One English teacher I had was Indian, and while he worked very hard on
his accent, he still had a heavy accent. Enough so that it lead to the
parent of one student calling him to task about his ability to teach
English in the first place. The guy had a Doctorate in English studies
and definately knew his material.

Coincedentally, this was the instructor that mentioned the publishing
once per year to maintain his Doctorate degree, that is where I got
that idea from.

On 1/8/06, Stephen Montgomery-Smith <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> Vern Green wrote:
> >>>>I know that we are starting to do that kind of thing.  I haven't wanted
> >>>>to prepare such courses myself.  The only thing I don't know about is
> >>>>exams and how they are administered.  I'm all for distance learning and
> >>>>I would expect students to learn just as well that way as with ordinary
> >>>>classroom instruction.  We all know that most learning is really
> >>>>self-instruction. You have to read the material and struggle with it.
> >>>>Teachers help, but most of the learning happens with the student alone
> >>>>with the materials (book, papers, homework assignments, videos, slide
> >>>>shows, etc).
> >
> >
> > I guess that is the problem with generalizations. It was hardly the
> > case with every class I took, and while I am sitting here thinking
> > about it I am trying to put a number on just how many good instructors
> > I had. The majority of poor instructors and professors I have had were
> > in technology classes. General education instructors seemed much
> > better.
> >
> > I took classes at two different local community colleges I took
> > classes at ITT Technical Institute, California Lutheran University,
> > University of Phoenix, and California State University - Channel
> > Islands. My associates was in Computer Science- Computer Networking,
> > my bachelors is in Information Technology.
> >
> > So let me give you some examples:
> >
> > Programming 1 and 2, instructor on the first night wrote a simple
> > "Hello World" application in "C", then handed out our assignments and
> > said go to work. He never again demonstrated any code. Another student
> > in the class was a developer already and he fielded all student
> > questions as the instructor was unable to answer questions.
> >
> > Programming 3 and 4, instruction was in Java, we had two different
> > instructors and both of them were almost identical. By now I had a
> > pretty good grasp of programming so I was able to perform the
> > assignments. It was a good thing as the instructor admitted he could
> > not get the sample code we were studying to work when he was copying
> > it out of the book.
> >
> > I am not going to go through all of them, the list would be too long.
> > Some additional classes I had that were bad:
> >
> > Systems Analysis
> > Database Development 1 and 2
> > Database Design
> > Transact SQL
> > Computer Engineering
> > Operating Systems Development
> > User Interface Design
> > Business Telecommunications 1 and 2
> >
> > And let's not forget about the Indians. Oh that was a nice lesson in
> > futility. Have you ever tried to learn Unix, or Web Application
> > Development from an Indian? Not American Indian. I admit he tried to
> > teach the class, and once we could understand him, he actually was
> > pretty knowledgable about the subject, too bad I really only
> > understood about 1 out of 3 words he spoke.
> >
> > In many cases where we had poor instructors, our TEQs (thanks for the
> > clarification) caused a change in instructor for the next class, and
> > usually the replacement was no better. I was not trying to imply that
> > they never TRIED to answer questions, it was more of an issue that
> > they were incapable of answering the questions.
> >
> > Not all of them were like this I admit, my English, math, science,
> > art, basic general ed instructors were all very strong and good at
> > what they did. I had some good technology instructors as well, it
> > usually turned out that the good technology instructors ended up
> > teaching so many classes they were burnt out in 6 - 8 months.
>
> I am guessing here, but maybe it is this - if you are really
> enthusiastic or good at programming, you will either get yourself a real
> job, or go to a research oriented university (like MU).  I think that is
> is one of the advantages of attending a research place like MU - while
> the focus might not be on teaching pe se, you may well get better
> teachers.  Indeed my anecdotal observation is that better researchers
> tend to make better teachers - this is contrary to popular opinion.
>
> Also, when we recruit graduate students, those from research oriented
> universities seem to be better prepared than those from teaching
> oriented universities.
>
> I don't know anything about places like Pheonix Online, except I can
> tell you that I have received mass mailings from them asking me to teach
> for them.
>
> Finally, we do have some professors with language problems.  But by
> really thinking about how to teach, and preparing well, these people
> have managed to turn themselves to being amongst the very best and most
> popular teachers that we have.
>
> Stephen
>
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--
Thanks
F Vernon Green

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