

Being a student isn't easy, it requires actual work - DrJosiah
http://dr-josiah.blogspot.com/2010/10/being-student-isnt-easy-it-requires.html

======
mechanical_fish
_when confronted with this type of instructor, a student is given an
opportunity to engage themselves in learning. Classes come with books, and
instructors are meant to help the student understand and integrate the
knowledge and wisdom within those books._

These words remind me of my introductory class in graduate solid state
physics. The instructor was teaching the course for the first time, or at
least the first time in a while. His lectures were very difficult to follow,
the notes we took weren't of much use, and he hadn't calibrated the problem
sets quite right. So, omigod, the problem sets were difficult. They were due
weekly, they took two or three days each, and usually at least one all-
nighter.

It was hell. But in retrospect it turned out amazingly well. The first thing
that happened was that every member of the class bonded with every other
member of the class. We solved those problems as one giant team. We would band
together in the student offices, in groups of three to five, and then
representatives from each group would go wandering late at night from one
office to the next, trying to see if one of the other groups had found a
promising line of attack. All the experimentalists made friends with the
theorists. All the theorists made friends with each other. Half of my best
friends in grad school came out of that one course.

And because the lecture notes weren't comprehensible, we were forced to read
the book _very_ carefully, page by page. And the book happened to be Ashcroft
and Mermin's _Solid State Physics_ , which is one of the best textbooks I've
ever known.

In the end, I got fairly good at solid state physics (for an experimentalist,
anyway). I later signed up with an adviser who was well known for asking
tricky questions about solid state during oral exams, but I was well prepared.
My thesis ended up being all about topics that I learned in that class, and I
even put the lecturer on my thesis committee, because he turned out to be a
very nice guy and quite smart.

~~~
flatline
As a returning adult student who is currently struggling to complete a
bachelor's on a part-time basis, this type of study is not always feasible. I
am more than capable of learning advanced material but it does take effort,
and poor teaching becomes a huge time-management issue for a number of
reasons.

A teacher who can explain difficult concepts can save you literally dozens of
hours of self-study. At least, this has been the case in my experience. Having
someone to ask questions of is huge. Having a good study group is not always a
dependable solution.

On a more immediate level, if I have to spend three or four hours of useless
time in class, that's time taken out of my schedule to actually learn the
material.

Granted, I have a commute and a job and family, so it's not quite the same as
if I were a 20-something undergrad, but should we value their time less than
my own? Many universities are chock full of teachers who are good researchers
and grant writers, not necessarily good professors, and I do feel that this is
a big problem.

~~~
DrJosiah
This is a very good point. Some University professors get into it for
research, some for teaching, not many for both. The problem is that
Universities will typically cater to one type of professor, leaving the others
scrambling to spend a lot of time doing the thing that they don't like (and
which takes a lot of their time).

Also, Teaching Assistants really should be offered more in every level of
education. A good TA can reduce the instructor's load significantly, while at
the same time offering much better interaction ratios with students with
questions.

------
mnemonicsloth
I call bullshit.

Yes, learning takes effort even with the best teachers. Yes, it's good to be
self-motivated and seek out more information on your own. But if this guy is
right that an incompetent teacher is no barrier to learning, then why do we
need teachers at all?

My experience in grad school was that a course with a bad teacher took three
to five times as much work as the same course with a good teacher. That's
mostly because advanced texts in technical subjects are supposed to be
exhaustive references. They're full of details and corner cases that make it
impossible to get the big picture without reading them several times over.

Showing you the big picture is the teacher's job. If they can't do that,
they're basically _forcing_ you to read and reread a thousand pages of
reference material, looking for a synthesis that isn't there. Eventually all
the repetition forces your brain into a kind of acceptance, but it's not the
same as understanding and it isn't worth thousands of dollars a class.

~~~
DrJosiah
I'm sorry you didn't like my post, but I think you sort-of missed my point.
It's not that an incompetent teacher is no barrier to learning (because
learning is definitely enhanced by a good teacher), it's that students have
choices in what and how they consume education. If you don't like the way you
are being taught, then find a better source for what you want to learn.

In particular, there are people who have taken your class before. The teacher
is the primary person who has ostensibly taken that class before, but when
that fails, there are students who have taken that class before. Find the few
who got As, and ask for help. Or if the book is awful, ask around for a better
book. Or hell, MIT's got their OpenCourseWare for more and more topics every
year. As students (really, we all are), it has never been easier to learn.

~~~
mnemonicsloth
_> If you don't like the way you are being taught, then find a better source
for what you want to learn... [T]here are students who have taken that class
before._

Why should other students do the teaching -- don't they have their own classes
to worry about? Why would your students want to learn from other students, or
from a website, instead of from an expert? And isn't teaching what they pay
you to do?

~~~
DrJosiah
I'm not defending poor teachers, nor am I defending teaching poorly. Teachers
should teach students well.

But if a student isn't learning, they have choices. That's it. If a student
has a problem asking peers for help (who may be better experts than their
teachers), doing reading beyond their book (which may offer better or more
recent information than available in the text), or _finding_ a way to learn
what they need to learn, then they aren't going to be able to function in the
real world. Because in the real world, people don't teach you things, you must
seek knowledge.

 _I_ am not being paid to teach anymore, I went off to industry after grad
school because I needed to make a living. When I taught, I was engaged every
day, and was the best teacher I could be. That included 6 hours teaching every
week, 3 hours of attending the course that I was teaching (I sat through the
same course 7 times), with another 4-6 hours of office hours every week, in
addition to any other courses, research, and contracting work that I was
doing.

------
wccrawford
Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work.

~~~
jozo
Even if it requires work, I'd rather be in an environment where I don't
perceive it as such. This is actually a continuous goal I have in life.

Some wise words from Max Levchin -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWDMaLgT7is#t=4m35s>

------
helwr
Who needs instructors, for Christ's sake?

~~~
eru
Different people have different learning styles.

~~~
helwr
Agree. But I'm deeply convinced that frontal lectures belong to the past, pre-
Google past,

and it is the predominant way of instruction today, regardless of student's
personal learning style or preferences.

~~~
pjscott
Traditional lectures, where one guy is standing in front of a room doing all
the talking? Sure, those should die. Recorded lectures from a really good
lecturer are a superior replacement.

Instructors, on the other hand, are not obsolete. It's great to have someone
who can answer questions, lead discussions, guide your study, and so on. If
anybody wants to know what the university of the future should look like, this
is a good place to start.

~~~
tjr
<http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/undergrad-cs>

~~~
nerdyworm
Very interesting read.

I have always liked the art school approach, portfolio to get in and a
polished portfolio when you leave.

