
The Professor as Open Book  - iamelgringo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/fashion/20professor.html?ref=technology
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girk
I went to a very large university (~50,000 students), which is viewed as
something negative by many people. However, I cannot recall a single class
where the professor did not know my name. Similarly, I cannot recall a single
class where I didn't get to know the professor in some personal sense.

Particularly at such a large university, I think that some sense of personal
connection with a professor is important. Why? Because I believe students
learn better from a person with which they can emphasize. Furthermore, in my
personal experience, having an entertaining professor directly correlates with
the amount of enjoyment, knowledge, and fulfillment that I feel I receive from
the class.

Many of my professors are now on Facebook, and I wholly appreciate their
effort to be accessible in ways other than email and/or office hours.

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dhimes
Interesting to see how this will play out. Professors are divided on the issue
of how much to bare. There are those who feel that not being seen as an
infallible guru takes away their prestige--even to the point of advising other
instructors to never admit they don't know something. Others, like me, take a
more "I'm human too" approach.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I try to seem human, because I don't want my students to think that infallible
guru's exist. Plus, many "infallible gurus" are real dicks.

Several times, I've gotten student evaluations like this:

"This prof rocks. When I pointed out a problem with my midterm, he immediately
fixed his mistake and apologized. How awesome is that? "

