Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

What's the point of a professor?

A crotchety prof complains about the continuing decline of informal face-time and general engagement with students. Guess we're just not as compelling as we used to be.
More than half leave the graduation ceremony believing that they are “well prepared” in speaking, writing, critical thinking and decision-making.
But while they’re content with teachers, students aren’t much interested in them as thinkers and mentors. They enroll in courses and complete assignments, but further engagement is minimal.
One measure of interest in what professors believe, what wisdom they possess apart from the content of the course, is interaction outside of class. It’s often during incidental conversations held after the bell rings and away from the demands of the syllabus that the transfer of insight begins and a student’s emulation grows. Students email teachers all the time — why walk across campus when you can fire a note from your room? — but those queries are too curt for genuine mentoring. We need face time.
Here, though, are the meager numbers. For a majority of undergraduates, beyond the two and a half hours per week in class, contact ranges from negligible to nonexistent. In their first year, 33 percent of students report that they never talk with professors outside of class, while 42 percent do so only sometimes. Seniors lower that disengagement rate only a bit, with 25 percent never talking to professors, and 40 percent sometimes.
It hasn’t always been this way... (continues)
==
Book of Life (@bkoflife)
Why we should be more ambitious about education youtube.com/watch?v=HndV87…

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.