On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:53:49 -0400, Bill wrote:

wrote:
On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 01:53:48 -0400, wrote:

zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:47:08 -0400, wrote:

zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 13:13:58 -0500, wrote:

On 8/13/2011 9:40 AM, Leon wrote:

Totally agree with that article you posted the link to, especially the
Honors College comments, The students get first pick at the professors
and have much smaller more personal classes.

It's hard to believe that 70% of the undergraduate classes at most
universities are now taught by outsourced, "paid-by-the-course", adjunct
professors!

A sad state of affairs ... this corporate model of teaching was unheard
of in my day.

It's not new. I taught a senior level CS course and a graduate level MIS
course 30 years ago. At one point I asked the dean if I taught all the
required courses, if I got my masters (I only have a BS). He didn't like the
question.

Sometimes there are people in industry who know more about a subject than you
can find to teach.

That may be very true, but that doesn't mean it's safe to assign them
total responsibility for a class if they haven't taught before.

And the choice is, don't teach the class?

It's the department chair's call. Offering a substitute class may be
viewed as more appropriate than the possibility of having to deal with
an angry mob of 20 students (and their parents) with legitimate
complaints. Of course, the chair has to answer to the dean who has to
answer to a vice-president. Offering an alternative class starts to look
more and more attractive.

Again, you assume that only a "professional teacher" can teach. That is a
*very* bad assumption. One which is partly responsible for our ****-poor
education system.


I am Not saying that only a professional teacher can teach. I am saying
that my department is not willing to take the chance on someone that has
never taught a class before. It's just a matter of "prudence".
Plenty of things go astray every semester even without taking such risks.

That is not what you said. YOu were making a general statement. The argument
is nuts anyway. There is no magic to teaching. ...well, other than having a
good grasp of the subject matter (something "professional teachers" *very*
often don't have).

What is likely to happen is that the "industrial expert" is likely to
assume too much.

That happens. In fact, I assumed that seniors in CS would have some idea how
to program a computer and even know something about binary arithmetic. I'm
not above learning, however.

That surely doesn't mean those industrial experts can't be put to good
use. The students love such invited speakers like that.

What good is an "invited speaker", when the subject of the entire course is
the adjunct's specialty? You assume education majors know something worth
teaching.

Here you are mixing apples and oranges.

No, you're saying that only a "professional teacher" can teach, even a
technical subject.

Invited speakers serve many
useful purposes in teaching.

Perhaps, but *THAT* is the changed subject.

I think education majors come in a wide
variety. You assume they are all useless?

Yes! But you have to admit, they're particularly useless teaching college
level Computer Science. Good grief!

Yes, but the notion of asking an education major to teach computer
science is absurd.

You're the one who was saying otherwise.