Professor Poll

[IntegratedValve]

Do you prefer a good teacher with excellent understanding of fundamental concepts of the course, or someone who has no clue about teaching but they are very knowledgeable in broader areas beyond the scope of your course?
For instance a good teacher vs. an aged scientist who talks to himself?

Personally I always prefer the first especially for engineering/technical/science courses.

[c4757p]

When you want a hamburger, do you prefer a cook who is very good at making hamburgers, or someone who has no clue about hamburgers but can make a really awesome pizza?

[IntegratedValve]

When you want a hamburger, do you prefer a cook who is very good at making hamburgers, or someone who has no clue about hamburgers but can make a really awesome pizza?

I'm having hard time understanding your analogy but I think I answered this already, I prefer a teacher, not a burger chef.

[c4757p]

I prefer a teacher, not a burger chef.

I'm saying a professor with no clue about teaching is not suited for the job. A professor is a teacher, what the hell do you call a professor who can't teach? I'd say "incompetent". I don't care how good he might be at something else.

[IntegratedValve]

Unfortunately many, and sadly at expensive universities. I would not care if it's a free or cheap uni. But when we pay a lot and invest a lot and then end up having to self-study materials struggling to pass unrealistic hard exams and get barely pass marks. I believe professors should be regularly supervised by teaching specialists to make sure they are not talking to themselves or rehearsing stupid projector slides.

[free_electron]

When you want a hamburger, do you prefer a cook who is very good at making hamburgers, or someone who has no clue about hamburgers but can make a really awesome pizza?

when you want a hamburger
do you want a cook who can describe every ingredient in minute detail, including how to breed cows, but has never made a real hamburger  ?
do you want a cook who makes a really good hamburger and tells you substitutes and tips to make variations of it, how to make really good sauces , but can't explain how to breed cows.?

[Bored@Work]

I'm saying a professor with no clue about teaching is not suited for the job. A professor is a teacher, what the hell do you call a professor who can't teach? I'd say "incompetent". I don't care how good he might be at something else.

The job of a professor is to show you what you need to know (and to do his research). Your job is to learn as much of what the professor told you you need to know, including filling in holes the professor apparently left out. On your own initiative. In whatever way suitable.

A professor is not a teacher. Unless you live in Austria (not Australia). There the teachers of secondary schools are called professors. But the Austrians are anyhow a bit title-crazy. Tell them you are an engineer and they address you as "Mr. Engineer" and "Mr. Engineer c4757p" instead of just "Mr. c4757p" in polite company.

[c4757p]

The job of a professor is to show you what you need to know (and to do his research). Your job is to learn as much of what the professor told you you need to know, including filling in holes the professor apparently left out. On your own initiative. In whatever way suitable.

Well yes, that's what I meant by teaching. It's not the professor's job to just regurgitate facts and data and expect me to shove them into my head in the hour or two when I'm in his class, so I don't care if he can do that. But a professor does more than just list topics and say "you need to know these, now piss off and go learn them". He should be there to help students learn to understand the material. There's more to "what you need to know" than a list of topics, and sometimes people need somebody to point them in the right direction.

But the Austrians are anyhow a bit title-crazy. Tell them you are an engineer and they address you as "Mr. Engineer" and "Mr. Engineer c4757p" instead of just "Mr. c4757p" in polite company.

That would drive me insane. Not that I spend much time "in polite company"

[SeanB]

Do not go to Japan then........

[free_electron]

this alwyas reminds me of that scene in 'real genius'
in the beginning of the year there is the teacher... as the year progresses student attendance dwindles and at the end there is just a tape recorder playing at the front for the 2 or 3 students in the class...

[c4757p]

Do not go to Japan then........

Yeah, no kidding! I don't know why, but there's just something about "needless" formalities that irks me. Probably the whole "needless" thing It just seems like an attempt to impress people without actually having anything impressive to do it with...

this alwyas reminds me of that scene in 'real genius'
in the beginning of the year there is the teacher... as the year progresses student attendance dwindles and at the end there is just a tape recorder playing at the front for the 2 or 3 students in the class...

Wait - you've been sitting in on my signals class?

[skipjackrc4]

when you want a hamburger
do you want a cook who can describe every ingredient in minute detail, including how to breed cows, but has never made a real hamburger  ?
do you want a cook who makes a really good hamburger and tells you substitutes and tips to make variations of it, how to make really good sauces , but can't explain how to breed cows.?

How about a cook who knows how to breed different varieties of cows and how they were bred in the past, but also knows how to make the perfect hamburger (and many variations thereof)?  And what if he was a senior research farmer at HP cattle farms back in the day?

I've got a professor like that now.  I've never encountered anything he doesn't know, either practical or theoretical.  The man is pretty difficult to work with, but WOW is he good at what he does. 

[IntegratedValve]

I'm saying a professor with no clue about teaching is not suited for the job. A professor is a teacher, what the hell do you call a professor who can't teach? I'd say "incompetent". I don't care how good he might be at something else.

The job of a professor is to show you what you need to know (and to do his research). Your job is to learn as much of what the professor told you you need to know, including filling in holes the professor apparently left out. On your own initiative. In whatever way suitable.

A professor is not a teacher. Unless you live in Austria (not Australia). There the teachers of secondary schools are called professors. But the Austrians are anyhow a bit title-crazy. Tell them you are an engineer and they address you as "Mr. Engineer" and "Mr. Engineer c4757p" instead of just "Mr. c4757p" in polite company.

That's why we end up with crappy education, students ranting about universities and high tuition fees. That's why we have now many people who believe university education is useless and you can learn on your own (since the job of professors is to read subject titles or a compressed table of content from a book and let the students fill in the holes)

[IntegratedValve]

Professors have to be good skilled teachers. Well based on my experience here's a classification of university lecturers:

A) Very good teaching skills with average knowledge and insights.
B) Poor teaching skills but very good knowledge of the subject.
C) Mr. Presenter
D) Mr. Pretender

Class A is not very common.

Class B is not uncommon.

The most awful and dangerous classes are C and D, you can get straight "F" as a result of the lecturer's poor teaching and limited understanding of the subject. They are the most common types.

Now what's a presenter?

Any professor even thinks of showing their old stinky slides and who just thinks avoiding getting their hands dirty with chalks. They read their notes, they mark their notes, they talk to themselves.

Pretenders?

They can disguise in class A, usually, but their epic failure will stink as soon as you get your final grades. Some of them, most dangerous type, can tell you from first exams what type of psycho's they are.

BTW "researchers" my ar&se.

[SeanB]

I did have one lecturer with a scary teaching method of breaking off in mid sentence at the end of a period and the next day carrying on from the same point again. Even if he was in the middle of an equation on the board ( maths teacher) the next day he would ask for the last few lines then continue as if no time had passed. This from a guy who often got lost on his way to his office.......

[Bored@Work]

Well, you can sit there in class with the expectation "teach me", "teach me", "teach me". And if the professor doesn't shove it up your behind you can lament your fate after class, labeling the professor a presenter or pretender or whatever.

Or you can sit there in class with the attitude "lets see what this guy tells me I should know", and after class you go out to learn what you are supposed to know. By, for example, heaven forbid, reading a book. Or two.

In the end doing the second thing works out better for you. Uni is not school. But hey, it is your time and your life. Fine with me if you want to waste it by insisting that professors shove it up your behind.

[c4757p]

If what you're studying can be shoved up your behind during class, you need to study something more challenging, like basket weaving or first grade arithmetic. Of course you need to do your own research outside of class. But for the particularly difficult topics, it is important for many people to have somebody to help them learn it. Not everybody learns well from a book.

I don't see what problem you always have with teaching. It's not like the students are whining for somebody to do their work for them. (OK, some are... but we're not discussing those.) But there is nothing at all wrong with a direct exchange of knowledge. I can learn from a book, or from a human, and there's no reason one is inferior to the other.

I'm not in school to occupy a chair in front of a knowledgeable windbag with more important things to do. If I need to find out "what I need to know", there are much less expensive ways for me to do that. I'm there in the hopes that somebody can actually help me come to understand things which I struggle with.

Learning and knowledge don't have to be "every man for himself".

[IntegratedValve]

I did have one lecturer with a scary teaching method of breaking off in mid sentence at the end of a period and the next day carrying on from the same point again. Even if he was in the middle of an equation on the board ( maths teacher) the next day he would ask for the last few lines then continue as if no time had passed. This from a guy who often got lost on his way to his office.......

Since he's a math professor, I think he's trying to show a real life example of the concept of continuity/discontinuity.

[c4757p]

I did have one lecturer with a scary teaching method of breaking off in mid sentence at the end of a period and the next day carrying on from the same point again. Even if he was in the middle of an equation on the board ( maths teacher) the next day he would ask for the last few lines then continue as if no time had passed. This from a guy who often got lost on his way to his office.......

I have had more than one like that, when I was studying math. Must be a math thing..... for some reason, I always fell in love with the quirky ones like that, whether or not they were any good at anything else...

[IntegratedValve]

Well, you can sit there in class with the expectation "teach me", "teach me", "teach me". And if the professor doesn't shove it up your behind you can lament your fate after class, labeling the professor a presenter or pretender or whatever.

Or you can sit there in class with the attitude "lets see what this guy tells me I should know", and after class you go out to learn what you are supposed to know. By, for example, heaven forbid, reading a book. Or two.

In the end doing the second thing works out better for you. Uni is not school. But hey, it is your time and your life. Fine with me if you want to waste it by insisting that professors shove it up your behind.

So I need to go to uni, spend 5 years or so, and pay the price of a new brand house, only to know from a grey haired ar&se professor what topics we need to study, which are already on the TOC of a book, and finally get "F". Wow!

And you come to the class and expect from your students to fill in your "hole" you exposed to them because of pure laziness and poor lecturing skills???

[Stonent]

I want an instructor that you can tell genuinely loves the subject he's teaching.

[IntegratedValve]

I want a professor who has thorough understanding of the subject they teach, and are creative in delivering the concepts leaving no holes to students. Unfortunately but true, they leave many holes we later find in the exams or real life. The latter we can fill with no hurt.

[c4757p]

I want an instructor that you can tell genuinely loves the subject he's teaching.

A thousand times, this.

[pickle9000]

I want an instructor that you can tell genuinely loves the subject he's teaching.

Nice one.

Hey Dave, they are talking about you (and many others on the forum)!

[Stonent]

I want an instructor that you can tell genuinely loves the subject he's teaching.

A thousand times, this.

Some of the worst instructors I have seemed to just be burnouts from the industry that couldn't get a job.
They taught like they were just plain tired of everything about it.