Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ann Corrigan who wrote (2243)	6/17/2003 9:12:45 AM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 793917

The skill of transferring information to a young mind is almost an instinct. I don't believe it can be learned if one doesn't have the instinct. Well, I have no idea about teaching "instincts" but I've seen an awful lot of college level faculty learn how to teach. And as teaching in the social sciences and humanities moved, over the past decade or two, from stand up lecture to a more engaged format, I've seen a great many faculty members change their teaching styles because they changed their convictions as to how students learned best. We learned by attending workshops, by going to school on colleagues who did it particularly well, and by constant monitoring of one's own style. As for the last sentence, screening methods to identify "instinctive educators", that's an even more elusive goal than trying to measure "learning," and whether a given class/instructore actually contributes to "learning." Mind you I'm not arguing that it's not a good thing to try to determine whether teachers teach well. Just that a lot of work has been done on the issue, it's very complicated (as "they" say), and the jury is definitely still out on how best to do it.