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Quality of teaching in UCD (and probably most universities)
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It means means I've a first class honours degree in Actuary, passed professional exams in the relevant area, published in top ranking journals in the research area and am about to wrap a PhD in the area... so fairly sure I can teach basic data analysis and econometrics.
But where's your qualification? Or are you saying you're so intelligent that you don't need one?0 -
Also, to address the OP...
I'm sorry to hear of your recent experience, luckily I've only had great lecturers so far in UCD.
One or two in particular were amazing. This probably sounds ridiculous but sometimes you can almost feel the aura of intelligence around some truly great lecturers, some of them just ooze it. I particularly love the ones that have a zest for their subject, so much so that they get really excited at various points in their lectures and want their students to get the same feelings about the subject as they have.
Lecturers like that are really inspiring I think.0 -
SparkySpitfire wrote: »But where's your qualification? Or are you saying you're so intelligent that you don't need one?
I'm saying that to tutor a course, or be a TA, if your'e doing a PhD in a relevant area you really don't need to do a course on teaching skills to present solutions to questions and answer any queries students might have. It's not needed.
These posts have gotten a bit OT in all honesty. Tutors were brought up in relation to people complaining that it's postgrads who give tutorials. Of course it is. That's the way it's always been. Tutors, in reality, are there to present solutions to questions and help with students with any problems they may have. The lecture covers the theory, students are then to attempt and put the theory into practice by answering tutorial questions, and then the tutors present the answers and help with any problems students may have.
And IMO I don't need to do a course on teaching. I know the stuff, I use many of the techniques day in and day out, and have to explain the methods in conference talks and papers, so no I don't need to do courses on "how to teach", and nor would I take the time out of my research to do such a course given I don't intend to lecture.0 -
And IMO I don't need to do a course on teaching. I know the stuff, I use many of the techniques day in and day out, and have to explain the methods in conference talks and papers, so no I don't need to do courses on "how to teach", and nor would I take the time out of my research to do such a course given I don't intend to lecture.
I thought the same but really there is a world of difference in teaching and writing up solutions on the board.
I don't think its up to you anyway as long as the lecturer has the lecture outcomes organised the job is half complete.0 -
I thought the same but really there is a world of difference in teaching and writing up solutions on the board.
I don't think its up to you anyway as long as the lecturer has the lecture outcomes organised the job is half complete.
From speaking to other tutors and from personal experience, one of the biggest issues is the lack of feedback from students. We can put the solutions up on the board, go through them and ask if anyone has a question or an issue, but if you just get blank stares, and a refusal to ask questions it's pretty hard to help people.
It's almost like students are afraid to ask questions. You could ask "Does everyone know how we got this?", get blank stares and so ask "Okay, so who doesn't know how we got this or who needs a hand?" and just get blank stares. I'm not saying all students are like that, but a lot are. I don't know if it's a fear of being considered a "lick-arse" or what, but there's not much your tutor can do to help you if they don't what the problem is, and I think the same can happen in lectures. Students definitely need to be more focal in the classroom, and that's not to say "ask a question for the sake of asking a question", as can happen in some situations.
I had a situation were I showed students how to solve a problem, gave them extra information, went through the question in detail 3 times. Then went around the class and said "okay can you do this?" to which I got the reply "no, I was just copying from the board". If you don't follow something, just say "I don't follow it", chances are your'e not alone.
Whatever about lectures, with tutorials I really do think you'll only get something significant out of them if you put some work in yourself.0 -
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The thing about just answering prepared questions on a tutorial sheet is that generally there is very little scaffolding in the questions. Students have to make big leaps to understand the problems. This is especially difficult for those fresh out of secondary school where much of their learning would have been scaffolded to an extent. Obviously now that they are in college the learning methods have changed however with first years I do think there could be a little bit of an attempt to give them a small period of adjustment.
The quiet classroom is one I have been in and it generally means they don't have a clue what is going on therefore there needs to be some engagement. This puts a little extra work on the tutor by having other stuff prepared but for first years I think it would be suitable.0 -
The thing about just answering prepared questions on a tutorial sheet is that generally there is very little scaffolding in the questions. Students have to make big leaps to understand the problems. This is especially difficult for those fresh out of secondary school where much of their learning would have been scaffolded to an extent. Obviously now that they are in college the learning methods have changed however with first years I do think there could be a little bit of an attempt to give them a small period of adjustment.
The quiet classroom is one I have been in and it generally means they don't have a clue what is going on therefore there needs to be some engagement. This puts a little extra work on the tutor by having other stuff prepared but for first years I think it would be suitable.
Literally, answering the questions line by line with reference to the theory covered in lectures, explaining how it's transferred is as detailed teaching as most tutors can really afford to give students. First years or not, spoon-feeding them isn't really the answer and I think it's unrealistic of people to expect tutors to be mind readers. We cover the questions and topic in detail, if students don't ask questions when they should then you cant blame that on the tutor. It's uni and adulthood, they have to some responsibility for themselves, and I think that's fair.
EDit: And it's not just first years, I've witnessed it at masters level0 -
Literally, answering the questions line by line with reference to the theory covered in lectures, explaining how it's transferred is as detailed teaching as most tutors can really afford to give students. First years or not, spoon-feeding them isn't really the answer and I think it's unrealistic of people to expect tutors to be mind readers. We cover the questions and topic in detail, if students don't ask questions when they should then you cant blame that on the tutor. It's uni and adulthood, they have to some responsibility for themselves, and I think that's fair.
Yes I agree. This would be an example of good realistic tutoring.
People are complaining about those who fail to do this. My gripe was about the lack of language skills by some economic tutors which is a long way from this.
The OPs gripe was about a disorganised lecturer. You sound like a very good tutor POSSY so I wouldn't take any heed. Its the same when teachers get criticised because of negligence and other teachers think its a slight against them when really it is not.0 -
Just getting back to the OP, I'm going to give my opinion on each of his points:
I enjoy my course in UCD. The lecturers are generally hugely knowledgeable and can direct me towards the correct books when I ask. Nevertheless, I largely enjoy it because I love the topic and I love studying on my own. In reality, I don't need to be taught most of the course as I can work it out myself but I do need people to contact when I'm stuck. I attend because 1) marks are given for attendance, and 2) I will get an idea of what the lecturer puts importance on and therefore what should be on the exam.
Personally, I really dislike the idea of marks for attendance, stinks of grade inflation, which I feel is a bit of an issue.
However, the distinct and abiding impression I get from them all is that lecturing is an inconvenience, a necessary part of their paid employment. I imagine most universities, being primarily research centres nowadays, have a similar set of priorities where teaching is at the very bottom.
You're right.
At the moment we're doing a very difficult topic and I'm more conscious of the almost complete absence of structure, guidelines, course aims and targets on the part of the lecturer. I'll get on top of it eventually by reading up on my own but I'm just acutely conscious that the lecturer arrives in class unprepared, disorganised and with nothing printed and nothing to guide us on Blackboard or elsewhere. The lecturer is sound personality wise, but consistently disorganised and unprepared - a lesson in how not to teach. This is a very well established lecturer who has international expertise in his area, but has never been taught how to teach. I find this shocking, and the priorities of UCD are to blame largely. More shocking, however, it that this is the norm. Usually, the lecturer is self-absorbed (understandably) in his narrow area of expertise but as a result unacceptably lacks empathy with his/her students in his/her role as a lecturer. Empathy, a sense of how students see things, a sense of how alien the subject can be, is essential to be a good teacher.
Like in any profession, there are people who aren't suited to one aspect of the job, this one being teaching. I think it can be a bit like a good doctor with poor bedside manner, it isn't a focal point of his job but it would be better if he was better at it.
Often, our 'lecturer' is some postgrad student who is untrained in teaching and paid cheaply - accordingly, he/she is structureless and chaotic and winging it, as no doubt senior members of the department told them in order to offload the relevant classes on to them while they continue researching with the vague promise of greater things to the young postgrad. That exchange is very much how things operate here when it comes to the quality of teaching, and it's definitely not unique to UCD lecturers.
Due to budget cuts and hiring freezes there has been extra pressure put on teaching staff, as 6% of academics have left with no replacement. We could debate the reasons for the university's poor funding all night but it's fair to say in my opinion, it's a combination of the states contribution to third level fees and the recession.
I think you are possibly being unfair on the lecturer. Most likely, it's an advanced (toward end of) PhD student who is possibly unfunded and also interested in become a lecturer. It's the first Ive heard of it to be honest. I'd highly doubt that it's a masters student anyways. And when it comes to promises of bigger things or references, your'e seriously overestimating the importance of "is a good teacher" would be on anyone's CV. It truly doesn't matter for academic jobs, besides the ITs were in many cases you won't be lectured by a PhD holder.
In a nutshell, for all the changes UCD has made, it still has not taken seriously the need to make teachers out of the researchers which it recruits. UCD simply gives teaching jobs to researchers and calls these people "lecturers", and the student paying fees to UCD for an education gets the untrained result as his/her teacher.
UCD, and the other unis, don't now, nor have they ever hired researchers to be teachers. Teaching ability isn't considered when hiring or for promotions.Is there any hope that UCD can begin putting a serious emphasis on raising the quality of teaching here?
No. UCD has fallen out of the top 100 global unis, as TCD have fallen out of the top 100 also. The emphasis will be on climbing the ranking tables. This will require better/more publications (with a reduced academic staff) and increased funding. The reason we need to be in the top 100 is to attract top caliber researchers and foreign funding. If anything, less emphasis will be put on teaching, and students will probably have to pick up the slack for themselves. In saying that, students don't have to come to UCD or any other uni for third level education. ITs were set up specifically with teaching in mind. There's a thread somewhere about this and I think it really gets the point about the difference across. Universities are now, and forever will be, research institutions. The ITs are teaching institutions.0 -
This is a very well established lecturer who has international expertise in his area, but has never been taught how to teach.
But these are lecturers, not teachers? Different skill is it not? Surely the idea is that they share expertise/research and at University level it is personally directed learning after that? Is that not what you meant when you said you didn't need to be taught?0 -
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You have to appreciate differences in hands on requirements across the disciplines. Clearly you're approaching this from a commerce/ humanities viewpoint.In saying that, students don't have to come to UCD or any other uni for third level education. ITs were set up specifically with teaching in mind.
As a former student of a clinical discipline (veterinary medicine), I can assure you of my experience that a failure of skilled lecturers to teach in an applied manner leads to graduate and employer frustration with the quality of teaching; there is a legitimate perception of academics abandoning teaching in applied disciplines where teaching is actually important... sometimes that is the opinion senior academics themselves, in my experience.
I have to say I find the self-conciously pompous references to ITs in this thread a little un-necessary.
Personally, I regret the increased incorporation of the medical, nursery, physiotherapy and veterinary schools into UCD that followed on from the closure of their satellite, even only 'symbolically' independent constituent colleges at Earlsfort Terrace and Ballsbridge. In many instances, these satellite campuses once operated like ITs. And may have been the better for it.
I cannot speak for all disciplines, but I imagine a similar feeling may easily be felt by students of other applied disciplines like agricultural science and architecture.
Don't lump all students into your humanities bracket. Personally, I'd have been more than delighted for my course to have been taught in an IT, were the quality of teaching to be improved.
I'm not enitrely convinced that the people who pour the most money into UCD; students and taxpayers, are deriving a proportional benefit in light of the highly mediocre quality of research that seems to be churned out, as perhaps implied by increasingly mediocre University rankings.0 -
Similarly crappy experience myself in life sciences. No interest in you as an individual. All caught up in publishing papers and political hobnobbing..
But they get away with it remember. Why bother when your job will never be challenged even if you are crap?
A typical irish situation.0 -
You have to appreciate differences in hands on requirements across the disciplines. Clearly you're approaching this from a commerce/ humanities viewpoint.
As a former student of a clinical discipline (veterinary medicine), I can assure you of my experience that a failure of skilled lecturers to teach in an applied manner leads to graduate and employer frustration with the quality of teaching; there is a legitimate perception of academics abandoning teaching in applied disciplines where teaching is actually important... sometimes that is the opinion senior academics themselves, in my experience.
I have to say I find the self-conciously pompous references to ITs in this thread a little un-necessary.
Personally, I regret the increased incorporation of the medical, nursery, physiotherapy and veterinary schools into UCD that followed on from the closure of their satellite, even only 'symbolically' independent constituent colleges at Earlsfort Terrace and Ballsbridge. In many instances, these satellite campuses once operated like ITs. And may have been the better for it.
I cannot speak for all disciplines, but I imagine a similar feeling may easily be felt by students of other applied disciplines like agricultural science and architecture.
Don't lump all students into your humanities bracket. Personally, I'd have been more than delighted for my course to have been taught in an IT, were the quality of teaching to be improved.
I'm not enitrely convinced that the people who pour the most money into UCD; students and taxpayers, are deriving a proportional benefit in light of the highly mediocre quality of research that seems to be churned out, as perhaps implied by increasingly mediocre University rankings.
No ones being pompous about ITs. Just pointing out that a university's main focus is research where as ITs, along with other third level institutions such as NCI and Griffith College are premised on being a third level teacher focused system. Its not a slight on those institutions at all, it's merely recognising that the two institutions are different.
No ones advocating poor teaching, they are just pointing out that the main purpose of the university is research and with the way the global rankings have gone as of late, research will be given a higher priority than undergraduate teaching.
You also seem to underestimate how much funding the university's get from private institutions. Yes UCD has fallen in the rankings, particularly since the start of the recession, but it's fair to say the universities in Ireland are underfunded when compared with international counterparts.0 -
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My background isn't commerce or humanities, it is industry focused quant. finance/ mathematics research.
With all due respect, you're missing the point I was making, which was not primarily about what category you feel your subject fits into on a broad level.
My point was that you were involved in the commerce faculty, where students can, quite often, derive their knowledge from online and library materials.
And that in applying your own experience alone, you're ignoring that a great many students do not have the same background. Veterinary and medical students cannot learn to analyze, diagnose, suture, bandage, operate and anaesthetise by looking it up in a book. Physiotherapy patients can ill afford to be subjected to physiotherapists who learned therapeutic techniques via online tutorials. These are applied skills, and similar applied skills are required by the other disciplines I have mentioned in agriculture, science and architecture, where lecturers must often be teachers - perhaps up to 50% of the time.
Students and taxpayers pay quite a lot of money for good quality teaching in the disciplines that I have mentioned. To suggest that UCD is not a teaching institution and that these students should teach themselves applied skills, often requiring many years of training, is totally out of touch with reality.
We need to focus on quality teaching and quality research in the correct proportion. A lot of the research pursued at UCD appears to be utter waffle, much like the defence of UCD as a research institution in this thread.0 -
I graduated from UCD's Engineering department about a year back, and while I think most of my lecturers did care about how well they taught, I have to agree with the negative comments made by other people in this thread. UCD's standard of teaching is poor, and it's much poorer then it was in the past (My father recently retired from there, and can testify to it). I think it's because UCD has been forced by society into being something that it isn't.
In the past, only a small proportion of the population would ever attend a University, the Universities only trained a small number of undergraduates, mostly with the idea of training up the next generation of Academics; who would then go on to contribute to the Universities primary concern (Research!). There is nothing wrong with this.
Today, however, everyone is going to University, because they are told that a University Degree is far more valuable then anything else. The issue is, most people are not looking for what Universities are geared for. They're looking for training, while Universities only goal is knowledge. This mismatch causes many people (and I'd include myself in this category) to be paying for something that they didn't want. Money is a big part of this. The University receives €8000 per student per year, in the form of government and student tuition payments. For a student body of 20,000, that amounts to €160 million. UCD isn't about to turn away all that money, even though they know that they're not offering what those students want.
Further to that, University Education as we see it in UCD is a relic of a bygone era. When my father began teaching Mathematics in the 70s, the only place to find anything he was teaching was in the heads of the world's academics, or in the books stacked in University Libraries. You needed to go to a University just to get access to all this knowledge.
With the internet this is no longer true. I only attended lectures because I was never told what the exact syllabus for any course was. If I had been given such a thing, then I probably would have never gone to class and just learned everything online. As it is, 3/4 of what I put down in exams I learned from Wikipedia. Lectures were conceived in a time before the internet, before even the Xerox Photocopier. The only way to disseminate knowledge was to have someone stand on a podium, read his notes, and for the others assembled to dutifully write it all down. That's why it's called lecturing. With the advent of the internet, this is all a complete waste of time, and student and academic time could be much more efficiently spent in other ways.
Finally, the stuff that is taught in most University courses is no longer cutting edge. I can't speak for other disciplines, but the first 3 years of my course were occupied with subjects where the facts have been well established for at least 50-100 years. Rather then take up the valuable time of Academics, it would be better for everyone involved if these subjects were taught by dedicated Teachers, rather then Academics, who will most likely be quite lazy in teaching something so basic. Academics should instead focus on subjects that are cutting edge, where only a smaller number of people in the world are expert. For instance, rather then teach basic Thermodynamics, they should focus on Quantum Thermodynamics. With the amount of teacher training a Secondary school teacher receives I could be teaching 15 times more thermodynamics classes then the average lecturer, to smaller class sizes, with greater time and attention given to each student.
In fact, I'm pretty sure that if we decided to really tackle this, we could be teaching modern 4 year courses in under 2 years, at a fraction of the cost to the student.
People are only continuing to support this antiquated system to get a prestigious name on their CV. Eventually Employers will realise that the name doesn't mean much(and from what I've heard this is already the case in many places), and when students and parents realise that Employers don't care, I can only imagine the Universities will have a rude awakening as their classes shrink and the money from tuition disappears. Universities already have to compete with free (will people still pay the University when they do all their learning on Udacity and Coursera?), what will happen if they have to compete with higher quality education focused institutions?0 -
That is a fantastic post. I couldn't agree more re: the lecturing paragraph.0
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" For instance, rather then teach basic Thermodynamics, they should focus on Quantum Thermodynamics. "
"In fact, I'm pretty sure that if we decided to really tackle this, we could be teaching modern 4 year courses in under 2 years, at a fraction of the cost to the student."
For physics and mathematics that is naive. You may as well say to teach special relativity before classical mechanics, or calculus before addition.
Students always wish to go on to learning quantum mechanics early, but the fact is without about 2-3 years of rigorous mathematics, you cannot (at a level of a 4th year, at least).
"People are only continuing to support this antiquated system to get a prestigious name on their CV"
Ad hominem.
"As it is, 3/4 of what I put down in exams I learned from Wikipedia"
As we are friends, it is worth mentioning for the innocent bystander that you did not do well in said exams! One could certainly not use Wikipedia 3/4 of the time for a mathematics and physics degree!
For physics and maths, at least, the standard has gone down. You can tell by past exam papers. I think it is likely due to departments getting funded by the amount of students in them. Easier the course, more attractive for lazier students.
This has happened in at least three modules which I've been in, students complain about the level of difficulty and it gets put down, and it is primarily due to their own laziness.
I've seen good lectures leave for better universities, or stop teaching courses, just due to this.
I posit the only way it will change will depend on how universities are funded. With fees going back up I doubt parents are going to fork out 5000 a year for their kid to do a *insert your favourite stereotypically useless degree*.
It would be interesting to have data on:
Degree completed and Job Entered.
If all theoretical physicists go into english literature, should the public fund theoretical physics degrees?
If all vets go into vegetarian culinary arts, should the public fund vet science?
If some mathematicians go into finance, there is an overlap with the maths they need, so it is justifiable.
(I am giving ridiculous examples to try to avoid my horrible bias)
I believe this would be a decent way to stop the whole "more money going to easy courses" theory, if that is the primary cause of our lowering standards.0 -
" For instance, rather then teach basic Thermodynamics, they should focus on Quantum Thermodynamics. "
"In fact, I'm pretty sure that if we decided to really tackle this, we could be teaching modern 4 year courses in under 2 years, at a fraction of the cost to the student."
For physics and mathematics that is naive. You may as well say to teach special relativity before classical mechanics, or calculus before addition.
Students always wish to go on to learning quantum mechanics early, but the fact is without about 2-3 years of rigorous mathematics, you cannot (at a level of a 4th year, at least).
I think you're missing the point he's making - he's not saying that Physics 101 should be all about Quantum Thermodynamics, he's saying that top tier academics shouldn't be teaching Physics 101 - they should be teaching final year and higher courses in things like Quantum Thermodynamics, where there actual research interests lie, and letting trained and qualified teachers handle the simpler stuff.0 -
Thank you, Raphael. Sorry for my misconception!
That's an interesting idea (unless the top tier people do it by choice).0 -
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"As it is, 3/4 of what I put down in exams I learned from Wikipedia"
As we are friends, it is worth mentioning for the innocent bystander that you did not do well in said exams!
I had to lol at this. So much for the university of Wikipedia!
I like the idea of basic, introductory and foundation material being taught by properly trained professionals with an interest and focus on teaching and learning, leaving the top academics to get in with the research and publications.0
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