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Hi all-Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV> 10/02/01 10:25AM >>>
I am afraid that the situation you describe is typical of the problems
facing any physics instructor at any level. The university folks have to
publish or perish, and in the scramble to do research and publish they
usually ignore the quality of teaching. The TYC people may be overburdened
with course work. The high school people have an even heavier load, and
often have no guidance on how to improve their teaching. Often HS teachers
are simply so exhausted after handling balky students that they have no time
for reflection.
The administrators generally do not have a clue as to what constitutes good
instruction. They, like the general public, think that the rough courses
must have better value. This has escalated to the point where HS books are
practically sold by the pound. The fact laden books are equated with higher
quality, and more rigorous courses. In reality, as more material has been
added the quality of understanding has decreased, and the immediately
forgotten short term memorization has increased. At least you are not
burdened by "professional development". The HS people have to attend
mandatory inservices which are universally regarded as useless. This
perception has been confirmed by research. Despite this, the pretense of
improvement by attending inservices (professional development) continues.
At the same time while the public has bought into the idea that a rigorous
course is better, each parent believes that his son or daughter is soooo
special that it is your fault when they fail. The studies done AZ state
show that the lecturer is irrelevant in the typical physics course, so it is
actually the student's efforts that count the most.
That being said, there are certainly bright spots. Some people at the TYC
and HS level have managed to do physics education research and improve their
teaching. In Houston we have Tom O'Kuma as a shining example at Lee
College. Now that some universities have physics departments doing PER
research, there are opportunities available for education minded faculty.
The information about how to improve the educational process is available in
a variety of publications, and at the AAPT meetings.
The trapped feeling is extremely high at many educational institutions, as
most instructors tend to be isolated. This is very extreme in HS where
teachers spend all of their time with students and never manage to have
profitable discussions with other teachers. I would recommend attending
some of the AAPT meetings even if you have to pay for them yourself. Try to
make contact with like minded instructors. Form a network that you can use
to discuss issues, if only by E-mail. Read about the current innovations,
and you might be able to make some changes that would increase
effectiveness. For example if you feel you must do away with homework, you
might use one of the web assignment services. Some simple changes such as
using Peer Instruction methods by Mazur see http://galileo.harvard.edu can
improve quality with very modest effort on your part. Quality instruction
does not require more effort, just learning how to use the research results
in your teaching. This means some extra effort at the beginning, but
sometimes less effort later on.
In all fairness, I think that the administrators and supervisors really
think they are doing a quality job. It takes time and persuasion to
convince them that there is a better way. They have a paradigm that does
not coincide with yours. To change things you need hard evidence of the
problems. This requires pre and posttesting with a standard evaluation of
students to show what they are really learning. Paradigms take a large
amount of effort to shift, but it can be done. You could even use pretests
to show that students coming into your class are not benefiting by previous
classes. Hake used such an indirect measurement to infer that HS physics
courses are only getting about 10% gain in conceptual understanding. Armed
with the evidence you might be able to make headway.
I realize this does not solve the problem of too many contact hours. You
might be able to dig up some evidence to show that the quality of student
understanding decreases when the instructor load increases over a certain
value. I have never seen such results, but they might be out there. Try
JRST (Jour. of Research in Sci. Teach.) You might try an ERIC search. Good
Luck.
John M. Clement
Houston, TX
Hi.
I'd be interested in knowing what the teaching loads are among
list members. At my institution, the official load is 18-21
contact hrs per week, but our administrators force us to carry
the high end of that range. We're supposedly docked in pay if we
drop below 54 hrs over three semesters (i'm on 12 months). The
other physics instructor at my school is also our division
chairperson, and his load is only 10 contact hrs per week.
Don't these pea-brained administrators understand that quality
suffers one you hit the 18 hr mark? This semester, I'm pretending
to teach four different courses and I'm doing a rotten job with
them all simply because I'm in the classroom more than I'm in my
office. On Mondays, I have class from 9am till noon and from 7pm
till 10pm. Tuesdays are a marathon of labs from 9am till 4pm with
a one hour break. Wednesdays are like Mondays only the evening
class is over at 9pm. Thursdays are easy with a class from 9-11am
and Fridays are another three hour marathon from 9am till noon.
After doing this for nine years (just started my tenth),
I've come to the conclusion that I cannot grow professionally
under these conditions. We're discouraged from any true
professional development (no funds for travel, etc.). We're
discouraged from engaging in any research. The only advancement
at my school is, in the administration's eyes, moving from
faculty to administration. Over 50% of our courses are taught by
part-time instructors, one of whom had been stealing from our
chemistry lab and lies about his credentials. My boss (the other
physics person) blows me off as a complainer when I tell him I'm
concerned about the quality of my teaching under these
circumstances. His most recent response (last Friday) was that
complaining about it won't help; he ignores the most serious of
concerns. He has no intention of attempting to change anything.
The really galling thing, though, is how our institution boasts
about "quality in the classroom". Empty words! There can be no
quality with such high teaching loads. I've already had to do
away with homework assignment
I'm trapped and I don't know what to do. No one at my instutition
seems to give a damn anymore, and I see no end in sight. I take
far too much pride in what I do to be "trapped" in this situation.
Is anyone else in this situation?
Cheers,
Joe
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