Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: teaching loads and quality



I'll also answer the original question--how rare!

At Saint Mary's College we carry at 10-12 contact hour load. I both prep
and run labs, although we can get student help to prep (takes more time to
tell them what to do than to do it). My current student load is a 64
student class (3 contact hours)(no graders--by choice since my assignments
don't lend themselves to an undergraduate grader), prep and cover one of the
4 labs for that course (2 hours), and a 17 student class (4 hours) and the
lab (2 hours). This latter class is new this year. No lab manager, no demo
manager. We are expected to have extensive office hours (I'm available
about 20 hours/week ).

I'm quite satisfied and would be willing to do more hours (have done 17-hour
semesters). I'm here because I want to teach and that is both encouraged
and rewarded by the College. That is, while scholarly activity is important
for tenure and promotion, the expectations are that more time is spent in
teaching than in research.

Rick

**********************************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

FREE PHYSICS INSTRUCTIONAL SOFTWARE
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/
PC and MAC software
NEW! SIMLAB2001--AIRTRACKS & BALLISTIC LAUNCHER
CD-ROMs now available
******************************************************

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carter, Tom" <Cartert@CDNET.COD.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2001 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: teaching loads and quality


Hi,

To answer the original question...

I teach at TYC and have a 9 month contract. I have
a requirement of 16 contact hours, teaching a total of
about 40 to 80 students per term. I prep my own labs,
although we have PT lab manager who keeps the lab
organized.

Am I happy/satisfied? Yes, sure. My feeling is your
level of satisfaction depends highly upon your relationship
with your immediate administration. My Dean is not perfect
(he ALWAYS seems to have me teaching 4 hours in a row somehow,
5 days a week), but his heart in the right place. He doesn't
always give me what I want, but I think his decisions always take
the students' education into account. In the short time I've
been here, I've gotten two grants from the college, one to
upgrade labs and another to do an formal study of some PER stuff.