bluebayou

It counts as zero, I believe.

dstark

Bluebayou, I agree with you about classes where the students talk about a subject they know very little about. Hate those. I would rather hear the expert any day.

But as far as TAs go, I was kind of hoping for more than I believe. I would like to know what is.

ThisCouldBeHeavn

When I visited UCSD, one other parent asked the Math Department Chair whether any classes were taught by TA's. He explained that some were, as a service to the TA (resume?).

hawkette

Dstark,
Maybe you don’t understand what can go on in a small classroom with a talented professor. When done right, it’s magical and a materially different (IMO better) learning experience than a lecture in front of hundreds of students.

Why such a great experience? Not because it’s a performance by the “expert.” No, just the opposite. Put a talented group of students together with a talented teacher and you have the opportunity for a participatory learning process that stretches your brain, sometimes challenges your assumptions and lets you know if you have the intellectual talent to keep up…or not. Think Oxford tutorial teaching in a classroom of 15 really bright students.

The best teachers have knowledge, but they also know how to impart it to their students and take them along on the journey. The best professors actually know how to engage their students, get them involved in the discussion, help suggest various avenues of discovery, allow the brilliance of some students to emerge while recognizing the blowhards and limiting their contributions. And sometimes the professors, too, learn something in the discussion. The best professors may often have large egos, but they also have the common sense to know that all of the intelligence in the room does not begin and end with them.

You may want to hear an expert give a speech and that’s fine for you, but I strongly suspect that most top students would greatly prefer a small class with a talented professor and a sharp group of classmates. And as for the expert’s speech, put it in electronic form on the internet and let me access it on my schedule. God knows it’d be a lot cheaper for the school to deliver it that way… and probably a lot cheaper and efficient for the student to access it as well.

dstark

Well Hawkette, I know you do, but I don't want to listen to a bunch of people talk about stuff they don't understand. In some subjects small classes work and some classes they don't.

Small classes help students present their ideas, learn to speak, form coherent arguments, and bull@@@@ well too. And those are great skills to have.

I had some excellent small classes but I also had so me excellent large classes. If you prefer small classes, that's fine.

I know there are other people that agree with me. Maybe because they told me. Then again, maybe they were lying.

So whatever a person wants. There are thousands of schools out there and even in individual schools you can get different class sizes. To each his own.

Can you explain the data you posted about TAs to me? How is the TA teaches percentage of classes taught measured?

hawkette

Enjoy your large classes and send me the internet link. And also a MUCH lower tuition bill. Thanks.

The TA data is from USNWR.

dstark

Well, there is a class online about Game Theory taught by a Yale professor. I enjoyed it. I haven't watched it all the way through yet. Maybe if you search the parent's thread you can find it. That's where I found it.

I know where the data is from. How did USNWR get the numbers? How was the percentage of classes taught by TAs measured. I doubt UCSD has 0% of its classes taught by TAs. Somebody in this thread doubts it too.

dstark

By the way, Stanford has some large classes. I thought that was one of your favorite schools. Why don't you talk more about Lacs?

I like Stanford too.

CCillinois

Just because a class is small it doesn't mean it is going to be like your high-school english class with 2 or 3 girls annoying girls that won't shut-up. Small classes are not always a small social group with students talking half the time.

bclintonk

No, hawkette. Sorry. I've got to blow the whistle on this one. I think any reasonable person, looking at the data you present, would have to conclude that the answer "N/A" to the question "what percentage of your class sections are taught by TAs" is electing to answer, "I'm not going to tell you, because I'm embarrassed by the answer." And that includes most of the top private research universities, as well as a surprisingly large number of publics. Among CHYMPS-level schools, only P, Y, and S answered. P's answer is demonstrably wrong; they said 0%, when in fact almost all grad students at P earn their graduate fellowship "stipend" by working as "preceptors," which generally means they lead one small discussion section per week in a larger lecture class taught by a professor---exactly the same function performed by the grad students traditionally known as Teaching Assistants (TAs) and now known as something like Graduate Student Assistants (GSAs) at a school like Michigan. Here's what Princeton's political science department, for example, tells its entering grad students about their teaching requirements:

Where I come from, that's called a TA. The difference is that Michigan honestly calls those small discussion groups "sections" and admits they're taught by grad students. So, Princeton having basically falsified (or "tweaked," to use the polite term) its data to appear in a more positive light, that leaves Stanford (6%) and Yale (9%) as the only credible CHYMPS-level schools in the bunch. And I maintain that, unless you can produce better data to the contrary, we should assume the rest of the CHYMPS-level schools have numbers comparable to S and Y. If the true number is zero or something close to it, why wouldn't they just tell us?

Is 6% or 9% so different from 14%, the Michigan figure? Yes, there's a difference; but it's pretty small. Granted, Michigan is much lower than many publics. But it's really, really cheap and intellectually dishonest make the argument that 1) the average for publics is higher than the average for privates, and 2) Michigan is a public, therefore 3) a school like Michigan should be lumped together with all the other publics and dismissed as offering an inferior education---when in fact Michigan's number is much closer to Yale's than to the schools that are bringing up the publics' average. Yes, Yale's 9% is less than Michigan's 14%. A discerning applicant should take that into account. But a discerning applicant will also not be misled by the phony sort of "all publics are the same" argument you routinely make on these pages. They're not; 14% is a world away from 25%, or 27%, or 30%. And 14% (Michigan) is far, far closer to 9% (Yale) than it is to 25% (UNC-Chapel Hill) or 27% (UIUC) on this score.

dstark

Bclintonk, you're wrong. USNWR is the authority when it comes to education and data. And when we read the data from USNWR, we can only conclude that it is accurate. To conclude any other way, we're just hating on the messenger.

So Princeton has 0% TAs. USNWR says so. Same with UCSD.

And don't forget inaccurate data is better than no data.

I don't think Wake Forest is 0% either.

This is from the physics department.

http://www.wfu.edu/physics/grad-program.html

Most students admitted to graduate study in physics receive financial assistance. For Fall 2005, teaching or research assistantships are $16,000 for 10 months. All students receive a supplement of $1500-$2500 for summer research. Thus the total annual assistantship support is $17,500 for teaching assistantships and $18,500 for research assistantships. In addition, all physics graduate students receive a a full tuition scholarship. In addition, upon matriculation each student receives a new IBM thinkpad computer with a full load of general and scientific software - see below.

Exceptional entering students may be awarded a Graduate Dean's Fellowships at $19,000 per year (12 months) for the first two years, plus a tuition scholarship.

Teaching assistants are expected to do about 12 hours of work per week each academic term, consisting of introductory laboratory preparation/instruction and paper grading.

rogracer

Hawkette...The "magic" you are referring to makes perfect sense in small classes in the humanities. It makes far less sense in STEM classes at the introductory level where "discussion" is really nothing more than "asking questions” in order to get a grasp on basic materials….a necessary prerequisite before meaning interchanges can occur. The magic occurs in advanced classes...usually graduate level...or in research with professors where we are trying to accomplish something new and innovative. Metrics on average class size have little meaning for this type of magic.

hawkette

Rog,
I hear you and agree that there is some validity to your point. But if you accept that there is really very little value-added by a small number of students for an introductory class, then why even bother having the class? Why not just dispense with the live action altogether! Record it and put it on the internet (and lower the cost of tuition!).

Also, while there is a lot of interest on CC for STEM, the reality is that 80+% of the classes taught in American colleges are not STEM.

bluebayou

Guys:

I think you are blaming the messenger (hawkette) here. If I recall, the USNEWs' definiton of TA running a class is just that, a TA running 100% of the course, i.e, with zero Prof involvement. (Hawkette do you happen to know where the instructions are for the form?) Thus, if a TA runs a discussion section while the Prof gives the lecture, the correct answer is zero, bcos the Prof is in charge. (Don't forget that some/many of those discussion sections can be "optional".

I know nothing of UMich's teaching style but at UCSD (and all UCs, btw), TA's run few if any courses; those might be foreign language one, or Writing 1 if the college is overloaded with Frosh who need "Bone Head" English and runs out of adjuncts, or optional PE. (Granted, publics may have a lot of adjuncts, but those are not "TAs". Heck, adjunct english instructors might even be better for Writing 1 since they can focus on the task at hand and not worry about publishing.)

So, I disagree with the assumption that "NA" means we are too embarassed to report our numbers...

As an example:
UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering

rogracer

Hawkette..I don't really think we dissagree at all. Class size is important for some, not for others...and that is why american universities have evolved the way they have..NRUs and LACs have their advantages, and class size is but one example. Regarding your point regarding internet learning, I would still maintain that live questions in, say, a Calc II class, are an important part of the learning process...and I certainly wouldn't want to give that up. It is true I am highly biased toward STEM in my comments.