<p>A recent thread I started and its replies made me think. It occurs to me that we require teaching certifications for instructors from kindergarten through high school, but not for college teachers. As a parent paying two college tuitions I ask Why is that?" </p>
<p>This just doesnt make sense to me. College tuition costs a fortune but a college class can be taught by people with little or no formal teacher training whatsoever. Many students, especially in the sciences and engineering fields are finding themselves being taught by people with no training in teaching. Also, a poor command of the English language seems to be a constant source of complaint. The common solution seems to be; Teach yourself. Thats NOT what I am paying for. And the problem is not limited only to TAs, it is also some professors as well.</p>
<p>People seem to accept it because thats the way it is. To me, something is very wrong. </p>
<p>Why dont we demand teacher certification at the college level?</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer to your question, but I do know that my own daughter, who is a college senior and is just now looking at grad programs (in neuroscience), is interested in some day being a researcher and college professor. She is specifically looking at phd programs which not only require their phd candidates to teach, but she has also found some which provide some training for teaching.</p>
<p>While there is no formal requirement for teacher training, more and more institutions have established faculty development centers to promote teaching and learning. Also, the nationally known academic organization for my discipline has just established a teaching and learning section to promote improvements in this area. I teach in a discipline that requires continuing professional education and while that technical training is important, I find that more and more professional development sessions are focusing on teaching and learning, particularly the use of technology for both web enhanced classes and distance learning offerings.</p>
<p>In my understanding, private institutions in general don’t require teaching certification. My private prep school never required teachers to be certified; if they had, they would have missed some fantastic teachers.</p>
<p>Anyway, good colleges should have continuing education for their professors focusing on teaching and learning about applicable technology, as 2VU says above.</p>
<p>I don’t think actual teacher certification would do too much, though. When my sister became a teacher, she just had to pass a written exam to become certified. The exam was a collection of silly/random questions about geography, the environment, math, etc. It seems like all she had to do was prove that she could pass a test on middle school material in order to be deemed qualified to teach middle school. It’s possible, of course, that I’m mistaken on what she had to do, or maybe the state just isn’t a very good example of what teacher certification should be.</p>
<p>When you go to a research university, the professors tend to focus on publishing and research. Essential to that are the grad students. There are not enough grad students out there who can pay their way through a phd program, and parents are usually tapped out by then, so we, the undergraduate parents pay for them, as they usually get a fellowship and stipend for which they have to teach undergrads.</p>
<p>It can be a real problem. I love the diversity of foreign students, but I deeply resent teaching assistants that are assigned classes without good English language skills, and even worse, no knowledge of the curriculum or of the sequencing or the culture here. Yes, they know the material, but not its context. Also they have no idea how to deal with US students. They don’t know issues that those students may have. It can be a real problem and at current college tuition prices, a disgrace. Something I certainly do not want to support.</p>
<p>I have had kids in both private and public K-12 schools.
The public school teachers have had teaching degrees, although often not in the subject area of instruction. The private school teachers often as not, not only were not " certified", but they didn’t have a teaching degree. ( however they did under go review every few years by an accreditation board of their peers
</p>
<p>While my public school educated daughter, has had some wonderful teachers, she has also had some gawdawful ones as well. Ones that had tenure and were staying till the bitter end, but had lost their way around the classroom a long time ago.
The private school never would have stood for that. They had high standards for the teachers as well as the students- plus no union. ;)</p>
<p>She had a 5th grade teacher, who announced in Sept to the class & parents, that she didn’t teach much math.
What a way to start out the last year of elementary school, with a teacher who admits that they don’t emphasize a core subject & is unapologetic about it.
Thanks.
As a result we had to pay for outside tutoring in math, by an uncertified teacher., to try and make up for what wasn’t getting done at school.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones.
Certification as corranged has noticed has a very low bar-
<p>I teach in a private school and I never took an education course in my life. I have been teaching for over 25 years, and my students do very well in class and on standardized tests in my field. Education courses are very superficial, I have heard from colleagues, and for seasoned teachers, they were a long time ago. There is no “booster” required for re-certification (I think), and certification certainly does not make for a good teacher. There is a compelling argument that certification and the whole tenure system that is in place for public school educators is too comfortable and can lead to complacency and laziness. Certainly not for all. At the end of the day, there are teachers at all spots in the excellence spectrum in both the public and the private sectors.</p>
<p>My son learned about this stuff in his first full-time college year. His physics lab TA was hard to understand, didn’t return assignments, and didn’t run the labs correctly. He complained to the department and someone then did a much better job overseeing the TA but there was time lost in the process.</p>
<p>He had another professor that showed up late for class, was hard to understand and sometimes unprepared. He has terrible ratings on RMP but he produces a lot in the way of research and research is clearly what he loves to do.</p>
<p>And there are a few more stories.</p>
<p>But ultimately the best way is to learn the material yourself with whatever is provided. In the real world, you do deal with people from all over the world that live in different contexts and that can be very hard to understand. You do have to learn a lot of things without guidance or help. And sometimes you have to invent your own solution.</p>
<p>The certification process ensures that there is certain common ground that all there should know. Certainly a good teacher without certification is a gift, a bad one with certification is a curse. In the public school setting, it is important that there is some consistency. Whether the certification adequately covers this is a whole other story.</p>
<p>This thread seems to have veered into two tangents - a discussion of credentials required for college educators and those required for K-12. Colleges and universities are generally accredited by regional accrediting agencies. I believe there are four nationwide, but I am only familiar with SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) which is the agency for my region of the country and which governs both the cc where I teach and the university that my children have attended. </p>
<p>I haven’t viewed the language for faculty credentials since I chaired that area of our self-study 8 years back, but I don’t think there have been radical changes. College educators teaching transfer instruction for freshman/sophomore level courses are required to have a masters degree with 18 hours in their discipline. Those teaching higher level classes are generally required to have a terminal degree in their discipline, generally a PhD. </p>
<p>It is extremely diffficult for colleges and universities to recruit in some disciplines, so problems will occur. Many insititutions try to remedy these through professional development. In recent years at my cc, almost all of the new faculty members in the physical sciences have been foreign born. Our institution is now requiring professional development in teaching and learning as part of the process of moving towards promotion to try to remedy issues related to language problems and teaching effectiveness. I recently attended a professional conference where one of the presenters was the head of the teaching and learning center for his unversity in Michigan. I am under the impression that this is becoming more and more the standard as schools recognize the importance of nurturing good teachers.</p>
<p>The reason so many TAs are foreign (and many of them difficult to understand) is that not enough Americans are going into certain fields. This was discussed on many other threads. And it will continue, and get worse, as Americans stay away from those fields.</p>
<p>While there is no certification for college professors, these folks are expected to be experts in their fields. For full professors with tenure, this means research, publishing, speaking at seminars and conferences in addition to any inservice they might attend in their discipline. Also, many schools require advanced degrees (PhD or equvalent) for those full professorships. We know a number of college professors and it’s not all that easy to get the jobs or keep them. Requirements for college tenure vary from institution to institution, but I personally know two very very fine professors in arts fields…both well known performers in their regions…who did not get tenure because they didn’t PUBLISH articles. It didn’t matter that both had extensive performing experience and that was what they were teaching. Both had PhD degrees.</p>
<p>Most people don’t need a PhD for their career. The PhD itself is the “union card” (certification) for a academic position in colleges and universities.</p>
<p>The issue to me is the sad fact that many engineering students, while paying a fortune to attend college, have to resort to teaching themselves because of poor teaching and/or english skills. Everybody feints concern about the need for more engineering and science graduates but at the same time they ignore the “elephant in the living room”. And I don’t buy the explanation that not enough Americans want these positions. What’s going on in my opinion is a favor economy, where a foreign born professor will select a student from their own country for the TA job and fellowship. A very valuable thing to get. And the favor is then repaid, (not usually with money, but with another valuable favor), overseas. </p>
<p>This has been pointed out to me by several professors who work at large universities, but when they do so, it’s always in private. They know how powerful the PC police are, so they keep quiet about it. It’s happening and it’s a shame.</p>
<p>toblin, there are many smaller colleges/universities where there are no TA’s none at all. DD is an engineering major. She has no TA’s…only faculty. Yes some are foreign born, but none are giving favors to their fellow countrymen…as there are none to give at this school. One of the reasons DD chose this school was that there were no TAs.</p>
<p>Both my sons were accepted into engineering programs at several name brand name research universities that use TA’s extensively. Both decided to attend a smaller school where the focus was on undergrads and all the courses were taught by PHD’s, no TA’s. And in their opinion it has made a world of difference.</p>
<p>I raised this issue because I think it should be a national concern.</p>
<p>My D will begin her PhD program next fall supporting herself as a TA in biology. THere is evidently a one-weekend program at her school on teaching skills. I pray for her to learn something.
That’s one weekend more than I ever got in grad school. I was probably about the worst TA ever. Nervous, newly-wed, no teaching experience. I remember taking students on a day-long field trip and telling them all the cool stuff and then at the end of the day collecting the packets that I had handed out in the morning - and hearing every one of them complain that I hadn’t mentioned that they were for a grade! Oooops!!!Well, why did you think there were questions there?
After all these years, you would think that there would be some better system in place! Give your ideas - what would work better?</p>
<p>professors don’t choose their TAs, TAs are assigned to them by the department. Professors can and do choose their RAs but not according to the country of birth but rather according to ability to do the work required. I’ve never heard of anything you described( favor-wise) but I know that professors do “compete” for obviously talented incoming grad students. Taking a RA just to do somebody a favor is counter-productive.
as for being taught by PhDs rather than TAs…some of the stars in Hs field(math) are notoriously BAD teachers and I do know personally some TAs who get consistently rave reviews from students.</p>
<p>toblin,
I agree with your views if you are saying it’s a shame we can’t attract more Americans to the vocation of teaching, whether at the college level or K-12. It seems as if one of the significantly recurring topics on the Vanderbilt forum is the availability of jobs in investment banking, consulting, and other lucrative professions for graduates. We send signals to young people by how we reward those who work in education and, while there are many positives for educators such as summers and holidays off, the economic rewards are limited for the majority of teachers. </p>
<p>New faculty in my state are being told not to expect retirement health care benefits (granted that is occurring in industry as well) as these costs for current and retired faculty pose significant financial challenges in our state. With the potential for the failure of both the Social Security system and Medicare for the next generation, I hate to blame university graduates for looking for economically rewarding jobs. At professional meetings I continue to hear profiles of the millennial students and how they don’t want to be all work and no play, so perhaps there will be some change in the coming years.</p>