Laughter fills a lecture hall in Young Hall as a lively
professor intertwines witty remarks about the chemical processes
for making beer in an early morning chemistry class.
Analogies like these can ease the pain and hurdles of learning
chemistry for the average college student, making the experience
enjoyable.
But students don’t always have the comforting luxury of
taking a professor who makes complex topics simple and fun to
learn.
Some professors are much more knowledgeable about their fields
than about delivering an enthralling, yet educational, lecture
before several hundreds of students.
Unlike K-12 education where teachers are shaped through a series
of strict enforcements, numerous licenses and mandatory workshops,
teaching at the college level really requires only two things
““ a doctorate degree and notable research.
With no required certification to become a teacher at the
university level, specifically a research university such as UCLA,
learning vital teaching skills is solely in the hands of the
professor.
“It’s hard to make anything mandatory with a
professor. It’s like herding goldfish to get professors to do
something,” said Tim Groeling, assistant professor of
communication studies, in regard to enforcing a teaching-skills
course.1
Groeling, who was a teaching assistant while getting his
doctoral degree at UC San Diego, said his experience of being a TA
taught him the most about teaching.
“TAing is a nice introduction into what you are
doing,” Groeling said. “It’s a good experience
before the job market.”
As a teaching assistant at UC San Diego, Groeling was first
required to not only go through a screening process but also a
series of workshops on how to hold and engage students in a
discussion.
Though there are no specific or universal requirements for
teacher training at the college level, resources are readily
available for those who are looking to improve upon their classroom
skills.
The UCLA Office of Instructional Development, located in Powell
Library, is dedicated to providing instructors with a multitude of
resources from classroom funding to personalized workshops.
Julie-Ann McFann, faculty development coordinator for the
office, works closely with faculty who seek advice on their
teaching through consultations and coaching.
From helping faculty members write effective exam questions to
course organization, McFann teaches professors how to teach on a
more personal level rather than through generalized group
workshops.
“It still flabbergasts us when people don’t know we
exist,” she said. “The hardest part is having
professors be aware that I am here.”
Working with about a dozen faculty members this academic year,
McFann has easily impacted over a thousand students.
Agreeing that a specified course on teaching skills should not
be mandatory, McFann emphasized that universities are starting to
understand that this is a problem, she said.
“(This) is a research institution, not a teaching
institution, so you are going to higher people that are
researchers. Unfortunately, that means more interest is placed on
quality of research, but there are a lot of good professors here
who are passionate about teaching,” McFann said.
But being a teaching assistant or even having stellar
pedagogical skills, though helpful, is not required when the
university looks to hire a professor ““ often times it is
research.
When applying for a high-level teaching position, like an
assistant professor, teaching skills can sometimes linger in the
shadow of a cutting-edge research background, though this trend
varies vastly from department to department.
“If they’re an excellent teacher but a terrible
researcher, they won’t come to UCLA. They would go to a
liberal arts school,” Groeling said.
Still, with an increasingly high number of qualified people to
teach at the university level, teaching skills are something for
which departments are looking in the candidates they hire.
“Imagine two people exactly attractive in research. The
person who is a better teacher has the advantage,” said
Robert Gould, vice chair of undergraduate studies in the statistics
department.
While UCLA favors a strong research background for tenure-track
candidates, Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges and
consisting of 1,500 students, places equal emphasis on teaching and
research, said Ralph Bolton, a professor of anthropology at Pomona
College.
“We don’t put up with bad teaching; (you) probably
wouldn’t get tenure,” Bolton said.
Since Pomona is not primarily a research institute, professors
have more time to devote to the art of teaching whereas at UCLA,
professors looking to get tenure must concentrate on research
first.
“It is expected that faculty are producing research but
maybe not at the same level in terms of amount of research like
UCLA,” Bolton said.
Bolton, who says he runs his course somewhat like the popular
afternoon-time show “Oprah,” said there is an interest
in providing mentoring for new faculty and funds for teaching
conferences, but no training is mandatory.
“When you have reached a certain level of education you
should know what you are doing. K-12 is an education in control at
the local level. One needs to standardize the evaluation process,
and getting credentials is part of that,” he said.
“Professors should know what they are doing. … They have
been exposed to different methodologies of teaching.”
Keeping in mind that different people appreciate different
teaching styles, Bolton suggested that an acting class may be a
favorable choice for professors trying to enhance their teaching
skills.
Becoming aware of the presentation of themselves and learning
effective theatrical devices that students will find stimulating
are some of the benefits of an acting class, Bolton said.
Time constraints and the pressure to publish and conduct
research can also heavily impact the quality of teaching in the
classroom, especially in the sciences.
“In this setting, the reason I think some professors
aren’t as gung-ho about teaching is because there is so much
pressure to do research and publish,” said Marc Kubasak,
part-time lecturer for the life sciences and part-time
post-doctoral fellow.
Kubasak, who was also required to TA in order to get his
doctoral degree, said it was being a teaching assistant that
influenced him to pursue teaching.
Though Kubasak has a strong interest in teaching, he has been
advised to slow down on teaching and put more focus on his
research, he said.
Kubasak also mentioned that at California State Universities
there is a greater emphasis on teaching whereas in the UC system
candidates for tenure are not required to teach that much.
Consideration of teaching skills in comparison to research
background also varies depending on what job title the instructor
is hired under.
Assistant professors looking toward attaining tenure need to
have a strong research background, said Gould. But candidates for
lectures are almost solely hired based on being a good teacher
first and good researchers and practitioners second.
In the statistics department, all doctorate candidates are
required to TA at least once and attend a two-quarter-long seminar
that covers issues like classroom demeanor and an overview of
pedagogical theory, regardless of whether they want to pursue
teaching in the future.
“Our main goal is to prepare students for academia. That
is the assumption we go after. Teaching skills are useful
everywhere,” Gould said.
Gould also mentioned that the difference in mandating
teacher-education courses for K-12 teachers and not for college
level instructors is due to the variability in the students
addressed.
“When you teach K-12 (there is a) public-wide variability
in the sort of students you are handling ““ a lot of that
requires special attention and skill,” Gould said.
“UCLA is the cream of the crop, there is less variability in
learning skills. To get into UCLA you have learned how to
learn.”
Many current professors agree that solely being an expert on a
specific subject matter does not necessarily make you a great
teacher. But many also agree that enforcing courses to teach such
skills should not be mandated.
“In K-12 education there is a lot of growing and formation
of the personality that kids are doing ““ the role of the
teacher at that time is not to just train professionals,”
said Mahtash Esfandiari, a UCLA professor of statistics. “At
college a lot of that growth is done and we have to be sensitive to
other things.”
Being aware that students learn in different ways, motivating
students to take an active role in what they are learning, and
developing a positive attitude while teaching are several issues
Esfandiari said need to be concerns at the college level.
1CORRECTION: In the quote, the word "hurting"
was replaced with "herding," as the source was misquoted.