At the same time I have to wonder just how committed Princeton professors are to teaching as such: the challenging art of designing learning experiences in light of clearly defined student performance goals to foster enduring understandings in a particular academic discipline.
I am currently training to become a high school mathematics teacher through Princeton’s Program in Teacher Preparation, and it is increasingly clear to me that whatever Princeton professors think they are doing in lecture halls, it is not teaching (I should add the important caveat that I can only speak from my personal experience and that a few of my own professors were excellent teachers).
See if this sounds familiar: A professor walks into the lecture hall, says hello, reads through the syllabus perfunctorily, announces office hours and precept sign-up instructions and then for the rest of the course simply reads aloud from his or her lecture notes, projected on a screen but also available in their entirety on Blackboard. He or she will stop every 15 minutes or so to ask if there are any questions and then, after waiting two seconds in the awkward silence, proceed with the lecture. He or she is usually available after class to answer any questions, but only for about five minutes, as well as by e-mail. Consolidation and assimilation of the material is delegated to the preceptors, who are usually graduate students without any serious pedagogical instruction themselves.
One might be forgiven for thinking that, despite their clear mandate to teach as well as do research, it has never occurred to many professors that teaching is a profession in its own right that can only be mastered through intensive training and study separate from their own research in a particular discipline. The art of lesson-planning for effective teaching involves far more than simply dividing a syllabus into X number of pieces so that it can be covered in the time allotted. The art of lecturing involves far more than simply regurgitating lecture notes and expecting complex ideas to gradually seep in, line by line. Professional teachers are expected to master the current pedagogical literature, attend professional development seminars and think deeply about what kinds of learning experiences will ensure that students walk away with an understanding of the subject matter that will stay with them beyond the classroom and even beyond college and also about what kinds of assessment are most appropriate to the subject matter.
It seems, however, that most college professors think that their job is simply a matter of dispensing content and assigning problem sets, quizzes and end-of-term exams. They seem to think that, when they baldly ask the class if they have any questions, the students have already understood the material enough to ask the right questions (if that were so, and judging by the deafening silence that greets most professors’ request for questions, Princeton students must all have the brain of Good Will Hunting). They do not seem to notice when students come to precept having barely skimmed their assigned readings, armed with verbose, vacuous talking points designed to foster the illusion of critical engagement with the material (I confess I have done this on more than one occasion).
I grant that college is a kind of learning environment in which professors are expected primarily to produce high-quality research in their field and that college students should take more initiative for their own education at this stage in its development. But none of this absolves professors of the responsibility to take teaching seriously. The best professors I have had maintain a prolific writing output as well as designing stimulating lesson plans. There is no reason why the two should not go together: All the research faculty members do is for nothing if their insights and discoveries are not disseminated to the next generation of critically thinking citizens. If I were a professor and I had to choose between writing highly technical articles to be published in journals with a readership of a few hundred at most or seeing that flash of understanding on the face of one of my students because I took the time to make my lessons effective and memorable, I would take the latter without a moment’s hesitation.
John David Walters ’09 is from Thessaloniki, Greece. He can be reached at jdwalter@princeton.edu.
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