Apr 13, 2023·edited Apr 14, 2023Liked by Chad Orzel
So much to say here. We were classmates at Williams (I don't think I've ever commented, so I have no idea what identifying data shows up here, dcat, or my full name or whatever) and I am a History professor.
The thing about the research informing teaching idea is that while potentially overblown, it is research that keeps me on top of new work in various subfields that my research and teaching straddle. When I am working on a new book I realize the vastness of the literature that I thought I knew that I don't, and that can help immeasurably with especially advanced undergrads and grad students, but also in tinkering on the margins in my survey. I also think we are in the business of creating and disseminating knowledge, and research is important that way as well. Historiographical interpretations and gap-filling happens with greater frequency and volume in History than in many disciplines I suppose (history being everything that has ever happened anywhere, so there are a lot of gaps, to be flip about it).
A second point -- I DO think the "most professors have not been exposed to pedagogy" is way overblown. To emphasize your point -- most of us are pretty good at modeling behavior. Did I ever learn how to write a syllabus? Not precisely. But as an undergrad, MA student, PhD student, and TA I saw dozens and dozens of syllabi. If you get your first solo teaching gig, they don't have a template, and you are clueless? Doesn't some of that fall on you? Ditto getting a sense of what assignments work. Hell, my models are oftentimes still what I saw at Williams, albeit scaled down, since from my freshman year on I was basically taking grad seminars four classes a semester. And frankly writing lectures and discussions is ALWAYS trial and error. When I first taught I wrote out full-blown lectures. My survey lectures were 250 pages long. Now I go from an outline a fraction of that size, but I can only do that because of years of practice, of growing subject expertise, of growing confidence, and of an ability to improvise and recall and do all of the things that, I'm sorry folks, cannot be taught.
Finally: The "professors can't teach" nonsense is and always has been overwrought. Every one of the best teachers I have ever had save one was a PhD with little or no teaching training. And I had them for all of my degrees, whether from Williams or a research university. I have had bad teachers as well. But one of the worst was overtly not only trained in higher ed pedagogy, but that was literally their thing. I'll just note that at universities with Education Schools, those professors are not regarded as being any better at teaching than the rest of us.
Yeah, hard agree with that second-to-last paragraph. I'm a grizzled veteran of lots of physics/astronomy teaching conferences, and they're rewarding for me personally because I'm interested in getting better and trying out new things. I teach at a CC, though, so I'm not pretending to straddle two professional paths -- teaching really is my primary focus, and should be. I encounter lots of people, though, who (I say cynically) chase gimmicks in the hope that it will short-circuit the real work so they can get on with other professional interests.
There's an element to this as well that educational research informs teaching even more than "traditional" research informs teaching. And if one keeps abreast of the literature in all aspects of their work, they'll know what they can implement in their teaching just as much as what they can do in their research. (Also, teaching professors do a good amount of this educational research, so it would actually be detrimental to academia as a whole keep them from doing research in addition to teaching!)
Very much agree that the source of (professors who see themselves as primarily) research professors teaching badly is that they don't want to be doing it -- but if you have someone who isn't teaching very well, doesn't want to be, and would very much like to be left alone in order to do more research, what do we gain from forcing that person to teach anyway, even if the primary job of the university as a whole is to teach students? That's like saying "the primary purpose of the robotics startup I work at is programming robots, not admin tasks like making sure everyone has health insurance and keeping the fridge stocked, so our PeopleOps person [0] should have to program some robots, too" -- obviously we don't do this, because our PeopleOps person isn't good at programming robots and doesn't want to be, whereas I would immediately quit out of frustration if I had to spend literally any amount of time on the phone with health insurance companies on my work's behalf. It's okay for an institution that does multiple things (teaching and research) to have people who specialize in one or the other.
My case for hiring teaching-only professors and letting research professors not teach if they don't want to is mostly that I went to MIT, which does this: the CS department has a number of people with the job title "lecturer" teaching (mostly introductory) classes. Most of the lecturers whose classes I took cared *a lot* about making their class the best possible version of itself -- like Adam Hartz, who developed and supports the CAT-SOOP LMS [1], now used by over half the classes I took in undergrad that had homework that required writing software, and almost all of my lab classes. (I used it from the instructor side as a TA, too, and I can see why it's so popular -- for the specific types of classes it's designed for, it's really, really good.) There are also a lot of professors who both do research and teach classes -- even surprisingly big names teaching surprisingly low-level classes -- because they love the subject, care a lot about the class, and want to make it the best class it can be. (Maybe this drive for continuous improvement is more visible in EECS, which is a comparatively recent field where the introductory curriculum *isn't* very strictly codified and there's a lot of room for experimentation.) I'm not sure it's possible, or productive, to try to inspire that sentiment in researchers who don't want to teach and resent that it's taking time away from research.
[^0]: All startups past a certain size have this one person, who is in charge of everything that doesn't have to do with either working on the product or begging for more money. Their job title varies, because they are the office manager and the receptionist and the HR person and the benefits coordinator and the person who orders snacks for the company kitchen; this doesn't matter because there is only one of them and everyone refers to them by first name. This person is nearly always female and at sufficiently small startups may be the only woman there.
So much to say here. We were classmates at Williams (I don't think I've ever commented, so I have no idea what identifying data shows up here, dcat, or my full name or whatever) and I am a History professor.
The thing about the research informing teaching idea is that while potentially overblown, it is research that keeps me on top of new work in various subfields that my research and teaching straddle. When I am working on a new book I realize the vastness of the literature that I thought I knew that I don't, and that can help immeasurably with especially advanced undergrads and grad students, but also in tinkering on the margins in my survey. I also think we are in the business of creating and disseminating knowledge, and research is important that way as well. Historiographical interpretations and gap-filling happens with greater frequency and volume in History than in many disciplines I suppose (history being everything that has ever happened anywhere, so there are a lot of gaps, to be flip about it).
A second point -- I DO think the "most professors have not been exposed to pedagogy" is way overblown. To emphasize your point -- most of us are pretty good at modeling behavior. Did I ever learn how to write a syllabus? Not precisely. But as an undergrad, MA student, PhD student, and TA I saw dozens and dozens of syllabi. If you get your first solo teaching gig, they don't have a template, and you are clueless? Doesn't some of that fall on you? Ditto getting a sense of what assignments work. Hell, my models are oftentimes still what I saw at Williams, albeit scaled down, since from my freshman year on I was basically taking grad seminars four classes a semester. And frankly writing lectures and discussions is ALWAYS trial and error. When I first taught I wrote out full-blown lectures. My survey lectures were 250 pages long. Now I go from an outline a fraction of that size, but I can only do that because of years of practice, of growing subject expertise, of growing confidence, and of an ability to improvise and recall and do all of the things that, I'm sorry folks, cannot be taught.
Finally: The "professors can't teach" nonsense is and always has been overwrought. Every one of the best teachers I have ever had save one was a PhD with little or no teaching training. And I had them for all of my degrees, whether from Williams or a research university. I have had bad teachers as well. But one of the worst was overtly not only trained in higher ed pedagogy, but that was literally their thing. I'll just note that at universities with Education Schools, those professors are not regarded as being any better at teaching than the rest of us.
Yeah, hard agree with that second-to-last paragraph. I'm a grizzled veteran of lots of physics/astronomy teaching conferences, and they're rewarding for me personally because I'm interested in getting better and trying out new things. I teach at a CC, though, so I'm not pretending to straddle two professional paths -- teaching really is my primary focus, and should be. I encounter lots of people, though, who (I say cynically) chase gimmicks in the hope that it will short-circuit the real work so they can get on with other professional interests.
Good piece, Chad!
There's an element to this as well that educational research informs teaching even more than "traditional" research informs teaching. And if one keeps abreast of the literature in all aspects of their work, they'll know what they can implement in their teaching just as much as what they can do in their research. (Also, teaching professors do a good amount of this educational research, so it would actually be detrimental to academia as a whole keep them from doing research in addition to teaching!)
Very much agree that the source of (professors who see themselves as primarily) research professors teaching badly is that they don't want to be doing it -- but if you have someone who isn't teaching very well, doesn't want to be, and would very much like to be left alone in order to do more research, what do we gain from forcing that person to teach anyway, even if the primary job of the university as a whole is to teach students? That's like saying "the primary purpose of the robotics startup I work at is programming robots, not admin tasks like making sure everyone has health insurance and keeping the fridge stocked, so our PeopleOps person [0] should have to program some robots, too" -- obviously we don't do this, because our PeopleOps person isn't good at programming robots and doesn't want to be, whereas I would immediately quit out of frustration if I had to spend literally any amount of time on the phone with health insurance companies on my work's behalf. It's okay for an institution that does multiple things (teaching and research) to have people who specialize in one or the other.
My case for hiring teaching-only professors and letting research professors not teach if they don't want to is mostly that I went to MIT, which does this: the CS department has a number of people with the job title "lecturer" teaching (mostly introductory) classes. Most of the lecturers whose classes I took cared *a lot* about making their class the best possible version of itself -- like Adam Hartz, who developed and supports the CAT-SOOP LMS [1], now used by over half the classes I took in undergrad that had homework that required writing software, and almost all of my lab classes. (I used it from the instructor side as a TA, too, and I can see why it's so popular -- for the specific types of classes it's designed for, it's really, really good.) There are also a lot of professors who both do research and teach classes -- even surprisingly big names teaching surprisingly low-level classes -- because they love the subject, care a lot about the class, and want to make it the best class it can be. (Maybe this drive for continuous improvement is more visible in EECS, which is a comparatively recent field where the introductory curriculum *isn't* very strictly codified and there's a lot of room for experimentation.) I'm not sure it's possible, or productive, to try to inspire that sentiment in researchers who don't want to teach and resent that it's taking time away from research.
[^0]: All startups past a certain size have this one person, who is in charge of everything that doesn't have to do with either working on the product or begging for more money. Their job title varies, because they are the office manager and the receptionist and the HR person and the benefits coordinator and the person who orders snacks for the company kitchen; this doesn't matter because there is only one of them and everyone refers to them by first name. This person is nearly always female and at sufficiently small startups may be the only woman there.
[^1]: https://catsoop.org/website/docs/about