[i习作temp] Issue 50 求建议 [复制链接]

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电梯直达

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发表于 2009-8-10 10:06:05 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

50. In order to improve the quality of instruction at the college and university level, all faculty should be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach.

The speaker claims the importance of spending time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to courses that faculty of college and university teach to improve their quality of instruction. I agree with this statement if teachers take proper outside work.

Change is the big challenge of education. The pace of academic progress is so quick that knowledge contained in recently published textbooks often lags current development. Such rapid change is happening because of the development technology and science. Information and skills that an individual may learn or “possess” become outdated quickly and the person becomes obsolete as discussed during the recent lectures. The new NMC has included such change as part of its vision. Teaching computer or IT could be a typical example where the rate in which subject content changes is extremely high due to the technological improvement. It would be useless to teach a particular computer program say Microsoft Word in itself if by the time the pupils leave school the program learned will be changed, outdated or scraped out from the supermarket.

Therefore, practical working experience in the non-academic world relevant to their major will improve the faculty’s understanding of the courses they teach. If the responsible faculty hopes to provide students with not only book knowledge but also latest information relevant to this field, he needs to own some practical working experience. With the working experience, faculty would make their study direction clear and could adopt more scientific research methods. On the other hand, faculty who lack this kind of experience are short of competiveness with others who own both academic and non-academic experience. Above all, the practical working experience will a precious treature from which the faculty will benefit lifelong.

Moreover, working experience in relevant professions puts college faculty in a better position to help students adjust from campus to job market. Today most students care more about their future careers, therefore, they hope that they can receive much information from those people who they trust and respect—especially those college faculty. The faculty should not only teach their students book knowledge, they also have the responsibility to guide students to choose their future. For example, faculty with practical working experience can tell the students in specific professions in which area they can better present their talents. The faculty could also share their precious experience with their students so that the students need not to waste time exploring themselves in the future. Thus, the working experience in relevant professions benefits both faculty and students.

However, going too far is as bad as not going far enough, meaning redundant outside work may do harm to instruction. Faculty who spend too much time working outside the academic world might lose their proficiency in academic field, in which case the loss is much greater than what they gain. A professor’s major lies in his academic world, and practical working experience is intended to assist his professional study. Faculty should make this point clear, otherwise those working experience would be nothing but a barricade on their way to success.

To sum up, the statement is reasonable and applicable, both faculty and students will benefit if the advice is adopted. However, there is a qualification that faculty should spend proper time on outside work.