Issue50 考前10天第一次模考，求建议 by ieyangj08

ieyangj08UID: 2743219

TOPIC: ISSUE50 - "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."
WORDS: 600     TIME: 00:45:00    DATE: 2010-2-18

Imagine a situation that there are two teachers you can choose from to a course in next semester: professor A is replete with related working experience, and often tells his own interesting story in class, to give students more information on course’s content; professor B is a traditional college teacher who in class often reads the book and sometimes writes on the blackboard to explain his viewpoint. Which one will you choose? Yes, when meeting the issue whether college teachers should have some related career experience, I see with the author and hold the assertion that they should spend certain time working outside in areas relevant to their courses.

To begin with, a teacher with ample related work experience will make his or her class more vivid and interesting than the one without. In our college classes, to avoid boring and dull, teachers always give examples to illustrate the abstract theories in class. Additionally giving examples is also a good way to explain one's idea, and if the examples are proper the listener will understand the speaker’s viewpoint more quickly. Besides several classical events of historical figures, personal events of their own are often used as examples by university teachers in their classes. If a teacher is handing with some practical issues related to the course in corporations, he/she would give more examples of this working experience, thus make his/her course more interesting and vivid.

In addition, teachers without relevant working experience can hardly talk clearly the applications of knowledge. University education will not only teach students some theories, but also the applications and values of these theories. After all knowledge reflects its values only when it is used to solve practical problems. Although through reading work records and talking with experienced works, college teachers can also tell some stories about applications of knowledge in class, these descriptions are empty and dry, for they are only repeating someone’s experiences. Unless one experience one thing by himself/herself, he/she can’t talk it with affection. So students will only view it as a usual part of the class, and will not resonate with the author. For instance, in one my logistics information technology class, my teacher was talking a new technology in logistic, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). If he only gave some common use of the technology, such as express checkout in supermarket, and inventorying warehouses, I would not have remembered it so deeply. Instead, he gave us a true story about his work on planning and designing RFID system for a factory warehouse. He described it with full enthusiasm and gave some detailed of the work; all of us students were fully absorbed by his story, and had a deep impression of this technology.

However, if teachers in college spend more time on working outside, it will also do harm too, at least it will influence their normal teaching. After all one's energy is constant, if his/her spend more on one thing, his/her will certainly spend less on other things. Teachers are no exceptions. Another bad effect we must aware is working outside might take teachers’ attention away from teaching. As we all know many companies give more wage to lure college teachers to work for them. If our professors are trapped, and think making money is more important than teaching, their course quality will definitely be influenced, so our college graduates will have a bad education, which is a serious matter for our society.

To sum up, I partly agree with the author that teachers should work outside in some related works, whereas the mount of work can't be too much.

意见多少均可，先感谢大家了！