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发表于 2010-3-11 22:00:36
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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: 429
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2010-3-11 11:53:30
Discriminating the past time when faculty prefer to stay in their own academic world, now faculty begin to find more opportunity connecting their academic knowledge to practical world. Undoubtedly, this behavior will enhance the education of the college more or less. But we should notice some academic areas do not exist such outside academia. Moreover, undue emphasis on working outside academia would deteriorate the instruction. Therefore, it is unpractical and necessary to ask for all faculty should work outside the academic world.
Why, people may wonder, should faculty work outside academic? Because the real world experience will bring numerous benefits to instruction, such as promoting faculty’s own knowledge level and teaching students more pragmatic knowledge.
On the one hand, by working outside academic area being related with their professions, faculty could complement knowledge and concrete examples of theory. And many problems have been realized first time in the real life. Then, after someone solve these problems, a new subject appear in the college. For example, several years ago, with the methods of financing, and under the help of using tools of mathematics, computation and the practice of programming, people begin to price assets or securities. Later, the subject financial engineering has been established. Thus, working non-academic being relevant to their majors, faculty often make their knowledge structure more perfect.
On the other hand, students would learn more useful knowledge from their professor’s lessons. Some textbooks have become outdated. And some usually complain even they cannot find a jobs with such old-fashioned knowledge. Thus, the teachers should supplement their classes with more related knowledge in real society as soon as possible.
But, neither every faculty nor every academic field should work outside academic be relevant to their professions. For instance, comparing with engineering research, theory research like theoretical physics and mathematics pays more attention on academic world. The faculty only researching theory emphasizes more theoretical deduction and induction, usually ignoring practical application. In contrast, the faculty of engineering research spends more time in applying the theory to practical needs, such as industrial improvement, financial services, and agricultural products. Thus, except for the faculty who focus on theory research, taking outside academic is beneficial for the instruction. Moreover, in different academic field, the case is also different. For the areas such as humanities, arts and philosophy, it is little difference to work outside or inside academic. Thus, it is improper to require all faculty working outside academia which is related with their professions.
More important, for the purpose of improving instruction on college and university, it is unnecessary to force all faculty attend outside academia. On the one hand, if some faculty waste most of their time for working outside academia and ignore their daily teaching tasks, in this case instruction is not advanced but worsen. On the other hand, there are many other effective methods to increase the instruction quality of high education. With redesigning the education plan, modifying experimental contents, establishing educating evaluation system and educational interaction, instruction could be made better.
Briefly, it is beneficial for improving instruction to encourage faculty working outside academia related with their professions. But, it may not be an effective method to achieve the goal advancing instruction. In addition, not every faculty or every academic area should be adapted this suggestion. Therefore, I suggest that faculty should make a balance between their academic jobs and outside academic on basis of their own situations. |
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