Issue50 求拍 有拍必回~

mobius.x64UID: 2628671

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."

Outline:
* 大学教育的目的在于empower the students with life skills that enable them to contribute positively to society, 特定课程的教授内容不应与现实生活脱节, 教师的教学外社会实践经验无疑是确保其课程设计能反映现实社会的需求的基础. 例子: 哈佛商学院的案例教学
* 但大学的主要功能仍然是理论教学活动而非实践培训, 课堂教学仍是人才培养过程中最基本最关键的因素和环节, 由此教师必须很好平衡对二者的资源分配, 例子: 哈佛医学院的”外块限薪”; 过分强调实践经验的作用很可能会把大学课堂变成高级职业技能培训班; 某些理论性课程可能根本没有对应的实际职业, 例子: 哲学类课程.
* 结论.


In the quality conscious 21st century, good college education is mandatory to hold a position of respect or professional recognition. In many professions, this education is indispensable for specializing in particular field. Then instruction with good quality becomes the expectation of students and the target of enhancement of teaching faculty. Considering the profession-oriented property of college and university education, to some extent I agree with the statement of improving the quality of pedagogy by the faculty man’s work outside academy. However, this limitedly feasible step should not be expanded to a common norm for all faculty arbitrarily without consideration of disciplinary differences and the balance between that two different tasks.

Let's get started from the purpose of education at college or university level. Among various debates I approve that the very purpose of college education is to empower the students with essential life skills that enable them to contribute positively to society. Most students should be prepared for their career as soon as possible after the graduation. To achieve this goal demands pertinence to practical affairs apart from the theoretical instruction in the courses. And teachers should be careful in the course design for the consideration which approach is more capable of equipping the students with essential skills for their future professions. It is obvious that a teacher with sufficient practical experience will be more suitable for this important task, and the natural way of increasing this experience is to demand teachers spend time on practical works relevant to the course outside the campus. Take the famous "Case Method" teaching in Harvard Business School as example, the pedagogy requires professors with extensive practical experience to simulate a real case, provoke class participation with questioning and guidance and help students to place themselves to the role of decision and give recommendation finally. For this objective, professors are allowed to take part-time jobs in management level of external companies and organizations one day per week to enrich management experience. This practice advantage ensured the success of case teaching indubitably. So, for those applied subjects like management and industrial engineering, the practice outside the academic do bring about quality improvement of instruction expectably and is reasonable as a requirement for relevant teaching faculty.

This requirement, nevertheless, is inapposite for those fundamental subjects like mathematics, history and philosophy. The primary reason lies in the diversity of disciplinary characters, study patterns and methodology. Differing basically from the application-oriented subjects, fundamental subjects involve considerable highly abstract researches. Theoretical analysis and logical reasoning contribute more to the basis of these disciplines rather than experimental methods or applicable technologies, and the classroom teaching by lecture is more effective for learning. The favorite professions of students who participate in the course are more like theorist other than working for material production. There is even no corresponding profession for some fields based on purely abstract achievements. Except for publishing papers or books, what is the relevant practical work for a cosmology professor? Fundamental subjects benefit little from the requirement of taking relevant work outside the academic world.

In addition, the external working will certainly take up energy of faculty which never be increased with the quality improvement. Teachers have to balance their resource distribution on both sides cautiously to avoid possible conflict between class teaching and practical working. College is primarily conceived to be a place to bestow wisdom and enlightenment, not a training center for business world. Education and vocational-technical work are vastly different missions, and professors should never forget their role of academy. Even in the Harvard where practical experience is highly valuated, the research hospitals of its medical school cap the outside pay of officers who also sit on the boards of medical or biological companies, as the response to the growing criticism of the ties between industry and academia. That means the benefit of taking work outside can never be amplified unlimitedly.

To sum up, the proposal of requiring faculty to spend time working outside academic world for the purpose of improving quality of instruction is actually feasible within certain strength limit and certain area of disciplines, but not perfect for all faculty to implement. The method for improvement varies from one subject to another, and every teaching faculty is supposed to carry out the independent project of quality improvement according to disciplinary attributes rather than get constrained under a universal framework that disregard the difference.

jackshenyangUID: 2357190

。。。。。。我觉得你的文章达到满分水平啊简直！。。。不管是语言还是结构我觉得基本都无敌啊。。。学习了！！！！不过我觉得 work outside academic world可能不只是值校外的工作，校内的行政工作我觉得应该也可以考虑，所以我觉得你在讨论的时候可以提及一下，呵呵。。。。再看看自己的文章。。。惨不忍睹啊    我只能硬着头皮考试去了 。。哎   我就争取issue拿个3分吧。。。=，=