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TOPIC: ISSUE50 - "In order to improvethe quality of instruction at the college and university level, all facultyshould be required to spend time working outside the academic world inprofessions relevant to the courses they teach."
WORDS: 661
Does the quality of instruction, which isgreatly responsible for the competence of students when they step into society,need to be advanced? I think the answer is yes. Since the academic world aswell as the world is changing at a fast speed, instruction, including the wayof teaching and the knowledge to be taught, cannot remain unchanged. Yet, toserve the goal, not all the professors in all fields should spend time workingoutside the campus because of difference among diverse fields.
Instruction, defined as the process ofprofessor's teaching which includes the way of teaching and what to teach,should be advanced through time, since the development of science andtechnology has provided the professors a wide range of better choice to presentwhat they what to teach. Many years ago, professors presented their coursesmainly by text books, which seems insipid to most students, whereas, thanks tothe rapid development in mass media, professors can give students a better viewof what they want to teach, especially in fields like history, by presents repertoryfilms. When it comes to economy, professors can easily construct a graphconcerning the relationship between unemployment and inflation rate by justtyping some data into the computer. Moreover, since the academic world is alsochanging rapidly, knowledge to be taught should also be advanced from time totime. Since the quality can be measured by the way of teaching and knowledge tobe taught, it is necessary to advance the quality.
In some fields which focus on practicalsituations, the quality of instruction can be advanced by requiring professorto working outside the campus, provided that time spent outside is limited. Infields, such as engineering and software, things do not always go as thetextbook has expected, since problems are common when it comes to practicalsituation which is hard to imagine according to knowledge learned fromtextbook. For that matter, effective measures to deal with these problems havebeen developed in commercial companies, for they have to minimize their cost soas to maximize their profits. As a result, it is indispensable for professors,in order to teach students both practical and theoretic knowledge, to spendtime working in such companies to catch up with knowledge developed inpractical situations. Nonetheless, a limit must be cast on time spent, sinceprofessors' spending too much time working outside the campus
may distract their attention from teachingwhich may serve to a negative result.
Although there is no doubt that the qualityof instruction should be improved, effective methods to achieve the goaldiffers among different fields. In fields, such as history and literature,which focus on theoretical researches, holding a frequent colloquium, insteadof requiring faculty in these fields working outside, is more practical andeffective. On the one hand, society outside the campus provides few jobs forprofessors in these fields, in which case not all professors can find a appropriatevacation. On the other hand, colloquia, which gathers scholar in such fieldstogether, may provide precious opportunities for professors who can hardly meetwith each other to discuss and debate, which can facilitate the advent ofbetter theory. And then, professors can teach their students something new,giving students a clear view of new theory in academic fields they work inWorking outside campus may provide practical experience for professors, fromwhich fields that focus on theoretical researches can not benefit. Therefore, bettermethods to advance the quality of instruction vary when it comes to differentfields.
In sum, as the world is changing rapidly,both improvement in technology ,which provides professors a better way toteach, and advancement in academic fields, which requires professor to enlargewhat they are to teach, call for development ing the quality of instruction.Requirement that all faculty should work outside campus are effective in somefields, however, not practical when it comes to all the fields, in which case effectiveways to achieve the goal varies among diverse fields. |
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