Issue50 sisong2003--Hamming小组作文第十五次冲刺

sisong2003UID: 2154005

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: 496          TIME: 上午 00:45:00          DATE: 2007-2-1
观点：部分同意
1.       为了是教学联系实际确实需要某些学科的老师出去工作
2.       然而有些学科如物理数学则不需要
3.       老师不应该花过多的时间出去工作
Should all faculty be required to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach, as the speaker asserts? I fundamentally agree with the speaker that some faculty should work outside; however the speaker unnecessarily extends this assertion to all faculty.

First of all, in some courses that are close to the real-world such as engineering disciplines, faculty should spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach. In my view, faculty in these courses working outside can bring about two benefits. First, faculty can design the courses according to the needs of real work and make the teaching in line with the social needs. Second, students can further ensure what they should learn in order to meet the needs of practical work. For example, as in the discipline of construction management, students have no idea of what they should grasp before learning some basic knowledge of this course. And the teacher try to give some awareness of the latest construction approaches, skills and even the latest construction machines to the students so as to make them adapted to the real work. In this case, the teacher should spend time working in the construction field so as to acquire the latest professional knowledge to his or her courses.

However, in other courses such as mathematics or physics, faculty should focus on the research of the courses rather than working outside. For example, in the realm of mathematics, new theories and approaches need a lot of time to prove and deduce. Similarly, in the field of physics, new theories needs lots of time in the laboratory to manifest the anticipated fruits. Thus, in the courses such as mathematics and physics, faculty should spend time on the academic research rather than working outside in professions relevant to the courses they teach.

Although whether faculty should work outside depends on specific disciplines, they should not spend too much time and energy working outside in that it might impede the normal teaching system. To our common sense, if faculty spend too much time in the outside work, they might have little time and energy to prepare the courses. As an example, one professor in my school spent too much time in the outside work relevant to his course. Although he made a lot of money and practical working experiences from it, he spent little time in academic research and preparing the courses, and all the students in his class complained about his broken classes. Thus, faculty should spend proper time working outside.

In conclusion, I agree with the speaker insofar as some faculty should spend time working outside, while some faculty in the realm of mathematics and physics should not. To keep abreast with the latest development of science and technology, we have other ways such as take part in the professional academic conferences, read the latest professional journals and refer to the internet.