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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."
今天起晚了 头晕 写完了才理清思路 限时失败 唉~~
Should the professors be required to spend some time in the academic fields relevant with their own studies? My answer is an emphatically yes. For it is more likely for the faculty to give effective instruction and show the students a different angle to see their own fields. However, it is improper to require all the faculty to work on the courses relevant to their own field.
A professor with knowledge in relevant academic field will give the students instructions more effectively, and make the students more willingly to learn. It is a common situation that the students are required to learn some courses which seems irrelevant but actually crucial to their own academics. For example, the students of biology should learn about math, physics, and chemistry, but most of them just think math is boring and irrelevant to their study, and are less likely to study hard on math. While not until later when they truly do research themselves will they be aware of the importance of math. But, if there were a professor who know about the using of math in biology science, things will be different. A professor in the math department of our university is considered to be one of the best teachers of our university, for his knowledge in relevant fields. When he gives lessons to students from different academic field, he will choose relevant examples and illustrate how math is used in their fields. By his instruction, the students know about the crucial role about math, so they willingly study harder, thus save their later time to study it again. To the analysis above, it is clear that with the knowledge in other academic field, a professor will be more effective in giving instructions in their own field.
Providing the relevant knowledge in other academic field, the professors can offer the students a new angle to perceive their own academic field, and prevent them from being restrained by the narrow focus of their own field. Different academic fields are divided by man, and their boundaries are not as clear as people thought. Because the world we are living in is actually full of connections. The divided of academic fields break some connections in some sense. And people need the knowledge of other fields to help them better understand the phenomenon of their own field. In a geographic class, the teachers need the knowledge in physics to explain the formation of hurricanes; in a biology class the teacher need knowledge of chemistry to elucidate how life come about; in a history class the teachers need knowledge in arts to illustrate the Zeitgeist of a time. Since the world functions as a whole, people need knowledge of relevant field to better understand their own field.
However, acquiring all faculty to spend some time working outside their own academic field and learn about something in relevant fields is improper as well as impossible. The energy of an individual is limited and the time of life is short. If people spend their time on more fields, it is quite natural that the depth of their knowledge will be sacrificed. In that sense, we should call for a balance, a balance between specialists and generalists. The generalist to give common instruction to the students, while the specialist to help the students to deepen their knowledge and understanding.
All in all, every academic field is just like a link in a chain. The professors with deeper knowledge in one field help the students strengthen their own links, while the professors with broader knowledge keep the chain a chain. |
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