Choose a job you love, and you'll never have to work a day in your life. -- Confucius
My Teaching Philosophy
Teaching is not a business and must not be approached as such. There is a distinct difference between teaching and education. I define teaching as the art and science of delivering classroom instruction. Teaching is every bit as valid a way of participating in one's discipline as performing research is. At the college and university level, there are too many who refuse to accept this.
There are two roles that must be played, that of the instructor and that of the student. Contrary to popular belief and even to my own past experience as a student, the role of the instructor is not to simply stand in front of the class, lecture at length about a topic, and divulge the answers to a barrage of questions about what will be on the next test. The role of the instructor is to provide the student with most, not necessarily all, of the resources needed to efficiently and correctly understand the subject matter. Students must be led to find some resources on their own, and modern tools like the Internet make this efficient, but a traditional library is often preferred. The instructor must also strive to instill a sense of responsibility in the student so the student will want to succeed. Students must come to the instructor knowing that they are expected to put forth considerable effort to achieve their goal of academic success. Students must also be led to set goals and to use these goals as a ladder to success both in their individual courses and in their overall academic program.
The assessment of any instructional model is still the most pressing problem in teaching. The perfect instrument has yet to be developed and even the "educational experts" do not agree on very much. Conventional tests are still the most prevalent instruments used and I have put considerable effort over the past few years into creating more accurate testing instruments. In my experience, the ultimate assessment of whether or not an instructional model has been successful is whether or not the student succeeds in the completion of his or her academic program. One extremely important point must be stressed to students, and that is that the instructor is a highly trained professional just as a physician is a highly trained professional. A student's grade is an instructor's professional evaluation of that student's performance and nothing more. A student's grade is not a negotiable commodity. Unlike a car, it cannot be traded in for another one.
Research has shown that lecturing is the most ineffective form of instruction for the vast majority of students. Despite their resistance to change, students must be led to engage in collaborative activities that show, not just tell, them how science works. Traditional lab experiments are practically useless for such insight and should be replaced by well planned group activities with simple equipment and clear objectives. Multimedia and other technological applications are useful, but they cannot simply be thrown in and expected to work. They must be carefully integrated into the instructional process.
In science, we tend to teach as we were taught. The greatest failure of current instructional physicists and instructional astronomers is to assume that the way we were taught is the best way; it usually is not. Despite tremendous inertia, my main professional goal is to try to change this.
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