Philosophy
The following claim is made on the University of Vermont's philosophy department's website:
I suppose the two arguments in favor of the claim are (1) those who are not up to date in the field will not have the complete sense of the topic when teaching it, and (2) the excitement that comes with mining the edge of a field would be communicated in the classroom, if the questions are live in the mind of the instructor, they will more easily be made live questions in the minds of the students.
The arguments against are (1) undergrads come nowhere close to the edge, so as long as the person has a solid grasp of the field, it is a matter of pedagogical talent and care which has nothing to do with an active research program, and (2) given that there are only 24 hours in a day, it becomes a zero sum game and time devoted to research is time not devoted to teaching and expecting your people to be active contributors to their fields will mean they will not be able to spend that time with students or mining the edge of recent pedagogical advances that would make them better teachers.
So, do you buy the UVM philosophers' claim? Is an active research trajectory either necessary or sufficient for successful college level instruction? Why or why not?
- Dialogical Combobulation
We've been conducting interviews for an open position in our department and Kerry has been asking the candidates how their scholarship relates to their teaching. You can't go through the process and not think about how you would answer the questions...
- Yale Sex Ban
Yale University has banned all romantic and sexual contact between faculty and undergraduate students. It had previously been in place that it was unacceptable between any faculty member and any student where there was ?direct pedagogical or supervisory...
- Is Research Success Related To Sucessful Teaching?
I applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities' pilot program called "Enduring Questions" which funded the development of courses dedicated to enduring questions. My class was called "Can This Class Be Taught?" and asked students...
- Teaching And Teaching Research
A former colleague of mine, Dan Butin, has responded to a column written by Hugo Schwyzer (his blog is here) in Inside Higher Ed. In it, Schwyzer complains about having to sit through an "in-service education day," one of those meetings laced with buzzwords...
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One of my projects for the summer is working on a philosophy of science textbook I've been developing bit by bit for a few years now. It is one of the world's worst kept secrets that textbooks, required for virtually every course, tend not to...
Philosophy
Is There a Relationship Between Teaching and Scholarship?
The following claim is made on the University of Vermont's philosophy department's website:
The Philosophy Department at the University of Vermont is committed to pursuing philosophical scholarship while offering our students the highest quality undergraduate instruction. Our faculty are expected not only to be knowledgeable, but to be active contributors to their fields... We believe that students learn best when interacting directly with professors who are engaged in making philosophical progress.Is there reason to share this belief?
I suppose the two arguments in favor of the claim are (1) those who are not up to date in the field will not have the complete sense of the topic when teaching it, and (2) the excitement that comes with mining the edge of a field would be communicated in the classroom, if the questions are live in the mind of the instructor, they will more easily be made live questions in the minds of the students.
The arguments against are (1) undergrads come nowhere close to the edge, so as long as the person has a solid grasp of the field, it is a matter of pedagogical talent and care which has nothing to do with an active research program, and (2) given that there are only 24 hours in a day, it becomes a zero sum game and time devoted to research is time not devoted to teaching and expecting your people to be active contributors to their fields will mean they will not be able to spend that time with students or mining the edge of recent pedagogical advances that would make them better teachers.
So, do you buy the UVM philosophers' claim? Is an active research trajectory either necessary or sufficient for successful college level instruction? Why or why not?
- Dialogical Combobulation
We've been conducting interviews for an open position in our department and Kerry has been asking the candidates how their scholarship relates to their teaching. You can't go through the process and not think about how you would answer the questions...
- Yale Sex Ban
Yale University has banned all romantic and sexual contact between faculty and undergraduate students. It had previously been in place that it was unacceptable between any faculty member and any student where there was ?direct pedagogical or supervisory...
- Is Research Success Related To Sucessful Teaching?
I applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities' pilot program called "Enduring Questions" which funded the development of courses dedicated to enduring questions. My class was called "Can This Class Be Taught?" and asked students...
- Teaching And Teaching Research
A former colleague of mine, Dan Butin, has responded to a column written by Hugo Schwyzer (his blog is here) in Inside Higher Ed. In it, Schwyzer complains about having to sit through an "in-service education day," one of those meetings laced with buzzwords...
- Textbooks
One of my projects for the summer is working on a philosophy of science textbook I've been developing bit by bit for a few years now. It is one of the world's worst kept secrets that textbooks, required for virtually every course, tend not to...