Do Doctoral Programs "Teach" Teaching Skills

Question,

I know that traditional doctoral programs have some sort of teaching component, whether its required or not, to prepare faculty for teaching in academia during their programs as well as after.

Do part-time/distance doctorates have any components in their programs similar to that? Like Nova or Walden for example. I know Argosy had a Special Topics in Accounting course that they offer occassionally that focuses on teaching Accounting. Or at least I think I saw it on a schedule of courses.

Do you think doctoral programs should not only teach research skills but prepare students to teach in academia. For me I have taught as an adjunct before so I have teaching experience, but for those that don't.....

Just curious...

 

Absolutely! I was fortunate in my own aborted doctoral study several years ago because my TA assignments were exclusively teaching undergrad classes on my own, not serving as a factotum for "real" faculty.

Now here's the poignant beauty part of your post: there is a doctoral programme which explicitly requires extensive pedagogical preparation. It's called the Doctor of Arts: rare, endangered, beautiful.

A seminary I dislike intensely calls one of its programmes a DA, but there's no pedagogical requirement--therefore they misrepresent the programme in question and know blerrie well that they do.

But the real DA has an association (NDAA) which promotes awareness of the Doctor of Arts degree. Would that their tribe increase!

Wistfully yours,
Janko the Mad Priest

 

ITA w/Steve

I have had some horrible professors myself.

 

While getting a Masters degree, I closely watched every professor's teaching style, knowing that I might need to use their methodology someday and I found several different styles, to include:

• Going through the entire textbook and having students write essays about certain topics. Also answering the questions at the end of the textbook. Only one graduate level professor used this methodology, but it's common at the undergraduate level. Nonetheless, it's a good way to start off teaching if you're new to it.
• Assigning several different books or long articles to read about pertinent issues in your field of study and having the students write reaction papers ranging in length from 3 to 5 pages. The students must be prepared to tell the rest of the class about any of the 10 or 12 articles that they were assigned to read and then the floor is open for classroom discussion. This can take a long time.

I'm in too much of a rush so I can't go into more methods, but they are out there. The second way to learn how to teach is to actually do it because you will learn by trial and error. You'll learn what's popular and what's not, etc.

 

Most doctoral programs, even those that have a high number of graduates go into the professorate, rarely, if ever, offer any coursework or training in teaching methods, pedagogy or instrucitonal design (unless the doctorate is in one of those areas). Most doctoral coursework tends to lean towards advanced subject matter knowledge, research methodology, statistics and, perhaps, applied projects. Coursework dealing with how to transfer one's knowledge to a novice learner is pretty much absent from most doctoral programs.

Many programs do allow doctoral students to teach a course or two (usually at the undergraduate level), however, graduate teaching assistants rarely, if ever, receive any training at all in how to teach the subjects.

Fortunately for me, most of my teachers in grad school were quite good (though not all of them). I attribute that to good hiring processes at the three schools in which I did my masters and doctoral work. In 18 years of working in higher ed, I have seen my share of lousy professors.

 

In a perfect world, yes. In reality, it rarely happens. A professor on the PBS documentary "Declining by Degrees" said it best, "I don't get paid to teach, I get paid to do research, so why should I bother putting much effort into it?"

Also my favorite quote, "A university is what a college becomes when they stop caring about teaching."

 

I like that quote Edowave about when a university becomes a college.....

The fact that someone says they get paid to do research so why should they put much effort into teaching is disheartening....but I can tell through experience that's how a lot of profs feel.

Although I enjoy research somewhat, my focus is on the teaching. Actually I wouldn't mind teaching at a community college again which is where I got my start. I know some may say well why then are you getting your doctorate, you can teach with your background and your MBA. But getting my doctorate is also a personal goal for me as well.

 

Re: Re: Do Doctoral Programs "Teach" Teaching Skills

Tony is absolutely right, in my experience. I have seen few schools give even a rump course in teaching methods to their graduate students.

Many schools, however, do have a distinction between Teaching Assistants and Teaching Fellows. TAs assist regular faculty and learn very little about teaching. TFs usually teach courses of their own. often with virtually no supervision. Sort of an OJT experience. Some programs I've seen require doctoral students to do a stint as TFs in order to graduate. Some offer "how to" workshops or courses in teaching methods. Both of these examples are quite rare, I think.

I once took a course from Frank Moore Cross in Old Testament. He had a TF as sort of an assistant instructor. He taught badly--very badly (quoting long passages to us in the original Ugaritic, for instance)--for about a month, then promptly traipsed off to a dig in the Middle East, leaving his TF to finish the course. It was like a breath of fresh air, since the TF was quite a good teacher and cared about doing it.

marilynd

 

Me again,I read your post with some interest probably for the same reason you took notes on your professors' teaching styles. I'd like to do some teaching myself some day. When you have an opportunity, I'd enjoy reading what else you have on your list.

 

I don't know how you "know" that - in fact the reverse is true.

Many PhD's are highly unskilled teachers.

 

Thanks for the terminology clarification, Marilyn. I forget which I was--somehow "wage slave" was the usual job description. But I taught 9 or 10 courses solo and took courses in the education department on the side.

Those courses were mostly uninspiring but I got some value out of them, if often only by negative example! (If I'd been smart I would have done them at Northeastern Illinois where our revered Tony Pin~a teaches--cheaper and far better ed courses, I later discovered!).

I would urge any doctoral student whose programme does NOT include instruction in teaching to take the time and spend the cash to get some courses in pedagogy/andragogy. At minimum, find out who gets teaching awards or high student ratings (in the latter case, keep a sceptical eye!) at your university--NOT just in your own field--and go watch them do their thing. Talk to them about method.

 

Touro offers voluntary 'graduate assistant' teaching opportunities.

How true! I would only add that this holds true in both the traditional and online setting. I remember a PhD in Oceanography spent the entire class time writing down facts on the blackboard. Sadly, for a subject that I had such high hopes for... I was bored to tears.

Susanna