Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 29, 1995, edition 1 / Page 2
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2 Wednesday, March 29,1995 TEACHING FROM PAGE 1 Teaching the Basics While lauding the overall quality of education at UNC, the report states that some students graduate without attaining all the basic skills the General College program is designed to teach. Some courses fail to encourage the development of basic skills, the study reports. “Although the current general education program is based on the premise that all of its courses will devote some attention to developing the core skills of reading, writing and speaking, individual courses seldom encompass all of these skills.” Conover said the three components of teaching at UNC faculty, students and program structure shared the responsi bility for inadequacies. Students might not be aware of and interested in the general education goals. And faculty might not be devoting adequate effort to teaching basic skills, she said. “It could be that faculty are dedicated to teaching but are not necessarily focused on teaching all the necessary skills.” Also, the program could be structured better and should convey its goals to faculty more clearly, she said. “The goal is that the skills and the learning of those skills will be more emphasized throughout (students’) undergraduate edu cation,” Conover said. Evaluate Work in the Classroom ~ Several sections of the report recommend changes in how faculty are evaluated. “The idea is to make it more geared toward improving teaching and making teaching better,” Gless said. While students rate their professors at the end of most courses, faculty do not monitor one another’s teaching as consistently. Procedures and frequencies of evaluations vary between depart ments and programs, and tenured professors tend to be evaluated less often than newcomers .Peer reviews—which the report calls necessary for accurate evaluations often are not included. “In the absence of peer review, many faculty believe that their teaching has not been seriously evaluated,” the report states. The report recommends that the University require compre hensive evaluations of all instructors every five years that include reviews by peers ar.d that focus on improving teaching. 1- White said some faculty might resist attempts to conduct more frequent and comprehensive evaluations. “We have a certain number of tenured deadwood on the faculty who wouldn’t like being evaluated at all,” he said. But White said most faculty would welcome evaluations as long as they were not conducted so often that they interfered with research. “Most of the faculty here are hard-working and feel that if they’re evaluated, they have nothing to fear because they’re doing a good job.” ... And Reward Coed Teaching The report also expresses concern that while “most faculty regularly engage in a variety of activities to improve their teaching,” praise of teaching is not sufficiently public or explicit. Teaching awards and informal praise help emphasize the impor tance of good instruction, but some faculty still believe that “there is very little attention and reward given to good teaching. ” “UNC should encourage chairs and senior administrators to offer, in creative ways appropriate to their situation, greater public endorsement of the value of teaching, greater public recognition of excellence in teaching, and greater public com mitment to the improvement of teaching,” the report states. The report also suggests that UNC grant permanent budget increases to the Center for Teaching and Learning, which helps instructors improve their technique. Center resources include workshops on teaching and publications designed to spread information about improving teaching. Conover said extensive use of the center demonstrated faculty commitment to teaching. “I think the record at the Center for Teaching and Learning is evidence that faculty at all ranks can and do make the effort to learn about teaching,” she said. The University can also encourage good teaching by revising the faculty incentives system to better recognize and reward teaching outside the classroom, the report states. While many faculty and graduate students contribute large amounts of time to activities like the supervision of senior theses and the oversight H It's LunchiSiiieS <:R& j! Henderson Street 1 f , Bar & Grill ! J Your favorite bar is now your favorite grill! \ l\ Mon.-Sun. 11 am-2 am Open 364 days a year! fll y, 108 Henderson St. All ABC Permits 942-8440 y Nutrition Facts Serving Size 1/2 cup = 4 fl oz (80-90 g) NONFAT LOWFAT ..NONFAT W/ NUTRASWEET® Calories 92-110 90-110 60-88 Calories from Fat 0 15-20 0 Total Fat %DV* 0 2-3% 0 Total Fat g 0 1.5-2.0 0 * Saturated Fat g 0 1.0-1.2 0 Cholesterol mg ~ 0 MO CM Sodium mg W 72 35 : 60 40 : 80 Total Carbohydrate g 21-22 15-22 11-17 Dietary Fiber %DV* 0-2% 0-1% 0% Sugars g 16-18 14-17 3 Protein g 3-4 ~ 2-3 Vitamin A 0-4% Vitamin C 0% Calcium 6-10% Iron 0-3% _____ * Percent Daily Values (%DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs. Calories 2.000 2.500 Total Fat Less than 65 80 Saturated Fat Less than 20 25 Cholesterol Less than 300 300 Sodium Less than 2,400 2,400 Total Carbohydrate 300 375 Dietary Fiber 25 30 Downtown Chapel Hill 106 W. Franklin St. (Next to Pizza Hut) f|)d& /f 942-PUMP „ ~ r\ . . V IW ( /K \ SouthD-nrhftm | a inTf" J // 1 Woodcroft Shopping Center Ln, Jf/ : ‘ Jy 4711 Hope Valley Road (Hwy. 751 &Hwy. 54) ■ 11IP' North Durham ~ 1 Northgate Mall (Next to Carousel) A A . ■- 286-7868 riOZCn YOflUri of student clubs, their efforts are often overlooked in calculating workloads. Awarding credit for such activities would encourage more instructors to devote time to them, the report says. Conover said that increased incen tives would probably be symbolic rather than substantive but that recog nition would support faculty teaching efforts both inside and outside the classroom. “Giving appropriate rec ognition to the many things faculty do is one way of encouraging them.” The report also supports increas ing salaries as a way of attracting and retaining top teachers at UNC. White said that University salaries were already low compared to those at peer institutions and that Gov. Jim Hunt’s proposed budget cuts would worsen the situation. Without suffi cient funds, the University will lose skilled faculty, he said. “We’ve got an excellent faculty, but it’s a whole lot harder to build an excellent faculty than to lose one,” White said. “It’s a good school; we get good students; and it’s a nice place to live. But after a point, money talks, and people will walk.” “You’ve gotta love Chapel Hill to take a $25,000 bath just to stay here. You could end up after 20 years or so at a place like Clemson (a private school).” Teaching With Style While faculty have the common goal of effective teaching, the study found distinct differences in their teaching styles contin gent on rank and gender. Distinguished faculty are more likely to use substantive writ ing assignments, whereas more junior faculty tend to rely on unconventional methods like group projects, slides, oral presen tations and computer use. The report states that because re searchers have found nontraditional methods to be effective teaching tools, “senior faculty should be encouraged to explore new instructional techniques.” Conover said she thought senior faculty would be receptive to learning new teaching methods if they received proper instruc tion, incentives and rewards. Faculty survey results also indicate that the gender of a professor is a strong determinant of skills emphasized in a course. “Courses taught by women give considerably greater empha sis than do those taught by men to developing the basic skills of writing effectively, reading critically, speaidng clearly and devel oping intellectual interests,” the report says. Men tend to empha size mathematics more than women, and the uneven distribu tion of women across disciplines does not fully account for these differences, the report states. Women faculty also use instructional techniques like class discussion, group and individual projects, and oral presentations more than men. Conover said the kind of teaching methods women tended to emphasize enhanced students’ educational experiences by in volving them more fully in class activities. “What professional educators are telling us now is that students learn better when they are actively engaged,” she said. Conover said women and minority faculty also diversified curricular content by adding new viewpoints and exploring different issues from other faculty. “Having a more diverse faculty is a bonus more women and minority faculty change the tenor of what we teach,” she said. “Both women and minority faculty are more likely to introduce course content that broadens the classroom experience, specifically by looking at issues of diversity.” Minority and female faculty are also necessary as role models, Conover said. “You want the faces in front of the classrooms to look like those in the seats.” Come to a meeting on Wednesday, Mar. 29,7:00pm Granville Towers East Bth Floor Lounge Free instruction provided by the American Contract Bridge League.j UNIVERSITY Classes Taught by TAs v" Although the number of undergraduate courses KEY; taught by teaching assistants rose for several ■ 049 Level Courses years, the self-study notes that it has stabilized in ” the last two years. A committee is studying the Ni 50-99 Level Courses use ofTAs. the reports. 100 -1 9 9 Level Courses 40— .|| ''III 30 ° 84 ’BS ’B6 117 18 'W * *9O il *92 *33 SOURCE SELF-STUDY REPORT DTH/HMSHALA WILSON Keeping up with other trends in higher education, surveyed faculty overwhelmingly reported that they supported the idea of research and teaching that combined the perspectives of various disciplines. According to the report, 75 percent said they devoted some or considerable effort to incorporating interdisciplinary perspectives into their courses. Teaching with professors from other disciplines is the most effective approach to interdisciplinary teaching, the report states. “The best way to inject interdisciplinary material into disciplin ary courses is to transform the disciplinary course into a truly interdisciplinary one.” Too Much Hassle for Their Tassel? The self-study report states that faculty workloads at UNC seem to be heavy but not unreasonable. Yet 40 percent of surveyed faculty indicated that they thought institutional safe guards against detrimentally large workloads were inadequate. The report recommends that all departments and academic programs “establish and publish procedures for the assignment of faculty responsibilities” that reflect differences between the units. Department chairmen and administrators should also try to eliminate unnecessary administrative demands on faculty time, the report states. According to the survey, 55 percent of faculty say their teaching and research is somewhat or substantially hindered by administrative duties such as photocopying and collecting data. More administrative and staff support and the re-examina tion of current procedures and requirements would help instruc tors use their time more efficiently, the report states. “Faculty are overworked,” Conover said. And because fac ulty have more control over research than they do over teaching and administrative obligations, she said, research suffers most from time constraints. Enough Faculty? Even if faculty have sufficient time for teaching, are there enough of them? Statistics present a positive view of UNC’s overall faculty-student ratio; it improved from 1 -to-11 in 1986 to l-to-9.7 in 1993. “UNC-Chapel Hill possesses a faculty of sufficient size for the performance of its educational mission,” the faculty section concludes. And the ratio compares favorably with peer institutions, the report states. But the 1993 ratio of l-to-17.2 in the College of Arts and Sciences is significantly larger and has deteriorated slightly during the past decade—a situation the report calls “troubling. ” “To have over 17 students per faculty member, and a deterio I T-2000 !T s lust a lump of gray matter. the box. (Basically the stuff other companies say —firing off the occasional electric they want, but we actually mean it.) impulse from synapse to synapse. Still, we're very Though we're not particular about your major, interested in yours. you must have a passion for entertainment and a Turner is looking for six incredibly creative viewpoint on where it's headed, Of course, it'll be people who'd like to start a career with us. a highly selective process. Here's the deal: Starting July sth, the chosen If you think you've got what it takes, get us six will rotate through the major divisions of Turner your stuff by April 7th. We know you've got a Entertainment for one year. We're talking the best brain, but show us what's on your mind, overview imaginable of entertainment market- Send to: T-2000 " ing. (Read: dream job.) TEG Human Resources Who are we looking for? Creative people, 1050 Techwood Drive certainly Innovative people. Extraordinary, out- Atlanta, GA 30318 there, unconventional people, who think outside e-mail: TEG.T2ooo@turner com I I E Non-smokers only No phone calls, please. If your stuff's In the digital mode, tell us the application. Equal Opportunity Employer rating ratio, suggests serious problems for undergraduate educa tion,” the report states. “With a ratio like this, team and interdisciplinary teaching and small undergraduate seminars are frequently not feasible,” the report notes. Class size is an inevitable strain on UNC teachers and “a one to-one teacher-learner ratio is an impractical goal for all instruc tion at a large, publicly funded university. ” The study found that 34 percent of UNC administrators received at least one com plaint about class size during the 1993-94 school year.. But the report also found that class sizes had not grown during the period from 1982 to 1993 and that moderately sized classes could and should be the norm. It is reasonable for UNC to try to limit the size of advanced undergraduate classes to about 30 students and to supplement large classes with smaller recitation or laboratory sessions, the report concludes. Teaching TA* to Teach Faculty are not the only people teaching UNC students graduate teaching students play an important role in campus instruction, the report notes. In 1993, teaching assistants taught nearly half of introductory courses and 8.4 percent of advanced undergraduate courses, according to report data. Although the report expresses concern that students might be taught by too many TAs, rather than professors, it found that UNC’s use ofTAs was comparable to that of peer schools. The percentage of students taught by TAs is stable and students cannot avoid contact with faculty, the report states. Graduate student teaching is, it says, a valuable part of educational programs but one on which the University should not be overly dependent. White said that “self-starting” students with strong initiative to learn benefited more from faculty than from TAs but that TA instruction would meet the needs of less-motivated students. “If you look at teaching evaluations, we have not seen any system atic evidence that the quality of undergraduate education is being hurt by the use ofTAs,” he said. At the same time, White said UNC students would benefit if more courses were taught by faculty. “My own feeling is that less (TAs) than we have at present would be ideal,” he said. “Zero, no. Less, yes.” The report suggests that the University develop “institution wide guidelines for the administration of graduate assistants as classroom instructors” to centralize oversight of TAs. Guide lines would pertain to faculty supervision ofTAs, pay, teaching workshops, assignment of responsibilities and other issues re lated to graduate student teaching. Currently, most departments and programs have their own separate sets of guidelines, but some have either unspecified or unpublished guidelines. Teaching Outside the Classroon While the University can do much to improve teaching, students obviously play a significant role in determining the quality of their educations. The study says students should take better advantage of faculty both in and out of the classroom. While 78 percent of graduates who responded to a recent survey said they had been satisfied with faculty accessibility, the report states that the amount of time professors made available to students varied. The report suggests that UNC require all faculty to establish regular office hours and to encourage students to visit them. Conover and White said students controlled the extent to which they took advantage of educational opportunities outside the classroom. “One of the biggest problems here is that students don’t exploit the faculty,” White said. “If you could somehow get every undergraduate to spend an hour a month talking with a faculty member, I think that would add tremendously to the quality of education here.” Conover said students should make the most of their college years by welcoming challenging coursework and by taking advantage of community events like plays, speakers and. art exhibits. “The best thing you can do is to take seriously the opportuni ties you have in die classroom and outside it. You have an intellectual community that’s teeming with educational oppor tunities.” (Hi;? Satly ®ar B??l
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 29, 1995, edition 1
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