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The Forum > Article Comments > Teaching is a profession, not a calling > Comments

Teaching is a profession, not a calling : Comments

By Jemma Ward, published 14/4/2015

On the surface, this is a fine epithet to attach to any profession – you do what you do because you want to do it.Yet other professions do not expect similar levels of extracurricular zeal and sappy self-sacrifice.

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Rhosty,

"I mean, a local teacher employed at a local Catholic school, was so insensitive, as to be out cutting his grass on Good Friday"

You need to read up on Catholicism before you criticize; for Catholics Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence but not a day on which they should not cut the grass, clip the hedge or whatever.

It is not even a day on which they should attend Mass; they can't anyway because the Mass is never celebrated on Good Friday.
Posted by Is Mise, Friday, 17 April 2015 11:57:35 AM
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Many teachers are devoted to teaching and that may be the problem with education. Teachers would do better, for their students and themselves, taking a hard-headed approach. The "educator martyr complex" exists even in higher education, where the pay is better than schools. What lecturers and teachers should be focusing on is making teaching more efficient, effective and so less frustrating for them.

After giving guest lectures at university I became fascinated and frustrated by the teaching process, with its lack of rigor and efficiency. Then I discovered the e-learning/distance education revolution. Being able to teach from home, or the other side of the world, is only part of it. The real revolution is in designing education to use student and teacher time efficiently, in the classroom, or on the Internet.

As an adjunct lecturer, I can't sit around complaining of not being paid much, as when not teaching I am not paid. So I spent years (and $10,000) learning to teach efficiently.

Talking at students for an hour is not efficient. So modern teaching uses presentations broken up into segments of six to twenty minutes. It makes no difference if these presentations are live or recorded.

Students learn better when tested regularly. So I have started using short weekly automated quizzes (chosen at random for each student, to stop them cheating). Students learn well when explaining to others, so I also have students discuss topics in an on-line forum.

Ultimately the student must be tested with a large item of work. Marking such assignments can be done much more quickly using "rubrics" (detailed marking tables). Getting stuff to and from students is easier using Learning Management System (LMS) software (I use "Moodle", a free Australian product).

This is not to say I still don't grumble about teaching, but I don't grumble as much. ;-)

For more on the future of education see my Higher Education Whisperer blog: http://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/
Posted by tomw, Monday, 20 April 2015 10:34:15 AM
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