which college and why

errlloyd

ucd

Hmm Cocoa, I am going to go out on a limb, and say no matter how much maths you have taught Colman has taught more, and no matter how much connection you have with teachers in the teaching industry Colman has more.

My Maths teacher for higher this year failed his LC the first time round, and came back and repeated. Truth is though, he wasn't a great Maths teacher.

But even if she is capable of lecturing (which is legendary) I would say its most likely she isn't the best lecturer, because the best one probably did higher.

cocoa

errlloyd wrote: »

Hmm Cocoa, I am going to go out on a limb, and say no matter how much maths you have taught Colman has taught more, and no matter how much connection you have with teachers in the teaching industry Colman has more.

My Maths teacher for higher this year failed his LC the first time round, and came back and repeated. Truth is though, he wasn't a great Maths teacher.

But even if she is capable of lecturing (which is legendary) I would say its most likely she isn't the best lecturer, because the best one probably did higher.

Heh, I'm not in here for an experience war, he just mentioned it so I mentioned the background I'm coming from. Truth is I have no knowledge of how this lecturer we're discussing teaches, could be crap, could be brilliant. Personally, I think the difference depends much more on current dedication to the job and students than on previous exams sat. In my opinion, regardless of your background, if you're willing to put in the effort and coming from the angle of trying excel at teaching (not to be confused with excelling at maths), then you will be an excellent teacher.

Col Man

ucd

Cocoa, I don't know which one you are, the one who overcame or the one who had natural ability. But any maths teacher I've ever known who had an excellent grasp of the subject always had very good insight into what part of the problem a student had difficulty with. There are some maths teachers in my school who sometimes couldn't solve higher JC maths questions. There are many, many who struggle with a good few higher level LC questions. So, they can't actually do these questions, yet are supposed to teach other people how to? Interesting.

In fact, it's probably the biggest complain I hear about teachers, that they themselves are not good enough at the subject.

cocoa

Col Man wrote: »

Cocoa, I don't know which one you are, the one who overcame or the one who had natural ability. But any maths teacher I've ever known who had an excellent grasp of the subject always had very good insight into what part of the problem a student had difficulty with. There are some maths teachers in my school who sometimes couldn't solve higher JC maths questions. There are many, many who struggle with a good few higher level LC questions. So, they can't actually do these questions, yet are supposed to teach other people how to? Interesting.

In fact, it's probably the biggest complain I hear about teachers, that they themselves are not good enough at the subject.

Universities are very different environments. I know of no lecturer who is not involved in research, i.e., they are all competent in their fields. I frequently see the problem of lecturers who are very competent at solving the problems themselves, but are simply too lazy to properly prepare or 'lower' themselves to the level of the students and properly explain.

I didn't mean to put down the people with natural aptitude, they are in a very good spot to become good teachers, but it's important to learn teaching as well as the subject in question, and acknowledge that there is that extra element involved. As it happens, I have a natural aptitude myself, but I don't doubt that someone who struggled has the capacity to become an excellent teacher.

errlloyd

ucd

The biggest complaint I got from my maths teacher was not going to class the last 4 weeks...

Cinema was good crack though.

Col Man

ucd

Oh I'm glad you decided only at this point to ignore all secondary school teachers in your argument.

All the teachers in my school have qualifications, surely this should make them competent in their field? Oh well.

I haven't studied at University, however I have done a lot of lectures for maths olympiad. Some lecturers are horrible at teaching, some are almost perfect, but every now and then we get a lecturer who struggles with the maths olympiad problems, and they're always the horrible kind. These are all University lecturers, involved in research.

cocoa

Col Man wrote: »

Oh I'm glad you decided only at this point to ignore all secondary school teachers in your argument.

All the teachers in my school have qualifications, surely this should make them competent in their field? Oh well.

I haven't studied at University, however I have done a lot of lectures for maths olympiad. Some lecturers are horrible at teaching, some are almost perfect, but every now and then we get a lecturer who struggles with the maths olympiad problems, and they're always the horrible kind. These are all University lecturers, involved in research.

We were discussing a university lecturer... Secondary school teachers are more likely to fall into the competent at the subject + competent at teaching or incompetent at both groups.

They all have qualifications... in the relevant subject? I honestly don't know how much you have to do to be allowed teach at secondary level but I know it would be very easy to stop learning, which makes it easy to forget.

I also don't know how lecturers are chosen for the maths olympiad, I don't know what faculties they're chosen from but I reckon anything other than a pure maths department would be inappropriate. While it may seem nice for you to comment on these lecturers ability to do 'maths for the sake of maths' questions, it's possible they are excellent in their own specific field of work. This is not an excuse, if you are teaching something you should be prepared and insure you are able, but more a reason.

I'm not saying people who have struggled can't be awful educators, I'm just saying they could also be excellent educators...

Col Man

ucd

It's true that they COULD be excellent, just less likely than someone who was good at the subject. Yes, we were at one stage discussing one particular lecturer, but I believe you made a generalised statement about all teachers...? Like why would this discussion not apply to secondary level teachers anyway? Are we allowed just make this argument as specific or general as suits at the time?

Anyway, you yourself said you wouldn't find it "normal" if an english professor did ordinary level english for the LC, I hope it's not going to far to assume that applies to all subjects? If so, I was hardly being condescending to begin with (albeit just a general lecturer, not necessarily a professor, but that's not too significant in this discussion), to point out an interesting abnormality.

And of course I won't disagree that it's possible for someone to excel at teaching a subject they struggled with, I will say it's quite unlikely. And at no stage do we have the condition in place "the lecturer OVERCAME their struggles", it's possible she still struggles to this day. And always did.

errlloyd

ucd

Maguire didn't do LC Classics and he was the best teacher going, sorry thats a poor example.

Lol I think this thread needs to work to define an acceptable margin were instead of saying "highly improbably" we can just say "impossible"

Atm there are a lot of silly arguments (not this one, this one is quite civilised) where we have one party saying 90% of the time this happens, and another saying, no you're wrong 10% of the time the other happens. And actually they both agree with each other...

turgon

orangetictac wrote: »

No.
Cant generalise. I know people who didnt do a tap and got 500+ and others who worked asses off and were happy with their 300.

Anyone I know of?

cocoa

Col Man wrote: »

It's true that they COULD be excellent, just less likely than someone who was good at the subject. Yes, we were at one stage discussing one particular lecturer, but I believe you made a generalised statement about all teachers...? Like why would this discussion not apply to secondary level teachers anyway? Are we allowed just make this argument as specific or general as suits at the time?

Anyway, you yourself said you wouldn't find it "normal" if an english professor did ordinary level english for the LC, I hope it's not going to far to assume that applies to all subjects? If so, I was hardly being condescending to begin with (albeit just a general lecturer, not necessarily a professor, but that's not too significant in this discussion), to point out an interesting abnormality.

And of course I won't disagree that it's possible for someone to excel at teaching a subject they struggled with, I will say it's quite unlikely. And at no stage do we have the condition in place "the lecturer OVERCAME their struggles", it's possible she still struggles to this day. And always did.

I'm sorry if you feel I've narrowed your argument, I was just trying to explain why you might not notice the same things occurring in secondary school teachers.

My point is that both those who have struggled and those with a natural aptitude have points in their favour and points against, once we assume they both have a basic competency now. If educators don't have a basic competency now that is beyond the scope of my argument. Their competency or lack thereof in the past is not relevant.

Your remark was condescending because it merely mentioned the lecturers previous (ancient, compared to now) qualification and nothing else, nothing about the lecturers current standards, publications, achievements etc. As if to sniff at the past and quietly mutter 'will never amount to anything'. If you are going to degrade a person or institution I feel it would be best to talk about the present.

Delta Kilo

maynooth

Col Man wrote: »

Actually I think you'll find that for maths, a good understanding of the subject is quite key for teaching it.

I have heard from people who have studied pedagogy that quite often it is the people who struggle through school that make the best teachers as they can understand and empathise with the students. People that sailed through school find it difficult to understand why people can not understand something.

My own maths teacher for example (well past teacher now:(), he is an absolute genius at maths but he cant teach it for his life. He just cant understand why you cant understand something.

WolfForager

ul

Delta Kilo wrote: »

I have heard from people who have studied pedagogy that quite often it is the people who struggle through school that make the best teachers as they can understand and empathise with the students. People that sailed through school find it difficult to understand why people can not understand something.

My own maths teacher for example (well past teacher now:(), he is an absolute genius at maths but he cant teach it for his life. He just cant understand why you cant understand something.

Agree 100%. Think about it. Someone doing HL maths doesn't understand it, drops to OL. Now when he becomes a maths teacher he knows where he's gonna lose his students so he works extra hard on those points with them, thus making him a good teacher. I had a genius of a maths teacher, ask him anything and he'll do it in his head, however he wasn't the best of teachers "you just do this lads!!" *several quickly drawn figures on the board "get it??".

errlloyd

ucd

Not with lecturers.

WolfForager

ul

errlloyd wrote: »

Not with lecturers.

Not to be smart, but how would you know? Like myself your in secondary (meh) and probably have never attended many lectures other than the odd workshop type thing.

Col Man

ucd

You specifically said "I stand by my comment that it is much more likely that someone who struggled with a subject, but overcame that difficulty will be an excellent teacher, than someone who picked it up with ease." You said that, not me. That's clearly a general statement. It was general in context too, denying that is just being silly. You narrowed your own argument.

As for studiers of pedagogy, that's more likely in reference to second level teaching than University level, and your example of a second level teacher who was a genius but a bad teacher is also (probably) second level, and as we've seen, Cocoa has already given up the argument in reference to second level.

As for teachers who can't teach, do you think it's more likely people would complain that their teacher had too good of an understanding themselves, or not enough of an understanding/general knowledge of it? I don't think that's a question we have to bother asking anyone who's ever gone to secondary school.

As for condescending, I don't recall implying that she will never amount to anything. She's a lecturer in DIT, mentioning that sort of fact about someone is not usually the best option if you're trying to say they'll never amount to anything. We've both agreed the comment was in jest, as I was basically bringing up literally the only thing I know about DIT's engineering course. The idea is that it's simply surprising to find that out, and she will admit it's a little bit embarrassing. The joke was that she's bad at maths. Which obviously she's not, lecturing in the subject. Hence why it was a joke.

I've heard of plenty of schools were there were no higher level classes available, perhaps it was a very small school and she was the only capable mathematician but they didn't have the resources to teach her. Who knows. Maybe her parents recommended she didn't do it, for study time purposes, in order to play the "points game". It is of course a little bit embarrassing for her, but it was certainly not meant in all seriousness as a condescending comment. I mean the discussion was regarding which college had a better engineering school. That would hardly have been a serious attempt by me to say DIT's was worse, now would it?

Col Man

ucd

WolfForager wrote: »

Agree 100%. Think about it. Someone doing HL maths doesn't understand it, drops to OL. Now when he becomes a maths teacher he knows where he's gonna lose his students so he works extra hard on those points with them, thus making him a good teacher. I had a genius of a maths teacher, ask him anything and he'll do it in his head, however he wasn't the best of teachers "you just do this lads!!" *several quickly drawn figures on the board "get it??".

Well, simply no. This person dropped to ordinary, so therefore did not finish the course in all likelyhood. Does everyone falter at the same points? Absolutely not.

Lol what is with this site? Does everyone feel a moral obligation to stand up for the "little guy"?

Errlloyd started an argument earlier about Trinity. One cause of concern was ranking, the other was him saying someone just about it being blatantly better. If someone had said that about another University, it probably would have been completely ignored. More so the blatantly better part, as there are obvious problems with pointing out other universities' rankings blah blah blah you know what I mean.

cocoa

Col Man wrote: »

You specifically said "I stand by my comment that it is much more likely that someone who struggled with a subject, but overcame that difficulty will be an excellent teacher, than someone who picked it up with ease." You said that, not me. That's clearly a general statement. It was general in context too, denying that is just being silly. You narrowed your own argument.

I apologise for that comment, in hindsight, it was too general in nature and overly simplistic. I don't feel I've narrowed the argument, it's simply more relevant to certain cases. My points have changed since the beginning of the discussion, I don't deny it, this is why I discuss things.

Col Man wrote: »

As for studiers of pedagogy, that's more likely in reference to second level teaching than University level, and your example of a second level teacher who was a genius but a bad teacher is also (probably) second level, and as we've seen, Cocoa has already given up the argument in reference to second level.

I merely mentioned my lack of knowledge of the qualifications required for second level teaching, I still say my final opinion is relevant to all educators.

Col Man wrote: »

As for teachers who can't teach, do you think it's more likely people would complain that their teacher had too good of an understanding themselves, or not enough of an understanding/general knowledge of it? I don't think that's a question we have to bother asking anyone who's ever gone to secondary school.

My point is not about excessive understanding of a subject, but a lack of understanding of teaching, and you will quite frequently hear complaints about that.

Col Man wrote: »

As for condescending, I don't recall implying that she will never amount to anything. She's a lecturer in DIT, mentioning that sort of fact about someone is not usually the best option if you're trying to say they'll never amount to anything. We've both agreed the comment was in jest, as I was basically bringing up literally the only thing I know about DIT's engineering course. The idea is that it's simply surprising to find that out, and she will admit it's a little bit embarrassing. The joke was that she's bad at maths. Which obviously she's not, lecturing in the subject. Hence why it was a joke.

I've heard of plenty of schools were there were no higher level classes available, perhaps it was a very small school and she was the only capable mathematician but they didn't have the resources to teach her. Who knows. Maybe her parents recommended she didn't do it, for study time purposes, in order to play the "points game". It is of course a little bit embarrassing for her, but it was certainly not meant in all seriousness as a condescending comment. I mean the discussion was regarding which college had a better engineering school. That would hardly have been a serious attempt by me to say DIT's was worse, now would it?

I'm sorry, but no matter how tongue in cheek or joking it was (and it could have done with more smileys in that case), it clearly showed a negative opinion of the college, without any proper justification, just a cheap shot... If you're going to mention a lecturer, mention an ancient qualification they received a low grade or standard in, and nothing else, and then mention (ok, imply) they lecture that subject, it's going to come across as condescending.

OK, finally, here's what I think now...

There are two elements needed to be a good educator, understanding and competency in the relevant topic, and understanding and competency in teaching of the relevant topic.

If a person has a natural ability, they already have to some extent or another the first element, but they need to achieve the second in order to be a good educator.

If a person struggled to learn the topic themselves, they will have to work at attaining proper competency in the topic, but as long as regulations are well made, they will have to do this. Once they have competency, they will be well equiped to learn the practise of teaching as they understand some of the difficulties involved in learning.

Finally : Either teacher is prone to be crap if they are lazy and either teacher has the potential to be excellent if they really want to be.

I have no way of knowing likelihoods or probabilities, I know of no statistics on the subject and am in no mood to go hunting.

errlloyd

ucd

I'm just going to go ahead and ask this to be clear right now....


Does anyone here believe that in General, doing Ordinary level for the LC in the subject you are going to teach make you a better teacher?

Cause I am starting to get the impression some people thing that...

cocoa

errlloyd wrote: »

Does anyone here believe that in General, doing Ordinary level for the LC in the subject you are going to teach make you a better teacher?

No, I think it has very little relevance either way and there are much better factors to examine.

Col Man

ucd

You apologise for your general and overly simplistic statement about all teachers, but your opinion applies to all educators?

It's quite unlikely someone who has struggled with a subject will have the same grasp and understanding as someone who didn't struggle. So although they may achieve the relevant level of competency, it will almost certainly be a lower level than someone with natural ability would have.

Most people who would have no competency for teaching just won't become teachers. If someone with natural ability becomes a teacher, somewhere along the line they decided "I would like to teach". So both teachers are putting in a good effort into learning how to teach.

While it's not all too clear who will lead in the "competency to teach" department, we know almost for sure who'll lead in understanding of the subject. Going out on a rather wild limb here, I'd say the "natural ability" one was probably smarter, and therefore picked up competency to teach more easily.

And I just don't do smileys. That's hardly a relevant point. And expressing a negative opinion of something based on tongue-in-cheek evidence that doesn't hold up can't really be regarded as a cheap shot. If I said "well, I heard one of DIT's lecturers smells really bad", are you going to take me seriously? No. Is it a cheap shot? Hardly. Would it be a cheap shot even if it was true? No, it's not relevant. It would be a joke

randylonghorn

This is the "which college and why?" thread, not the "should I debate for the Hist or the Phil?" thread.

Hmm, now should I ...

(a) delete a whole phalanx of posts off this thread?

(b) split them off on a new thread or threads? (Leaving Cert, intelligence and memorisation ... the ultimate menage-a-trois and What makes a good teacher? spring to mind.)

or

(c) *head-desk* and go to bed

For the moment, I'm going with (c) because I'm too farking tired for (b), and (a) seems a bit OTT.

It will all depend on my mood when I next open this thread, I guess.

Now ... back on topic, please, and let others get a word in edgeways!

kowloon

I would rate the course before the college; it's surprising how many people fail to even look at the modules when choosing.

Damien671

ucc or cit for me cos there near and have as a good courses between them as any other college

errlloyd

ucd

Hmm Randy, surely thread starter saw this coming.

cocoa

Ok, this'll be my last post on this as Randy definitely has a point and the argument doesn't seem to be going anywhere...

Col Man wrote: »

You apologise for your general and overly simplistic statement about all teachers, but your opinion applies to all educators?

I apologise for that statement, I have since adapted my opinions to be fairer and apply in a more general way, do you feel the same way about my new statement made above or would you simply prefer to keep talking about incorrect ones I've made in the past?

Col Man wrote: »

It's quite unlikely someone who has struggled with a subject will have the same grasp and understanding as someone who didn't struggle. So although they may achieve the relevant level of competency, it will almost certainly be a lower level than someone with natural ability would have.

I've decided to stop speaking in terms of likelihoods because I don't know any statistics and the sample gathered from my own personal experience is, on the grand scale of things, mind-bogglingly small. All I can say is it is totally possible and doable for someone who struggled with a subject, with effort and maybe a good teacher, to attain a high level of competency. Also, once you have the relevant level competency, anything above that is not necessary, I do not care in the slightest if my primary school maths teacher could easily handle problems involving ordinary differential equations or the mandlebrot set, it's not relevant.

Col Man wrote: »

Most people who would have no competency for teaching just won't become teachers. If someone with natural ability becomes a teacher, somewhere along the line they decided "I would like to teach". So both teachers are putting in a good effort into learning how to teach.

I could make the same argument for people becoming teachers of a certain subject.

Col Man wrote: »

While it's not all too clear who will lead in the "competency to teach" department, we know almost for sure who'll lead in understanding of the subject. Going out on a rather wild limb here, I'd say the "natural ability" one was probably smarter, and therefore picked up competency to teach more easily.

But that's my whole point, there is an awful lot more involved in teaching than mere competency in the subject! Regardless of background or general subject competency, the educator with the desire to excel and teach well will always be better than the lazy educator.

Col Man wrote: »

And I just don't do smileys. That's hardly a relevant point. And expressing a negative opinion of something based on tongue-in-cheek evidence that doesn't hold up can't really be regarded as a cheap shot. If I said "well, I heard one of DIT's lecturers smells really bad", are you going to take me seriously? No. Is it a cheap shot? Hardly. Would it be a cheap shot even if it was true? No, it's not relevant. It would be a joke

But you didn't say that. You didn't leave any strong indicators that you were joking, you simply trailed off after referencing a qualification in the relevant field (as opposed to something totally unrelated like smell). What exactly is a cheap shot if it's not degrading someone based on something which has little or no current relevance? Just because I don't take you seriously doesn't mean the comment wasn't condescending, it just means I have a low opinion of your comment...

randylonghorn

errlloyd wrote: »

Hmm Randy, surely thread starter saw this coming.

I doubt it, I didn't even see it coming ... or at least not THIS level of off-topicness!

cocoa wrote: »

Ok, this'll be my last post on this as Randy definitely has a point and the argument doesn't seem to be going anywhere...

Thank you. Even if you did then follow it with a tl;dr!

errlloyd

ucd

but you have 8000 posts, everyone knows that putting the word "why" in a thread is epic troll.

Silverfox

ucd

cocoa wrote: »

that's fine, it just seemed you were under the illusion these rankings had something to do with quality of teaching or the happiness of students, which they don't but if they did (the only reference to students in the rankings is the student ratio), then DIT would win on that front, which is the only front for undergrads...

Actually the quality of teaching in Trinity law school is excellent, the faculty is small and everyone is really friendly. The staff are also fantastic. Just putting that out there!!:D

cocoa

Silverfox wrote: »

Actually the quality of teaching in Trinity law school is excellent, the faculty is small and everyone is really friendly. The staff are also fantastic. Just putting that out there!!:D

OK, That's nice, but it still has nothing to do with the rankings...