Sometimes I forget just how lucky I was to go to Exeter.
The head of Dept taught one of my main courses. He also wrote the then seminal text on the course, set at places like Oxford. He specifically instructed us not to buy his book but instead to read works by other authors on the subject so we'd have a broader range of opinion. None of us listened, naturally, but he was kinda cool. Still got my copy.
Academics forcing students to read their own books are basically failures (exception: edge case weird courses where it's the only book), because they should pick up your stuff from the lectures. Of course, arts/humanities different to maths/science but even then.
I only had one professor (a math teacher) assign a textbook he himself wrote. It was, to put it bluntly, not good. And he wasn't any good at teaching, either.
And this was a second-year required course (so, large classes, large hall, amplifiers) and he never turned his very sensitive collar microphone off when he left mid-lecture to go to the washroom. So we were treated to the sounds of THAT every few lectures. We told him about it! He kept doing it anyway.
I feel like, if it's arts/humanities, you're kinda fucking up in the first place if classes consist mostly of lectures. Introductory explanations followed by guided discussion groups are the way to go.
I don't know enough about comparative teaching methods, but Exeter had 50/50 lectures then guided seminars for the first two years on my course, with a requirement to do a fair bit of reading between the lecture and a seminar, then was entirely small guided groups in the final year (3 year course, but single subject).
It seemed to work well enough, but I do suspect there was a fair degree of "this is the way we've always done it" in the design, despite there being a fairly diverse range of teaching staff.
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-22 04:46 pm (UTC)The head of Dept taught one of my main courses. He also wrote the then seminal text on the course, set at places like Oxford. He specifically instructed us not to buy his book but instead to read works by other authors on the subject so we'd have a broader range of opinion. None of us listened, naturally, but he was kinda cool. Still got my copy.
Academics forcing students to read their own books are basically failures (exception: edge case weird courses where it's the only book), because they should pick up your stuff from the lectures. Of course, arts/humanities different to maths/science but even then.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-22 05:15 pm (UTC)And this was a second-year required course (so, large classes, large hall, amplifiers) and he never turned his very sensitive collar microphone off when he left mid-lecture to go to the washroom. So we were treated to the sounds of THAT every few lectures. We told him about it! He kept doing it anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-23 01:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-25 01:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-25 05:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-25 05:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-22 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-10-23 02:32 am (UTC)It seemed to work well enough, but I do suspect there was a fair degree of "this is the way we've always done it" in the design, despite there being a fairly diverse range of teaching staff.