Tutorials may be fine, if the tutor is fairly familiar with the topic, but for a scholar to provide lectures in fields completely outside their own world would, I'd say, only be alllowed if a majority of the teachers were on sick leave. :-)

Almost never heard of here.

I don't see any reason why a faculty without relevant specialization, research background and experience should teach unrelated subjects. In the Ethiopian case this is regulated and cannot be allowed.

Regards

Thanks Michael and Wondwosen,

Apart from if you have ever encountered this, I would also like to know your take on this matter. Is there any potential positive in requiring faculty to teach courses with little or no relevance to their background or interests?

Tutorials may be fine, if the tutor is fairly familiar with the topic, but for a scholar to provide lectures in fields completely outside their own world would, I'd say, only be alllowed if a majority of the teachers were on sick leave. :-)

The question is what would an instructor of this type bring to class? How would he be different from any other layman walking on the street? An instructor's relevance should at least be gauged in terms of experience or training before setting in his/her foot in class.

Sometime university has limited number of lecturers, but it has to offer many courses. To handle this problems some teachers have to teach out of field. The lecturers must work very hard to teach the subject they are not familiar with. In the first year they face many problems, but after several years they will be strong enough to stand up in front the class.

Thanks Heri. I am thinking that one legitimate question to ask is that why should such universities even be allowed to offer education? I mean, one ultimate goal of universities, in my opinion, is to educate the population, but this manner of running an educational institution sounds to be delivering quite the opposite. It does not seem that such universities actually give enough care to the quality of their education. It is true that after several years some lecturers will have developed some knowledge in the field, but at the cost of all former students; how fair and honest would it be? Any thoughts on any potential positive outcome of this manner?

3 points.

1) USA accreditation associations require a MA/MS to teach but only 18 graduate hours in a specified field (history, math, physics, etc). Very likely for someone with Ph.D in Physics to have 18 grad hrs in math. Not qualified to teach intro calculus?

2) Does anyone really believe that someone with a MA in history and only a BA in political science is not qualified to teach political science 101? What about the grad students teaching without even those qualifications?

3) What would happen to interdisciplinary studies if we were overly rigorous in maintaining narrow requirements?

Thanks Max. Very subtle points you made. I believe in all the instances you mentioned one has at least touched the course, years back though. Surely a physicist is more than qualified to teach calculus. But the situation I meant was much more strict than what you described. What I meant was a situation where one is asked to teach material they have no idea about, or never ever passed its classroom, and with no interest at all. I would like to see how it is handled in the USA.

I do not necessarily think that a physicist can teach math - it's not only the subject matter to take into account but also how you teach it - the order of sub-subjects, the good examples, the good assignments, the good questions posed in class. Someone who is not trained in discussing and constructing concrete examples at the core of the field will fail - sooner or later - in providing the right motivating points on which students can hinge their understanding.

As a professional, one is legally compelled to state that "This is outside of my expertise area. I cannot be consulted about this." The same applies to teaching far from the field.

Students too are very quick to pick up that the lecturer is only a reader, merely one page ahead of them in the textbook.

This is a real story in which I was involved & cheated; the perpetrators also cheated the Ministry of Education as well as their & mine university. A chemistry department at university (X) asked the administration of my university to allow me to teach 2 courses within my expertise ( i)"Organic" Polymer Chemistry & ii) "Advanced" Organic Chemistry ). The administration gave me a special permission to do that. I went to (X) and taught the 2 courses.

After that, I was told by the students of (X) that 2 instructors took the notebooks of some "smart" students & the 2 courses were taught by them. Surprisingly, one of the instructors has PhD in inorganic chemistry & the other is a recent MSc holder in inorganic chemistry. The First took course (i) & the second took course (ii).

I am absolutely sure that most of what those instructors teach is NONSENSE. Depending on the notebooks of students is a deception & is very dangerous. The students might have written wrong notes. Add to it that my style of teaching involves stating incorrect information deliberately to test the degree of awareness among the students. The mistaken information are fixed, later on, if the students do not respond positively. I am in no doubt that the 2 instructors are oblivious of that.

Why did they do that? Obviously, there is huge greed for overtime money in such department with each of its staff having extra > 8 hours load/week. This greed has destroyed the quality of their graduates & we see that when they come to join our MSc program in chemistry.

Note: They keep saying that the government gives them low salaries while they have more monthly income "due to overtime" than the income of our staff.

I was once a skeptic about this, and a little arrogant, I am afraid.

Then I had an experience which changed my views. As a result, I believe that it is highly valuable and enriching to teach somewhat outside of our disciplines.

Take aways:

1. It is incredibly enriching. Don't be afraid to try it.

2. "Friends don't let friends" do this alone. Having an expert on tap makes this work orders of magnitude better. They have become my friends. It should not be done alone and without access to people-resources.

Let me give supporting evidence.

I was invited, ad hoc, to participate with four others to create an interdisciplinary course on seeing and hearing. I made the second physicist on the team. The others consisted of a physicist fresh from the defense industry, a neuroscientist, and an advertising psychologist.

- - This almost sounds like the opening line to a joke.

1. At our first meeting, each person/discipline in turn said, "I don't know why they are making such a fuss about creating this course. We already teach one exactly like this."

2. Our course chairman insisted that about a third of the course represent each discipline.

3. Over the course of a semester development, we presented in turn what each of our disciplines had to offer. Outbursts like this one from our former defense person were common: "Oh my goodness! You mean that retinal structure is really an edge detector?" That is, we all learned an awful lot from each other, deeply enriching our understandings.

4. We began to respect and adopt the strategies and structures of each others disciplines. For example, I was flattered to hear our neuroscientist say he was more often discussing -and asking for on exams in his other courses- the underlying fundamental principles, in addition to the traditional expecting students to memorize body structures and processes.

My own respect for naming things grew from his influence. I now constantly use the psychology of attention and persuasion in my physics courses. I similarly use the biology of how we filter out what we consider meaningful from the plethora of stimuli we receive.

I believe that none of us would repeat our complaint about already having a course like this.

For a number of years we met weekly, to discuss ideas for improving how we presented concepts, to refine and enrich our understanding, and to make sure our representations of the other disciplines were appropriate and correct. We still meet regularly.

It can depend on what out of field means. A narrow definition would be an area where you don't have formal post-graduate qualifications. But there are very effective teachers without that who nonetheless have extensive professional experience. For instance, I teach creative arts education which includes music, drama and visual arts and dance. I have no formal visual arts qualifications but have worked as a curator in an art gallery for 20 years and have had solo art exhibitions. When I teach visual arts am I out of field?

Another issue is that fields can be interpreted broadly and narrowly. I have colleagues appointed to teach social science education which includes history, geography, economics and law. None of them has formal qualifications or experience in all of these (particularly when you consider they are teaching both primary and secondary trainee teachers) but staffing exigencies mean that at times they may be somewhat out of their preferred comfort zone. Noting however that they are teaching pedagogy more than the actual subject, so there are transferable skills and approaches, and they can make use of each others' expertise, and in some cases use sessional teachers with appropriate qualifications.

You also need to consider that experts do not necessarily make the best teachers. Experts usually find the subject matter easy, and therefore may not break the material and processes down in a way that communicates to the students. A teacher who has had to work through material in the same way that students do may be more effective. This does however presuppose that they know enough to get it right!

Thanks Benjamin. You are right; I should have defined what I exactly meant by "out-of-filed". Let's define it as having no formal education, no professional experience, and absolutely no interest. I am wondering if one based on this definition is asked (read forced) to teach "out-of-filed", is not it the definition of bullying?

I think there is a very good case for calling that bullying. And I'm sure that it does go on.

This is how an instructor grows his or her knowledge and competency

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Thanks Blaine. But I suppose a basic knowledge at the very least is required to start the long journey of development otherwise it must be obtained at the cost of students that is not fair, nor honest

I have heard it said many times that the best way to learn a subject is to write a book about it or to teach it. Every author starts a book with inadequate knowledge of the subject and every teacher starts a new class in some level of ignorance. But there is a difference between teaching something you are new to and trying to teach something you are completely unqualified in.