Are there any methods to practically educate students to be teachers?
This is the greatest threat to the profession of teaching...the irony is, Today's teachers in Higher learning institutions have not landed by design but more accidentally through defaulting compulsions of an alternative job. In leadership development in Industrial setup we enumerate the skills associating to 3 parts of a body namely HEAD, HEART & HAND.
Applying the same principles to teaching profession the person who intends to evolved as a teacher needs to posses orientation of his/her KNOWLEDGE, EMPATHY and SKILLS towards a rightful development of future resources.
Our university uses a mentoring system. First, students (undergrad and graduate) work with professor to plan for classes. The teaching assistant then just aids the teacher in class by fielding/collecting questions, papers, and observing students in class. Mentors/ta's usually meet about an hour a week depending on the topic.
Later, students will teach a class with the mentor's planning. Once a student is identified as being prepared to teach on their own by the mentor (and depending on the department) they are given a class of their own as an adjunct. Usually to have a class or their own, they will need to have completed a Master's program, but some departments may have undergraduates teach if they have a specialty or high level of knowledge about the specific program they are teaching (i.e. computer programming language or unusual foreign language).
My own department requires phd students to have supervised teaching as a requirement for their degree.
In addition, students have access to free workshops on teaching by our teaching effectiveness institute.
Dear Virginia Yonkers,
Appreciate your answer, TA is a good way in this regard but how about these very TAs. The question is how these TAs are prepared? For a teacher to make certain that the specific student is capable enough of and prepared for teaching and able to answer all possible questions he may deal with in classroom, I think there need to be a teaching method with the process of discussion through which the student could become familiar with all aspects of a specific course of study.
No, no, teaching is an art, and artists are born, not made! Please do not think about 'teaching' your students to be teachers!
It is another matter that some people become teachers because they are unfit for everything else!
Dear Hemanta Baruah
So the artist you mean does not need any instruction. They knew everything when they born? they are born in genius? Even they could speak when born? So how does the matter of "instruction" accommodate in your opinion?
Dear Mohammadi,
What I meant was: you can of course teach someone how to draw, but a Picasso need not be taught how to draw; Picasso was a born artist!
Every inquisitive minded student can grow to be good teacher, and being inquisitive is an inborn capacity. That was what I meant.
I have in my teaching career seen many students who are hardly interested to learn the basics, and somehow memorize the things to get good marks in examinations. Some of such students of mine have in fact entered into the teaching profession, and I feel very bad about that. Such teachers cannot teach a single sentence without opening a book in the class room. Currently, for the existence of computer aided technologies, the number of such people is on the rise anyway.
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