Normally, senior most teachers shall take classes for freshers. This practice is followed in many US Universities where senior most Professors or even Nobel Laurette teach freshers. But it is generally observed that senior teachers (Professors) are reluctant to take classes for freshers.
Fundamental/Foundation courses in first year should be taught by senior faculty who have good exposure to field /real life problems which can benefit freshers. Probably teachers with ego might be doing this.
Actually taking classes by senior faculty may be a good practice, but junior faculty should be exposed to the teaching methodology by participating themselves in the classes while senior faculty is taking classes. Junior faculty should take tutorials mainly consisting of difficulty question based on multi concepts so that it will sharpen the fundamentals of both students as well as junior faculty by discussion mode and junior faculty should come prepared for the explaining concepts involved. Junior faculty members should have habit preparing from standard books for example (1) organic Chemistry by Morison and Boyd, I L Finar, Peter Sykes Etc., (2) Physical Chemistry Atkins, Gordon Barrow, Samuel Glasston (3) Inorganic Chemistry by J D Lee etc., (4) Analytical Chemistry by Skoog and west etc.,
Respected Girish Kumar
You are right. I had observed that the problem ( as mentioned by you) is more aggressive in South east Asian countries. It is a complex sort of phenomena and can better be understood by physiologists.In my opinion it has something to do with over conciousness about respect that senior teachers want in underdeveloped countries,specially, those countries that remained for a long time under the British empire. However, i am also observing that this trend is decreasing with time
I was a student of Padmashree Prof. B. Dattaguru at IISc , Bangalore in one of the subjects during my masters. He had a number of PhD students under him at that time. But the amount of commitment he had while teaching first years masters students was unmatched. We should have teachers like him..
At many research oriented higher-education institutions, as the first year classes usually have more students enrolled than upper level courses, the professors will likely use more of their time answering students' emails, mentoring a higher number of teaching assistants to help with tutorials, and marking exams, hence they will have less time for research; also potentially they will have to deal with more "special cases" asking for exam rescheduling, deadlines extensions, etc.
Another issue is the perception that upper level courses are usually taken by students who approved certain pre-requisetes, while many first year classes are open electives that are taken by students from different programs who must take electives outside of their faculty in order to graduate, and not necessarily because they are interested in the subject. Finally, if the professors are still active researchers, by teaching upper level courses they reach students likely looking for internships, research topics and thesis supervisors in the near future.
in my view let the new be encouraged and that should be strongly supported by old.
ok the question is"Why senior teachers are reluctant to take classes for freshly admitted students? " the reasons can be many such as 1) they think they are seniors so they should take classes of senior students 2) they are much learned and experienced and the new students or lets say freshers are too young and immature to handle with 3) sometimes its all about the fame (the notion like "oh!! im teaching at post graduate level")
@ sana
i'll add a joke here never mind
with experience or expertise circle of concern of faculty narrows down in other words the faculty may get expert in a particular subject.
A student just entered into graduation might have such a mindset that there will be no space to feed in, except all diversified questions which are eagerly waiting for senior faculty to get them clarified.
this heat may decrease once if he/she enter into 2nd or 3rd year of study. because student may be at the moderate temperature it is possible for senior faculty to teach to the students. so seniors are willing now.
Senior or junior does not matter that much as good or bad teacher! Personally, i feel that in a lecture by a teacher, other teachers who desire to listen be allowed to sit too. However, they should be barred from asking questions but free to comment in a decent way.. The climate should be academic and not enigmatic. In fact, when a senior teacher in USA addresses a junior class, all the tutors attached, attend the lecture so that they can follow up the queries better in the tutorials that need to follow, specially in the junior students class.
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