Have any of you ever gone to this conference - is it worth the time and did you learn anything that you could apply in the classroom/lecture hall? Which tracks did you find particularly helpful?
APSA Teaching and Learning Conference
(55 posts) (1 voice)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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Very helpful conference. I recommend attending as early as your first year of grad school.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Are you kidding? These things are worthless.
Every university these days has "teaching centers" and the like where they run the same sh^t.
The best way to learn how to teach is to find out who at your university wins the teaching awards and sit in their class. You can also spend an afternoon looking at some of the websites for Unis like Stanford or MIT that put course videos online.
Just copy those people who are winning awards/are good. You are only going to get good with practice anyway.
Sitting in a stupid day-long seminar isn't going to help.
They will do stupid sh+t like tell you how great "interactive" teaching is by drolling on over a conventional powerpoint. Usually the teaching center types have no conception of the specifics of your discipline and are just mouthing Ed. school nonsense.
Stay home and have a few beers to prep for APSA. Don't waste your time with this.
Posted 1 year ago # -
When and where is it anyway? If one does have some time to waste, this could at least be a good excuse to travel.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^ has obviously never been to TLC. It is not a teaching workshop. Rather it is a conference focused on scholarly research on teaching and learning in the discipline, assessment, and the like.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^And that's somehow better? Blowhards researching useless pedagogies as opposed to blowhards practicing useless pedagogies? I hate myself for using that word twice by the way. The third poster has it right: look at who wins the teaching awards at your school. Emulate them. 9 times out of 10 you'll have to sell your soul to do it, and not teach what you were hired to teach but rather "critical thinking" and shite like that. But if you want to take a dreamcruise down the river Styx, then that's your ticket.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^ Epic post
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'mmmmm saaaailing away....(styxx reference)
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^^ feel free to argue to your regional accrediting agency that assessment is "shite" and see how far that gets you.
Posted 1 year ago # -
There are two reasons to attend the conference. If you really do care about teaching, it's a good chance to interact with folks. The conference uses a track format, not panels. So you spend most of the time with the same 30-40 people in the same thematic track (eg assessment, simulations, civic engagement, etc). You get out of it about as much as you put into it.
The second reason is networking. Most of the APSA leadership will be there (the president usually gives a keynote). And the size is small enough that you can maximize networking, particularly with folks from SLACs. I know many top SLACs use attendance at the conferences as signals that you care about teaching.
But if you're not really interested in either of these things, then it will be a waste of your time.
Posted 1 year ago # -
^^Assessment is shite! And unfortunately it's a reality for accrediting bodies in the throes of Education Schools all across America. But that's a far cry from saying that I have to like it, or that teaching that focuses on retention at the expense of substance is a good thing. But you've clearly whored yourself to the point where you have forgotten the difference between accepting a problematic reality and wholeheartedly endorsing it. Amuse yourself with that.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Assessment is ****? Interesting. So you never give your students exams to see how well they've mastered relevant skills?
Posted 1 year ago # -
How do you assess knowledge, man. That's just a racket of the man trying to keep us all in lockstep, man. Same thing for tenure standards and graduate exams. Who needs them? And GRE scores? It's all crap. Anything quantitative is **** made up to keep us from looking at deeper truths. We don't need "metrics" to let us know if we're Doug a good job teachin to students. We should just be inspiring them with our awesomeness and giving them critical thinking skills.
Posted 1 year ago # -
There is a special afternoon session on how to make your dumbas s student feel special and continue to pay tuition and give you grate evals.
Posted 1 year ago # -
The only skill students need is discipline. Teaching them how to think critically is a waste of valuable time, bacause most students will never take the time to develop the skill as they should. That pretty much goes for every other skill out there as well. If they really thought they needed it, especially help with writing, they would actually improve. most do not. These skill-intensive classes are designed to pad administrators resumes and appease idiotic assessment bureaus.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Same thing for tenure standards and graduate exams
Oh yes, Snark, these are highly calibrated metric tools of assessment aren't they.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So, you're a social scientist, but you don't think effectiveness can be evaluated? Interesting.
Look, no one is suggesting there's a perfect metric out there. But some of us try to figure out how to do these things well, or at least better. And it's not about getting "grate" (sic) evaluations. It's about whether we can convey key skills, ideas, or concepts to students. If you really can't do that, then either you really aren't trying or you really can't communicate your ideas in a clear way.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Effectiveness can be evaluated, but don't for a minute tell me that the current assessment regime does a good job of it or that the education industry is producing better results than it did decades ago, before all of this focus on assessment. What I really hate about assessment is its "one size fits all" formula for good teaching. And evals. are the nearly exclusive means of judging good teaching and they typically do not assess that but rather easiness and popularity.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Try actually attending the conference. It has little (if anything) to do with that kind of assessment. In fact, it's full of people who agree with you -- but weren't too lazy to do something about it. You're a social scientist. Use your skills and expertise and develop better tools or standards, then test them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
That's just it. I don't use my students as guinea pigs for testing quirky bizarro education theories and practices. Rather I just have them write and think, alot. my suspicion is that it's people like you who are really the lazy ones, trying to find that perfect formula for non-teaching. Maybe one day they'll invent auto-pilot for teaching but until then, the art of teaching is to the student, not a cohort.
Posted 1 year ago # -
That's great. But how do you know your method is better? Aren't you also experimenting on your students (in some ways al teaching is)? Those of us interested in pedagogy are actually interested in the science of learning. Instead of mockin it reflexively, give a look at what we do. You may be surprised to find a community of social scientists who care so much about being good teachers that they spend a great deal of time doing research on this dimension of the profession.
Posted 1 year ago # -
My rant: to those who say in their teaching statements or in person that they "use the Socratic method," please know that "having lots of discussion in class" isn't sufficient for your teaching to be called "Socratic." Really, it's great that you go around asking people what they think of the supercommittee, but that isn't the "Socratic method."
Posted 1 year ago # -
My methods have not been assessed by a regional accrediting body. Employ them at your own risk.
--- Socrates
Posted 1 year ago # -
Of course no one uses the Socratic Method effectively. Even in law school today, students haven't the patience for it; and they certainly don't have the humility. This doesn't mean that there isn't still a world of difference between professors who try to employ it and those who come in with their dusty 30 year old lecture notes. The Socratic Method is only as good as the students its meant for.
Posted 1 year ago # -
If you think quality teaching begins and ends with te "Socratic method" you're not as good a teacher as you think you are.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Seems like a nice conference, held in a cool city
Posted 1 year ago # -
..by your misdirection. Who said it begins and ends there? There's advisement, preferably one-on-one in bed with hot coeds, and there's pay-to play profit to be made by selling good grades to the highest bidder. Teaching is a very complex animal, who doesn't know that?
Now why don't you take a break from your ego for half a minute and, lighten up and get laid.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Teaching is more fun than you might think....it provides a lot of energy and positive affirmation when things are going well in the classroom. It isn't always the drudgery described on PSJR.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Then again, I'm easily amused
Posted 1 year ago # -
So you've miraculously figured out teaching all by yourself at the ripe young age of ABD. No wonder you heap disdain on us tenured and tenure track folk who regularly meet up to discuss ways to improve the teaching of political science. Maybe you should write a book based on your pedagogical insights derived from your vast experience.
Posted 1 year ago #