Teaching quality at Mac
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By: Alex Recio
McMaster is an institution that prides itself on providing a high quality of teaching. Throughout the years, it has invested in various initiatives to help ensure that the expectations of students, in this regard, are satisfactorily met, through initiatives like the McMaster Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning, more commonly known as MIIETL. It does this by “encouraging, supporting and collaborating with the teaching community in the scholarly exploration, innovation, evaluation and dissemination of teaching and learning practices.”
One of MIIETL’s main undertakings has been the development and implementation of the Learning Portfolio, a tool designed to help students reflect on their academic experiences. Although the university should definitely be commended for supporting such projects, the question of whether or not its efforts to maintain a good calibre of teaching have been successful remains.
As a student, it is very frustrating to hear how McMaster boasts about being at the forefront of teaching and learning, when so many people have to sit through lectures where a professor makes absolutely no sense every day. I am sure that most people have had this sort of experience at some point in their university career. After a while, everyone realizes that going to class is useless and by the end of term you can count the few, faithful followers who continue to show up on your fingers. Before the final, you are forced to teach the entire course to yourself because that is the only way you can actually understand the material.
Needless to say, this familiar story shows that the role of a teacher within a classroom is crucial. They have the power to make or break an entire course. Be that as it may, the issue goes beyond how unpleasant it is to hear a professor ramble on nonsensically. University is expensive. Thousands of students at McMaster are burying themselves in debt to come here and receive a worthwhile education. It is supposed to be an investment in our future, and I can’t help but feel that we are all being shortchanged.
If we wanted to teach entire courses to ourselves, we would just enroll in online classes for a fraction of the cost. I understand that we’re not in grade school anymore and that we can’t expect to be held by the hand our entire lives. I also understand that knowing how to study independently hones important skills that are useful in more ways than one. This doesn't change the fact that it is unfair to place students in the hands of professors who have no idea how to teach. They may be brilliant, knowledgeable, and incredibly nice people, but the reality is that putting them behind a podium doesn’t do students any favours. It hinders our ability to learn and sets us up to fail in the future because at the end of the course we only leave with a vague knowledge of the concepts.
The university has to address this prevalent problem. It must work on creating a more effective feedback mechanism so that students feel that their opinion is being heard and that it actually matters. Some of the money that is funneled every year to fund organizations like MIIETL could perhaps be better used to help retain assistant professors who have demonstrated a passion for teaching.
The root of the issue might lie in the bureaucracy that governs post-secondary institutions. After all, professors who have tenure cannot be dismissed, no matter how bad their reviews from students may be. This shows that there is clearly something wrong within the system itself. There are obviously some fantastic teachers at Mac. As long as they remain in the minority, however, the university is failing its students.
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