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E-PrinceWhen Rebecca Arkin ’10 walked into her first neuroscience precept last fall, the first words out of her graduate student preceptor’s mouth were: “Hi ... I’ve never really precepted before. Do any of you know how this is supposed ...(back to the article)
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I think the article summarizes the problems and frustrations undergraduates feel about preceptors (lack of training, poor English skills), but does not mention those of the preceptors themselves. For the humanities, the main issue is undoubtedly students whose only reading is done on wikipedia or google, either for the class or in life in general. This phenomenon is troubling because not reading produces bad writing, a serious affliction of our generation, and something one hopes (unsuccessfully, I should note) to escape when teaching Princeton students. That is what I said when interviewed, and I thought it was important to mention as well.
This is a biased article clearly written by an undergrad who has cherry picked anecdotes and issues to suit her prejudices, without giving the issue substantive thought.
A vast majority of preceptors put in substantial effort (well more than
they are paid for) into teaching, grading and meeting with students. The anecdotes brought up by Wolff do not describe the average experience. For most students, they get what they put into the course. From a preceptors perspective, too many students take their responsibilities lightly, and depend on preceptors to hand feed them the information they miss when they
fail to read the assignments, or skip classes. This characterization doesn't describe the majority, and if you're offended, it probably doesn't describe you. The point is that both of these perspectives are, by themselves, myopic. Wolff's article supports a self-centered caricature, and is a disservice
to the graduate and undergraduate communities alike.
This is a very poor excuse for an article - especially in a "Graduate School Special Report" that purports to want to tell the Daily Prince readership something about the lives of graduate students. I wonder why Wolff didn't write about the problems and concerns of the preceptors, since, as Yaron Ayalon indicates, he did actually mention some of those concerns in his interview. This might come as a surprise to Wolff, but precepting is not always a very rewarding job. Many preceptors have to respond to never-ending and often last-minute, desperate requests for help, often from the few Princeton undergrads who don't do the required work and nevertheless manage to have a truly unbelievable sense of entitlement (re. grades, attention,...). I once calculated my hourly pay for precepting and found that it was just at the minimum wage. Many students are hard-working, highly intelligent, and/or appreciative of our efforts, but unfortunately, a very small group of students seems to be none of these things. Wolff missed an opportunity to give voice to our concerns and frustrations.
I just finished my first semester precepting, and believe that my students and I got a lot out of our meetings. I found this article rather insulting. Not every preceptor is perfect, but most of us make a real effort within a system that can be unforgiving. I was lucky to work with a great, organized professor, but some profs aren't helpful to their AIs. Sometimes making uninterested students who haven't done reading talk, particularly ones who only care if "this going to be on the test," is like pulling teeth. But for the most part I think my students liked me, and I really enjoyed working with them. To be confronted with such a one-sided article is depressing after all the work we do every day.
Most of the articles in this special section seemed to position grad students as a separate species whose behavioral patterns require decoding. I only graduated college a few years ago and am often taken for an undergrad, but when I explain that I'm a grad student people react with surprise (you're a native English speaker! you aren't a scientist! how do you exist?). You could try talking to us, we're not as different as you think, even those of us who may have accents or spend a lot of time in a lab.
It's such a shame that Wolff chose to showcase a truly unrepresentative anecdote to lead with. Precepting is hard work. Almost all my colleagues spend hours prepping course materials and fretting over whether they're grading fairly or adequately addressing students' questions and concerns. Being stuck with a group of students who failed to prepare for class is rough, to say nothing of getting saddled with a room of PDFers. As a side note, it's also ridiculous to talk about the number of foreign graduate students without mentioning their distribution throughout the departments.
It would have been nice if, instead of tacitly suggesting that TAs should use some of their copious free time to take more classes on teaching, the article had talked about the mixed incentives for teaching the university has. In some departments, you actually take a pay cut to teach. If there were "hazard pay" for teaching beyond your minimum, the better and more experienced TAs would be more inclined to teach.
Undergrads: if you want grad students invested in teaching, go anywhere but Princeton. Princeton graduate programs are designed to train top-notch researchers hired and tenured only for the quality of our scholarship and they pressure us against expressing any serious interest in teaching. The job market for professors is such that graduate students at most other universities are indeed getting ready for teaching-focused jobs, whether they like it or not. Here, professors ask us why we wasted their grad student spots if we admit to a strong interest in teaching. Why do we never see these exposes of professors? Of the stratification in the university system that makes the brand name on your degree so well-respected?
It makes sense that you would not know this upon picking your undergrad institution. But go tell your high school friends.
I had the pleasure of teaching three precepts s part of a large precepting team for an undergraduate course with over 150 students.
As an Israeli lawyer and masters student in sociology in Israel I have taught in 2 law schools, a sociology department and a politics department in Israel as a teaching assistant.
Precepting here has been fascinating. The small number of students in the precept, the focus on discussion, personal experience and deeper understanding of high level materials were examples of the high value Princeton (at least the course I had the benefit of participating in ) places on teaching. Many of the students I had the chance to precept, were highly motivated, interesting and focused. I had the chance to learn from them and I believe they had the chance to learn from me. A fraction of the students seemed to wish to be spoonfed, a skill which I do not know or wish to know how to do.
From discussions with the professor and my fellow preceptors, I know the long hours, personal and collective, spent thinking about materials, creative teaching methods, testing and grading, were qualitatively and quantitatively more substantial than in any other institution. Perhaps my experience, along with 3 other graduate students in sociology is singular. Perhaps. I find it doubtful.
I do not think that a day and a half of teaching is enough. The AI training offered helpful methods, tips and reminders, but cannot replace hands on training. As one who aspires to be an educator at the university level as well as a scholar, I believe that teaching in an ongoing process, one that is learned hands on, through the interaction between teachers and students, who communicate their needs, possibilities and aspirations. Teaching is learned through engagement, not only based on incentives and formal training.
Teaching is not about a week long or a month long training, but about the value an institution places on the importance of teaching. It seems to me that the limited and biased discussion in the recent articles place all importance on the AI training instead of dealing with the issue of teaching in a broader context.