Abstract:

In this paper we will discuss teaching, the profession that most of us are in. The required pedagogy will also be discussed along with the lack of structured methods for the novice when they start their teaching lives. Examples will be given concerning the availability of this pedagogy in literature and the unfortunate dismissal of technical Journal literature that deal with teaching.

The profession that we are in, most of the time by choice, is teaching. In engineering, most of us if not all, have had no exposure to pedagogy and we are just thrown into the classroom and are expected to perform well, if not excellent. We are evaluated every year on our teaching, visited by superiors in class and evaluated for promotions and raises. But how many of us had exposure to good teaching, what it requires and how we deliver our lectures? In my personal case, I was just told that I was going to teach the subject matter starting right after graduation from college. After graduate school, the same continued and I was told that I was in charge of various sections of a course, meeting with the various instructors and discussing, of all things, quality teaching! Other than having taught a few years, I had absolutely no training in teaching. I was entrusted in this because I have been teaching in graduate school! To date, in engineering education in the United States we have very few examples of training for quality teaching.
At West Point, we have a summer program, Instructor Sumer Workshop - ISW, where new instructors are taught pedagogy and methodology of classroom work that takes place for six weeks every summer under the direction and supervision of those who have been doing it for some years.
Technical Journal literature does not accept papers that have the word "teaching" in it. We have had two personal experiences of this that we would also like to discuss. This attitude is not acceptable and all of us should try to change it for the good of all. Unless we are successful, I predict that teaching will be deteriorating even further.

Keywords:

Teaching, pedagogy, quality, acceptance, respect.