Blog 8: Chapter 8: The Great Researcher=Great Teacher Myth

The myth: a great researcher will equal a great teacher. The reality: a good teacher is a person who is wiling to go the extra yard, someone who makes sure that all students understand the material, who does not mind the extra hours researching or perhaps writing a grant. A good teacher is one who puts everything into their teaching. It was nothing for a university to spend an unlimited amount of money on a great researcher. The result was that these great researchers certainly did not make great teachers. As a result, educators began to have doubts about the teaching style of all these great researchers. Large lecture halls were established and students were having difficulties gasping the concepts because they sat for hours listening to a lecture. “We know that faculty are concerned about their research, and not in teaching us, and so, like the profs, we go essentially ‘brain-dead’ during class” (Sperber 91). It takes a certain kind of student to be able to learn through large lectures and have no teacher student contact. Students become bored, frustrated and loose interest. I could not learn this way as I enjoy the interaction with other students and the professor. I would be lost trying to digest all the information that was given. I feel that the best classes are those in which there is student-teacher-peer interaction.