Read the following question and in a 25 lined paragraph state your suggestion.
If you had a high position in the TEC, how would you improve:
How subjects are taught
Whether some subjects should be compulsory or optional
The system of exams and assessment
The standard of teacher traing
Post your comment below.
How the subjects are taught is diverse, because the professors have different forms to teach them, and the students understand the topics in different ways, so I prefer focus in the training which the professors receive, I mean first they need to learn to teach (remember the majority of professionals in the TEC are not in the education areas) and study what methods are better for their courses.
ResponderBorrarAlso the students opinion is important to improve the education programs, It is necessary involve them in the students assembly for their voice will be more strong in the decision of crucial topics in the institution.
About if some subjects should be compulsory or optional, I think all the subject that I received in the TEC in these years were very important, and they help us be better people, besides optional courses in general mean classes that only one does if need more credits. I know the TEC have to change how many courses we receive, because the study plans are full but separate the courses in compulsory and optional is not a good option, my suggestion is review what topics are using in the real world and they is what the students have to learn.
In relation with the system of the exam and assessment, I am disagree all my life in my opinion the exams don't prove if you know or not about the subjects, the real form that we demonstrate to know something is put it in practice, but do several subjects practical is difficult or expensive, maybe it is the reason why we continue implement exams.
In conclusion try to improve the aspects of the education in the university is complicate, especially when the economy is hard, and other aspects depends of different viewer like professors, students, manager, etc...
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ResponderBorrarCristian Ramírez.
ResponderBorrarI think that a subject can be taught in many different ways, and that is the problem at TEC, becuase there is a lot of theachers that had not change the way the teach for about 30 years, so, the techniques and tools that they use, now are not enough, they need more technology and TEC can provide that, because that is what we are, a technological university.
On the other hand, al universities shoul have compulsory courses and also optional courses in order to emphasize topics but according to the student preference. In that way, the TEC could graduated professionals especialized in he needs that Costa Rica has.
The only thing that I would change to exams and assessments in the dead line or date, because at TEC, we all have a lot of "free" weeks and then there is like 4 or 5 exams comming and projects and homeworks, so, the cordination between faculties is important.
Finally, the teachers must have more training for all the things that I mentioned in the first paragraph. They should be in love with their job, and be worried about the development of courses and students. I belive that is important because I have had a lot of teacher who don´t go to classes, don´t pass a assistance list, they don´t check and give the answers of quices, homeworks and even exams so the student is not conscius about his situacion in the course.
Well, if I have that position, I would like to make some changes, referring to how the subjects are taught, the teachers always have different ways to explain the topics, but most of them need to love what they are doing because they never seem to worry about the students, if you get a really bad grade they gave it to you and never ask themselves if that is only the student fault or if they are part of that result too.
ResponderBorrarFor me in the majority of careers the plan is good in my opinion but some courses are not so relevant, the plans needs to offer some courses that are related with the career but the students have the opportunity to take it or not. This courses will help the student in other courses that are in the plan, but the student will go to that class with some knowledge.
The exams sometimes are not even close to what we see in classes, probably because they need to know if we study enough and we dominated the topics and not only just a little part of them.
Finally there are very good teacher, but some of them just need a class of pedagogy because they know all the topics but they don’t know how to explain them.
Teaching at TEC should be more practice than theory, because the second one is earn through continous exercises and field works of an specific topic. What I is that in most of the cases, the persons in charge of teaching the subjects are more concerned for how many pages of a book you can digest in the less cuantity of time. Engineering isn´t as theorical physics or social studies, you need to be in touch with stuff; manipulating our sorrounding in order to improve our skills for building smart solutions.
ResponderBorrarAn important factor that affects how students develop their skills, is how they get to the place in where they can get knowledge. For example, a child that is forced to learn english, as a grownup he will speak good English but probably he would not push himself to improve that skills because forcing somebody to do something in the most of cases causes a kind of trauma. So, what should university do? Letting students to choose courses by preference as they also take some basic background knowledge.
Exams need to me focused on applying rather than explaining theory because is just repeating what is on a book who somebody else wrote. Besides some negative aspects of the institution that I describe above, there very good teachers and professionals at the university. In some of those cases I feel honored to just by receiving lessons from those persons.
José Andrés Guardia
ResponderBorrarWell, I think if I had a high position in the TEC my primary concern would be the teachers hired in the university. The taughting of a course depends directly from the teacher ho’s imparting the respective course. Also the difficulty of an exam depends, once again, from the teacher. So, this makes pretty obvious that good teachers will impart better courses and will give a better preparation to the students that are sign in the class.
A magnificent way to know whether a person is a good teacher or a bad is by asking the opinion to the students of that particulary teacher. TEC does an evaluation to every teacher each semester, by asking questions to the students. The problem is, this questions are very superficial and does not cover the entire opinion of a student regarding his or her teacher. My idea would be, to improve these evaluations and give some workshops or lesson to the teachers so they can improve themselves by knowing the honest opinion of students regarding their teaching.
And about whether a subject should be mandatory or optional, I think the student must pass the course in order to graduate so that would make the subject mandatory. But, the student shouldn’t be forced to assist the class in order to pass the course. Of course, the student must complete every test so he or she won’t lose those points. But depends in the student to know his capacities so he can know whether if he can pass the course by himself, or needs the help and the explications of the professor assigned to the course.
All this points can be improve by hard work and dedication, but in my opinion the university Tec is already making a marvelous job with its teaches, evaluations, and subjects assigns to different careers. This is one of the primary reasons why the Tec is considered one of the best universities in the country, and one of the most difficult ones too.
TEC is a very square university, I mean, most of the careers taught are about Engineering , so is really common that people just think in numbers and in making everything in a practical, this could be a great thing for the professional life but also it could be terrible for life. I think many of the professors do the classes in that way, so the lessons end up being structured and rigid, therefore boring and also the information is not transmitted well.
ResponderBorrarSo I would say that for the teachers would be great to take lessons on pedagogy and in new techniques on learning, so the professor would make the class more entertain and easier to follow for the students
The subjects should be optional, because nobody wins anything having not interested students in the classes, they just distract the teachers and also the students that really want to learn. So in my opinion it would be better to have in classes only the students that have a real interest in the class.
The exams should not be about memory, otherwise they should evaluate the ability of the students of solving problems knowing the theory given in class. Because that’s the way we will apply the knowledge in real life, with memorizing we just win remembering the thing for a couple of hours and then almost everything will be gone of our brain.
I think that before hiring a professional in a professor work its essential that they demonstrate to have a big professional experience, because sometimes we have people just graduated as teachers, so the students have almost the same knowledge that them, and the courses are not that rich and productive as the ones with very experimented teachers. But there’s not a point in having a professor with a great resume if he doesn’t have the ability to teach, so it should be mandatory that the teachers take courses on pedagogy and then they really demonstrate that they can teach in a good way.
Starting with the subjects, two years studying mechatronics have taught me the importance of balancing theory with practice. First, theory is mandatory because it helps to understand what’s going on behind the scenes: the rules to follow and the tools to construct. Then, doing exercises, homework and quizzes enables developing the interpretation and solution of problems, and is great for finding doubts. For example: my math lessons have been rich explaining definitions, theorems and even tricks useful to solve the class exercises, which later were similar to those of exams. In case of being just theorist people wouldn’t being able to understand how to use their knowledge, if vice versa students would work like brainless machines filling the blanks.
ResponderBorrarRewarding the compulsory courses, my thoughts are divided. By one hand, classes like the seminaries should be optional because they are there to provide credits for the plans and take hours that we need for studying; out of that they are a joke. In the other, some optional electricity classes would allow me to develop and approve electrical blue prints, so I think they should be mandatory. After all, the plan should emphasize in what abilities “the street” demands.
Third point, the exams and assessment are a whole world themselves. It’s a downgrade that some exams are a repetition of the same problems already solved, while others are just too hard because they try to push the students to think creatively just when they are finishing the semester. And that isn’t even counting the fact that people tend to panic while solving them. I believe more in individual evaluations of the daily work or quizzes in the whiteboard, as an alternative.
Finally, teacher training has a long way to go before being standardized as it should. Most professors of the Institute are barely specialized in engineering or science branches, but not in pedagogy; so they are not actually aware of the first and third point discussed here, or about Learning Modes theories, and there for students pay the price. Because of that, university teachers should all receive at least one year of pedagogy technics in a specialized center, and being awarded with more classes only when they advance with more courses of the topic.