Teaching at the College Level

By Katie

This blog entry is dedicated to Gail Loski, Kristy Cummings, Denise Spetter, Aunt Beth Elliote, Jennifer McCaskill-Perry, Bridgette Harris, and elementary school teachers everywhere.

Tonight I taught my first college class, freshman composition. After a year in a fourth grade classroom that felt like doing a tour of duty in a war zone, I was a little apprehensive about taking over this course. Since the current professor had to leave the island quickly and no other substitute could be found, I was told by the Dean of ICCI, on Friday, that I would have to take over the class. (I was not happy about the Dean's decision and complained to my husband all weekend, but, for some reason, he wasn't sympathetic.) Yesterday afternoon, I received all the previous papers, grades, and handouts. I only had this morning to prepare for the class.

In looking through the materials, reading the comments the professor left on the papers, and remembering my college days, I realized how easy college professors have it. Unlike the world of elementary education, college professors are not held accountable for the things that their students do not learn. College professors are able to put the responsibility onto the students. In the world of elementary education, one cannot simply brush aside low test scores on the lack of motivation of the students. In elementary education, it is the teacher's responsibility to teach the material; whereas, in college, it is the student's responsibility to learn the material.

Planning is much easier because, as a college professor, you can continue to move on even when your students have not absorbed the material. The syllabus is set at the beginning of the quarter/semester and then the class progresses at that rate. The college administrators only request to see your general plans for the 11-15 weeks you will be teaching, but elementary principals want to see your daily plans for each block of time. Elementary teachers already are teaching straight for the seven and a half hours they are getting paid for, and yet they have at least three hours of outside planning and grading to do every day, for which they do not get paid.

Since the responsibility of learning the material falls on the student in college, it is not the responsibility of the professor to provide additional help. A good college professor will have the students come for extra tutoring during the set office hours. On the other hand, elementary teachers have to find time to reteach material while also moving forward since they do not have breaks in their day that they can use to help students.

On the syllabus I have received for this class, there is a total of seven items that I will have to have graded in order to figure each student's grade. Within one subject, in elementary school, there is at least 20 final grades that must be input. Since the performance on any given assignment steers the course of the instruction for elementary education, most elementary teachers grade more than double that number of assignments for each subject area.

Classroom management is much easier in college. If there is even a slight disruption in the class, the college professor can either brush it off because, again, it is the responsibility of the student to learn or can actually kick the student out of class. They don't have to worry about that student wandering off, getting hurt, not being under observation, disappearing, and many other options that would all be the fault of the elementary teacher in that situation.

I am not saying that college professors have an easy job but they have a much easier job than elementary teachers.