Someone wrote to our ‘academics’ mailing list just now,
I’m behind in my email, but I noticed that Biochemistry at USyd got a poor mention in yesterday’s Column 8.
My reply:
Do you mean this bit ?
“Further on the subject of “actually, like, you know” etc (Column 8, for some days), we warn exponents of sloppy discourse that some listeners are not only appalled, but keeping notes. “In first-year medicine at Sydney Uni a couple of years ago,” recalls Belinda Errington, of Mortdale, “a nervous rookie lecturer managed to say ‘basically’ 94 times and ‘essentially’ 63 times within one hour. Biochemistry is still fundamentally boring, though.” With lecturers like that, it’s hardly surprising.”
There’s a serious point hidden in there. I lost count of the number of ‘um’s a guest speaker said during his preamble. As far as I can see, there is no formal training for lecturers or researchers in giving lectures or seminars, and the failure to speak clearly and articulately in front of hundreds of people never gets addressed. In the School we do at least get Honours Students to give talks, and start training them from then, but I suspect most of us have had no formal training, no chance to have someone sit down with us and say “you need to /must not do such-and-such” and then have another go at it.
And then we get to the stage where we’re too busy for training courses.
What do you think?
Update. Someone replied to the list with the following:
“Ignoring the issues of nervousness which very likely caused the overuse of certain words by a new lecturer I agree that there is a fundamental point here raised by Richard and the student. Training is required in how to teach at university level as well as at school level then students would not have the perception that topics are boring if a more appropriate and student centred teaching approach was used. Ask vet science academics who all must now hold a teaching qualification. Their clinical pathology course originally perceived as boring by students is now a very popular course because a change in teaching approach was used which was a more engaging approach for students.”
So, do the rest of you have any mechanisms in place to train lecturers and researchers in giving talks?
One of my friends did a course once where everyone was filmed giving a short presentation, and then the whole class watched everyone’s video together. It really helped everyone to notice their own verbal (and non-verbal) tics – excruciating, apparently, but very helpful!
I’ve never been the same since a friend told me how many times I’d said ‘um’ in a talk I gave at a symposium. Then she told me how many times the other speakers had ummed or ahhed and I felt a lot better. But still, it’s very useful.
All Dutch universities are currently settup up a programma to get all teachers to adhere to a “Teaching Qualification” (BKO) standard. It encompasses lecturing, but also supervising, course design and much more. In the very nearby future (1-2 years) it will be a prerequisite if you wish to teach at a university. On top of this, the “Extended Teaching Qualification” (UKO) will be put in place for associate profs and higher, encompassing the design of curricula, the design of intership and the coaching of teachers.
I am currently involved in getting my official BKO certification.
Do they train you in good presentation, though?
When I was at university the students spontaneously arranged an on-site course for a lecturer to improve his presentation style. Like Belinda Errington’s rookie, he had a very bad tendency to say ‘basically’ much too often. After suffering this for a few lectures, a core few soon got the entire audience shouting a count each time he said ‘basically’. They managed to cure him in a single lecture.
I’m reading “The Common Thread” by John Sulston (yes, almost a decade too late) but there’s a great bit in it when their accountant organises a management training weekend for Sulston and his team. They reluctantly go along thinking they can’t learn anything, but the trainer has a trick of his sleeve: he presents them with the results from a survey of the staff at the Sanger Centre, which reveals the staff have a pretty low opinion of the managers. Couldn’t organise a “drunk session” in a brewery (or words to that effect)…
@ Richard: Part of the set of courses is presentation training and presentation evaluation. A small part, yes, but everything helps.