miércoles, 15 de abril de 2009

Cómo alcanzar la excelencia en docencia

Pues contratando a los mejores profesores, ¿no? Pero claro, resulta que no es tan fácil…hoy justo hablaba de esto en la comida. Para empezar hay que conseguir que manden CVs, algo que sólo harán si creen que el entorno es el apropiado. Y luego hay que seleccionarlos, casi más difícil. Pero por casualidad he encontrado esto en la web: lo mejor no está en la entrada, sino en los comentarios, de los cuales copio el primero porque me ha parecido muy interesante (pero también las respuestas):

Constructing a hiring process for teachers is actually remarkably easy. You do it more or less the way that very fancy private high schools do. You request a CV oriented towards teaching plus a teaching portfolio, which should include syllabi, lesson plans, and if possible video of classroom sessions and samples of graded work. You might also request a statement of teaching philosophy or some other reflections from the candidate on what kind of teacher he or she aspires to be, and you tell the candidates to make sure that their letters address their teaching style.

During the visit to campus, you have the candidate give not just a job talk, but a sample lesson to a group of actual students. In the case of a professor, you might have them give a guest lecture in a class related to their expertise, or just step in and teach a lesson that’s appropriate for the curriculum. College classes are far more specific than high school classes, but it should still be possible to set people up with a sample lesson in front of intro-level classes.

Of course, you will still get crappy teachers who somehow slip through this process. But it’s an existing strategy to get excellent teachers that seems to work very well for the fancy high schools that employ it, and its mistakes are easily corrected by not giving someone tenure, and by having a tenure process that requires classroom observations and a more extensive teaching portfolio.

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