Aims and quality of my teaching and courses

Aims and quality of my teaching
Richard Parncutt, Febuary 2009

This page is primarily for the interest of students of music psychology or systematic musicology at the University of Graz, Austria.

Each of my courses has its own specific aims, which are set out in UGO and explained during the first session of the course in the usual way. But I do not always have time or opportunity to explain the more general aims of my teaching. Hence this short text.

If I was asked to name a single aim that applies to all of my courses, it is this: Each course aims to be the best course in the world by comparison to other courses of similar content, level and specific aims. For some people this might seem obvious - of course university lecturers should strive for excellence. Others might find such a goal to be unrealistic, overly romantic or just plain arrogant.

Of course my courses are not necessarily the best in the world by comparison to other similar courses, and of course any such evaluation would depend on arbitrary criteria. My point is that I invest a lot of time and energy into preparing and executing my teaching, and I am also in regular personal contact with most international researcher-teachers in my discipline(s). Having reached this level and a relatively advanced age, I am no longer interested in tolerating mediocrity.

I don't know about you, but I am convinced that I will only live once. One of the most rewarding things that one can do in one’s life, in my personal opinion, is to aspire to high quality. So why not aspire to be the best? Why bother with anything less? Well, that's my philosophy - you can take it or leave it, but of course I would be happy if you agreed with me, because I want my students to be the best, too.

By the “best course in the world” I mean something like the following:

Students gain more relevant skills and knowledge during a given total learning time than in equivalent international courses.
The quality of both content and presentation improves each year by combining complementary methods of evaluation, such as:
- peer review of my research (including presentation at peer-review conferences and publication in peer-review journals and books),
- review of course content by my student assistants,
- student evaluation at the end of each course, and
- expert evaluation of my teaching methods (Uni Graz will offer didactic coaching from October 2009).
For each course (including lectures), comprehensive materials and documentation are made available in the internet.
In all examination procedures at all levels, students have the opportunity to evaluate and creatively go beyond course materials, that is, to apply what they have learned in new contexts. And they are rewarded for doing so: going beyond the normal limits often means the difference between "good" and "very good". In this way, my tests and examinations promote intrinsic motivation, independence and academic risk-taking.
All students are treated equally, objectively and fairly in all aspects of all courses.
Students are informed regularly by email and in the internet about relevant current local and international events and career opportunities.

In making these points I am assuming that the primary aim of my students is to acquire the knowledge and skills that the course offers, and that my students have chosen the course from many other possibilities because they are fascinated by the content and are strongly intrinsically motivated to improve their knowledge and skills in that area. Of course it is also important to get good grades and, in the end, to get a university degree - but I assuming that that is not the primary aim of attending a given course. There is nothing wrong with working toward a qualification, but when so much work is involved over such a long period, intrinsic motivation, genuine curiosity, and perhaps even a moderate degree of obsession are necessary to succeed or at least achieve personally satisfying results.

By "best course in the world" I do not mean:

Easy entertainment, comparable to watching TV
Promoting myself, either as a personality or a researcher (only my international colleagues are in a position to evaluate my research)
High grades for mediocre achievement (and by the way, my grade distributions are absolutely typical by comparison to those of other lecturers - my mean is around 2.5, midway between "good" and "satisfactory").

You can help me achieve these goals by:

Constructive suggestions - both during and after the course, and in the UGO evaluation
Enthusiasm and hard work (the latter is unfortunately difficult to avoid - but should not be exaggerated, either!)
Supporting each other, e.g. by talking about course content outside of the course or by studying together in pairs or groups

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