Teaching - worth exapnding upon?

[hal]

Hello Folks,
Just out of curiosity, are there any who feel that the rules for "Teaching" in GURPS 4e are curiously flat or relatively useless in game play? For example, suppose you have a player who takes the time to spend a single character point in "Teaching" only to discover that they don't have a skill level of 12+ required to act as teachers? Does that mean that the player character just wasted a point?

GURPS 4e goes so far as to mention various penalties to the teaching skill in the event that the character has certain disadvantages or finds themselves in circumstances that are less than Ideal. For instance, suppose you have a teacher who is a native of say, England. The teacher's spoken French is at the Accented level, and the teacher is attempting to teach the basics in Mathematics to the students who happen to be French speaking only. Technically speaking, the Teacher's skill level of 12 in teaching has just become worthless. The penalty for teaching if your language skill is at accented, is -1. That dropped the skill of 12 down to an 11.

So now what happens?

Me? I've noted the fact that GURPS has emplaced a set of guidelines where the following is true:

Self-study via books without a teacher: requires 400 hours per 1 character point.

Teaching/training via a teacher: requires 200 hours per 1 character point.

Are we to believe, that Teachers with a skill of 11 or less, are WORSE than self-study with books? What about self-study from a really CRAPPY text book?

How many of us have ever gone though the educational process of any of their respective nations, only to discover that with some teachers, the LOVE the topic they are studying, and are either well motivated to study, or conversely, have had really horrible teachers who have turned us off from any level of interest in the topic being taught? How many of us have ever had really GOOD teachers who made study relatively easy in a topic, while subsequent teachers made study difficult? I myself have had instances where I'd take a course in college, and do poorly in the course, only to take the course again, and have a better teacher who made it possible to pick up the material being taught.

In any event, one might consider that there are two basic components to the process in study:

1) Picking up the material required
2) remaining motivated to learn the material being presented.

GURPS 4e requires no "effort" on the part of the student where picking up new skills is concerned, and specifies that a Teacher's skill must be 12+ to qualify.

My proposal is this:

Good teachers can motivate their students such that they don't need to worry about sticking to the program. Such teachers can enliven the teaching process to the point where the students are eager to learn.

Poor teachers can disenhearten their students to the point where they either give up trying to learn, or they learn only at a minimal rate of learning.

Talents grant discounts in time required to study new material (ie gain character points in the skill being taught). Why not link the Teaching process to that proposed with TALENTS and with standard teaching rules (ie skill 12+ halves the time required time for self-study without a teacher)?

What is it about a skill 12+ that makes it the magical mystical "number" that separates an effective teacher from an ineffectual teacher based on the current rules as written?

My suggestion is this:

Professional teachers or talented teachers (ie anyone with a skill of 12+) teaching in a suitable environment conducive to study, gains a +2 bonus. Teachers with suitable teaching tools/aids, gain a further +2 bonus. A 12 skill modified by a +4 bonus, attains the highest possible level of success possible for a 3d6 skill roll in GURPS. So why not use that as a sort of bench mark?

For example? Suppose the "average" roll against a 16 on 3d6 is a 10, with a success by 6?

Self-study is 400 hours, while study under a teacher requires 200 hours. That is a discount of 100% (ie halving of time required). 100%/6 = 16% per level of success (give or take).

Now, is it possible for a student to learn the requisite material being taught, in less time than 200 hours?

Per GURPS, the answer is, yes. Someone who is talented, gains an additional 10% discount time per level of talent, up to a max discount of 4 levels of talent.

Now, how do we model the prospect of a poor teacher whose motivational skills turn students off from the topic being taught? If a successful teacher can motivate their students, might it not be said that a poor teacher might demotivate their students, and lengthen the time required to learn the topic at hand?

Why not make it then, that for every point a teacher fails their teaching roll by, they increase the time required to study the material at hand?

Hmmm. Ok, so perhaps we need a midway point between that of "self-taught" and that of a successful "Taught by teacher".

200 hours if taught by teacher
400 hours if not taught by teacher - self-trained.

What we need is a mid-way level benchmark - halfway between that of Taught by teacher successfully, and taught by teacher unsuccessfully (ie self-taught). So lets use the benchmark of 300 hours as the "aim-point" and see where it takes us.

A teacher who succeeds in teaching, grants their student a 20 hour discount for every point they succeed in their teaching roll, to a max of success by 5 (any successes higher than 5 are treated as 5).

A teacher who fails in teaching, grants a penalty of 20 hours per point they fail by. Failure may not be any worse than by 5.

See next post for an example of how to use the ad-hoc rules presented above...

[hal]

Suppose you have a teacher with a skill of 12, and has a good teaching environment worth a +1 bonus in the viewpoint of the GM. In addition, the Teacher has some good teaching aids to help with teaching, for a further +1 bonus.

The teacher's skill in History is 10, and teaching history is probably going to be at the worst of the two skill levels. Now our teacher is rolling against a base skill of 10, with a +2 bonus. Rolling against a 12 skill, the teacher succeeds by 3 with a roll of a 9. Time taken to impart 1 character point's worth of skill will be:

300 hours base minus 20 hours per point of skill the teacher succeeded by (in this case, 3, for a total of 240 hours.

Now, take that same school, same teaching aids, but a teacher whose skill is only 11 in teaching, and hates history with a passion (worth a -2 in the GM's eyes), and is disenchanted with teaching high school students after long years of abuse teaching elsewhere in an inner-city public school system prior to teaching here. GM assess an additional -1 penalty. With a History skill of 11, we're looking at a modified skill roll of a 9 teaching skill. Rolling a 10, any student of this teacher, will find they need a total of 300 hours + 20, or 320 hours of teaching, just to earn 1 character point in the skill "History".

Now? We have a means for making a teaching skill of 5 (default from IQ) relevant in game terms. A teaching skill of 15 becomes relevant in that such a teacher can teach despite any social handicaps such as "accented language" or "shyness" (ie a good teacher despite their shyness) etc.

Thoughts?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by hal

A teaching skill of 15 becomes relevant in that such a teacher can teach despite any social handicaps such as "accented language" or "shyness" (ie a good teacher despite their shyness) etc.

The munchkin in me says, "Great! One of our team can spend a few points in Teaching and cut all our training times down!" Why should you be able to effectively teach that which you do not know?

How does your system stack up against the RAW, when a teacher is teaching a subject he doesn't know?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Fish

Why should you be able to effectively teach that which you do not know?

Thouse who cannot do, teach to do. Those who cannot teach to do, teach to teach to do.

While ironic, there is some truth to the statement.

Of course, to teach how to do, one must understand how to do, even if one cannot do.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Thouse who cannot do, teach to do. Those who cannot teach to do, teach to teach to do.

While ironic, there is some truth to the statement.

Of course, to teach how to do, one must understand how to do, even if one cannot do.

Naturally this must be so — in the real world, the very best concert pianist in the world had to be taught by somebody who was not quite as good. But you can guarantee that that teacher wasn't a complete neophyte — operating at skill default — at music theory, music appreciation, sight-reading, technique, performance, but with a buttload of points piled into Teaching.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Fish

The munchkin in me says, "Great! One of our team can spend a few points in Teaching and cut all our training times down!" Why should you be able to effectively teach that which you do not know?

How does your system stack up against the RAW, when a teacher is teaching a subject he doesn't know?

As best as I could figure, the best way to handle the issue of teaching skills you know, is the same as would be found under the actual teaching rules. In order to teach, your skill has to be higher than that of the student. Best case scenario would be that the skill being taught is the max level that any student can be taught. Thus, a Teacher with a skill of 11 in teaching, and a skill of 10 in say, Fishing, could teach fishing to their student up to a skill level of 10, and no higher. That's my take on it.

[hal]

now the one thing I can't quite figure out how to factor if, is the desire to learn and the "will" of the student themselves. In addition, I have a sneaking suspicion that it is more difficult to teach 10 students than it is to teach 1 student, and more difficult to teach 20 students than to teach 30. What modifiers to teaching as a skill would accrue for those circumstances would be a matter of conjecture.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by hal

In order to teach, your skill has to be higher than that of the student. Best case scenario would be that the skill being taught is the max level that any student can be taught. Thus, a Teacher with a skill of 11 in teaching, and a skill of 10 in say, Fishing, could teach fishing to their student up to a skill level of 10, and no higher. That's my take on it.

That would certainly be true of an IQ-based skill; I cannot teach you information I do not myself know. (Although I can guide you a helpful reference where that information exists.) A DX-based skill may operate under different rules, because Olympic athletes are routinely coached by people who do not have Olympic-caliber skills themselves, but who are nevertheless pretty skilled and knowledgeable.

[LynGrey]

Originally Posted by Fish

That would certainly be true of an IQ-based skill; I cannot teach you information I do not myself know. (Although I can guide you a helpful reference where that information exists.) A DX-based skill may operate under different rules, because Olympic athletes are routinely coached by people who do not have Olympic-caliber skills themselves, but who are nevertheless pretty skilled and knowledgeable.

Well coaches are really just motivaters :-) Also some coaches, if they played the sport before, would have some of the skills that are required to play the sport. The difference of a coach vs a player would be the "strategy" and "tactics" skills, also toss in research for the professional coaches. Also with a higher natural IQ than most players. Pro/Olympic athelets have a combinations of the athletic traits(Attributes), Talent (Advantages) and usally the ability to traing full time for the sport + devote time outside of the regular training via diet, mental prepareness, displine.. which not all people are blessed to do.

As far a good teachers not knowing a subject(well) and teaching, it is incredibly possible. Also i would like to point out that "Teaching" is much differnt than one on one training/tudoring/teaching. Teaching it all about inclusion, intergration, and engaging a group of students. Which when you have a room full of lets say 5 students that have 5 differents ways of learning, and you got to teach them all at the same time and doing it... THAT'S TEACHING! The content, hopefully, is something the teacher knows very WELL.. it obviously helps.

[nik1979]

The Teaching skill could be more of an organizational skill, essential specialized psychology, and feedback process to format information optimally for learning. Coupled with the professional knowledge that comes with teaching such as going rates, bureaucratic or hierarchical organization, regulatory and legal information about the matter, and how different academic systems work as well as the different variations of fore-mentioned topics.

I agree it speeds up any learning process because the fundamentals of any skill is more readily identified and the optimal processes for learning. I don't see this as a munchkinism since a lot of games I play don't have down times (its gurps after all, genre hopping is part of the attraction). Although I see teaching in a a Game to be more important in determining the quality of the Down Time. I recommend that teaching be important for PCs to Learn skills for themselves much faster as they can analyze skills, ask the right questions, and formulate a training sched and use their introspection to determine the best method and manner which is for them.

The system should be simpler and something the GM can use as a guide since it is only usable in Down Time or Prep Time aspect of a game. It would be better to reduce the number crunching there to maximize game turn out of most playing styles.
To simplify, some rules of thumb would do like: no. of students, difficulty of skill, materials available, and TIME available (like 2hrs a day vs 10hrs* a day) for TDM+0 and I'm sure the GMs can adjudicate the what constitutes as + or - modifier from that without going into too much number crunching.


*Legal operational limit for crewmen in ships to prevent mistakes due to fatigue which I use as a standard for adventurers when they attempt to red line.