The Teaching Company: Difference between revisions

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'''The Teaching Company''' makes [[college]]-level courses from prominent [[professor|professors]] and [[scholarship|scholars]] available in recorded formats by top-ranked teachers. The courses cover a variety of disciplines. The company is based in Chantilly, [[Virginia]] and is headed by Thomas M. Rollins. Courses are available in different formats including [[audiotape]], [[CD-audio]], [[DVD]], and [[MP3]] formats. Content is pitched towards continuing [[education]], particularly for [[adult|adults]], and are often available at [[public library|public libraries]].
'''The Teaching Company''' is a publisher offering, under the brand name ''The Great Courses'', video and audio recordings of college-level lectures.
 
The company was founded in 1990 by Thomas M. Rollins, a former government employee, and is based in Chantilly, [[Virginia]].
The company was founded in 1990 by [[Thomas M. Rollins]], former Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources and a graduate of [[Harvard Law School]], who noticed the effectiveness of videotapes in learning during his study.<ref name="katebales">
{{cite news
| first=Kate
| last=Bales
| title=Ivy League Courses for Price of a Video
| date=February 16, 1994
| url=http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/16/news/16iht-videduc.html
| work=The New York Times
| accessdate=2009-06-21
}}</ref>  He initially tried to create a government program to produce tapes for the public, but was unable to do so because of legal restrictions.<ref name="katebales"/> After leaving office the idea stayed with him and he started seeking out top professors to create courses for sale to the public, according to the Teaching Company website.<ref>Teaching Company website - ''Our history''</ref>
 
Rollins persevered. He selects professors personally in many instances, and gets feedback from customers as well as members of the academic community. The ideal teacher is a recognized [[expert]] and established [[scholarship|scholar]] in a given subject area who has excellent [[teaching]] and [[communication]] skills. For example, [[Classics|classics]] expert [[Elizabeth Vandiver]] and former [[library|librarian]] is a widely-respected authority on subjects such as [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] [[mythology]] as well as [[epic]] [[poetry|poems]] such as the ''[[Iliad]]'', ''[[Odyssey]]'', and the ''[[Aeneid]]''. The Teaching Company offers several courses by Dr. Vandiver. By 2009, there were more than 300 courses with 3,000 hours of content in the following subject categories:
 
* [[Business]]
* [[Economics]]
* [[Fine Arts]]
* [[Music]]
* [[Ancient History]]
* [[Medieval History]]
* [[Modern History]]
* [[Literature]]
* [[English Language]]
* [[Philosophy]]
* [[Intellectual History]]
* [[Religion]]
* [[Science]]
* [[Mathematics]]
* [[Social Sciences]].
 
[[Image:Alexei Filippenko.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Picture of a man smiling.|[[Astronomy|Astronomer]] [[Alexei Filippenko]] teaches courses for the Teaching Company, some of which are on [[DVD]].]]
 
==Professors and scholars featured in ''The Teaching Company'' courses==
* [[Kenneth R. Bartlett]]
* [[Arthur T. Benjamin]]
* [[Bob Brier]]
* [[Sean M. Carroll]]
* [[Phillip Cary]]
* [[Philip Daileader]]
* [[Dennis Dalton]]
* [[Malcolm David Eckel]]
* [[Bart D. Ehrman]]
* [[John Esposito]]
* [[Brian M. Fagan]]
* [[J. Rufus Fears]]
* [[Alexei Filippenko]]
* [[Sylvester James Gates]]
* [[Steven L. Goldman]]
* [[Anthony A. Goodman]]
* [[Robert Greenberg]]
* [[Allen C. Guelzo]]
* [[James Hall (philosopher)|James Hall]]
* [[Ken Hammond]]
* [[Kenneth W. Harl]]
* [[Peter H. Irons]]
* [[Luke Timothy Johnson]]
* [[Douglas Kellner]]
* [[Alan Charles Kors]]
* [[Edward Larson]]
* [[Seth Lerer]]
* [[Amy-Jill Levine]]
* [[Allan Lichtman]]
* [[John McWhorter]]
* [[Sherwin B. Nuland]]
* [[Joseph Nye]]
* [[Robert A. Oden]]
* [[Daniel N. Robinson]]
* [[Rick Roderick]]
* [[Robert Sapolsky]]
* [[Benjamin Schumacher]]
* [[John Searle]]
* [[Jeremy Shearmur]]
* [[Seth Shostak]]
* [[Robert C. Solomon]]
* [[Michael Starbird]]
* [[Edward B. Burger]]
* [[Jonathan Steinberg]]
* [[Steven Strogatz]]
* [[Timothy Taylor (economist)|Timothy Taylor]]
* [[Neil deGrasse Tyson]]
* [[Elizabeth Vandiver]]
* [[Irwin Weil]]
* [[Arnold Weinstein]]
* [[Richard Wolfson (physicist)|Richard Wolfson]]
* [[David Zarefsky]]
(others)
 
==References==
{{reflist}}

Revision as of 18:30, 29 April 2012

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The Teaching Company is a publisher offering, under the brand name The Great Courses, video and audio recordings of college-level lectures. The company was founded in 1990 by Thomas M. Rollins, a former government employee, and is based in Chantilly, Virginia.