You may currently be experiencing a terrible professor, or maybe you’ve had a few in the past. We’ve all had them. At some point in our four or more years here, we all come across a professor who isn’t so deserving of the title.
Talk of such professors can be heard all semester long. Some constantly miss class or arrive late, others berate students for not understanding concepts and some can’t stay on subject to save their lives.
Students, myself included, are completely comfortable complaining about our professors to other students, parents and friends. We know when we come across someone who doesn’t like teaching or uses cruel methods in the classroom.
Some say, “You get what you pay for.”
We pay tuition and we pay for our education. We should feel comfortable telling professors when something isn’t working, talking with someone in the department or even sending an anonymous email.
MORE.
That's funny; from the title I thought they were going to argue for higher pay for professors, cause lord knows a professor who's stressed about bills and where the next meal comes from likely isn't giving teaching his/her all. Silly, silly me. :P
ReplyDeletealthough the example she gives really does sound like someone we'd agree is a lousy professor.
ReplyDeleteI'd welcome a discussion of things I do that aren't "working" to help the student learn the material. But starting that discussion from the point of "I pay your salary" will lead to a whole different conversation, and one will typically be about the student getting an "A" rather than learning anything.
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't it sad that this student doesn't seem to realize that the evaluation process dismissed with disdain can and does lead to adjuncts not returning ... to be underpaid for the privilege of being sacked by snotty anonymous complaints?
DeleteThe piece is sort of rambling--somebody skipped class when "redundancy" and "brevity" were discussed in English 102--but the general idea makes sense.
ReplyDelete"We pay tuition and we pay for our education. We should feel comfortable telling professors when something isn’t working, talking with someone in the department or even sending an anonymous email".
Well, why don't you? Go to your prof's office hours and let him/her know what you feel isn't working in the class. Most of us like to have this kind of feedback, but when students come to my office I have to pry it from them with pliers.
I don't understand students' fear of retaliation, but if that's the problem they can warn the associate chair as well. Now, just going to that person (or gossiping to my colleagues) doesn't help at all, since I most likely won't get to hear it until much later. Anonymous emails would be ignored.
"Instead of running to Ratemyprofessor.com to share our disdain for a teaching style or waiting until we are given semester evaluation forms, professors should be constantly receiving feedback."
Last semester I gave my students a voluntary midterm evaluation form, to be returned anonymously to me. None were returned; clearly feedback with the "advisory" function, but lacking a "payback" component, is of no interest to students. As for RMP, I'm convinced half the comments on my page there were sent by a single colleague in my department; the site is strictly for laughs.
You are SO right. Here, if we don't physically hand out and collect (have a student collect) evaluations, students generally wouldn't do them (the all-online courses have about 20% rate of return at my institution--usually students with an ax to grind. How's that for skewing the results?). As you pointed out, there's no "payback" for doing it--unless you count that a student is able to anonymously complain "This class had too much reading" "This class met too early in the day"... Ugh.
DeleteThe other problem is the idea that "something isn't working" for a student--if it's not working for the whole class, then maybe yes, it's time for an adjustment--and many if not most professors make those tweaks because they're not stupid. If it's not working for one or two students, but they complain loudly to the chair etc., and the professor is "forced" to change something that may have been just fine for the majority, where does that land us?
I had one of these on the very first day of this semester. As I was going over my policies on deadlines and expectations and late work (not accepted without documentation) and how this university is not at all like the high school across the street, where you can turn things in in a flood at the end of the term and expect to get credit, one of the little darlings raised his hand and said "But we're paying for this class, so we should be able to turn things in when we can." I am rather proud of myself for responding calmly, "No, what you're paying for is the opportunity to earn 3 credits in a course designed and guided by a professional with 17 years of classroom experience. You can try to turn things in whenever you feel like it, but I don't think you'll like the results." What I also wanted to say is "None of you pay my salary. My salary is allocated by the state--in a way, all taxpayers help pay my salary. Your share of my salary is less than a penny. The Board of Regents here raised tuition 5.5% across the board. Do you think I saw a dime of that? I haven't had even a cost-of-living adjustment since 2007. SHUT THE FUCK UP." But I didn't.
ReplyDeleteStill, a bit later on, when we were talking about identity and how we present ourselves, another student said "You seem kinda bad-ass." I'll take it. Beats being a doormat.
Yeah, I've heard that too, when going over course policies on the first day: "you're scaring us, dude". Actually, that's one thing it took me a long time to learn: you can't scare them into doing the work, since it's much easier to drop the class.
DeleteMy intent on day 1 is to scare away the slackers. Unfortunately, they're all too often replaced by other slackers that were too lazy to register during their priority period.
DeleteI had an undergrad Hamsterology professor who scheduled the first test such that the grades would be returned JUST before the last day to drop. Everyone did awful. The next week we came back and we'd lost like a third of the class. That's when he explained he wasn't counting that test and it was way harder than it needed to be, and that he'd only done that to "weed out" the "un-serious." Granted, it was a senior-level class, but I wasn't sure whether to think the guy was a genius or a bastard. I settled on both.
DeleteThat's interesting, Wylodmayer. I used to give tests just before the deadline to drop, too, thinking I was being "nice". I didn't make them hard or anything, just copied some of the homework problems, which I had already gone over in class. All the same, invariably about 20% of the class bombed the test and dropped. Now, at another school it might be considered OK if the incompetent/lazy drop, but not at my so-called R1; the Ws are counted against the instructor. So now I give a test right after the W deadline, and convince them they still have a chance to recover. So some of them hang on (others vanish), and in the end I can decide whether they squeak by with a D or get the F they earned. So much more "humane", isn't it?
DeleteUgh, our drop deadline is something like two weeks before the end of the semester (which really skews grades, too-- very few probable D and F students stick around)
DeleteProfessors have opinions too, but 15-minute rants about why Ronald Reagan is the greatest American of all time are completely unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteWho says things like this? Nancy?
The article mentions the "authority gap" - I find it interestesting the number of students who think that the student-prof relationship is one among equals. I also love it when they tell me what they are going to do. I had a student last semester who "informed me" after I dropped her that she was "gonna" turn in all the work for a 15 week course in the second half of the term. I "informed" her that was not "gonna" happen. I did have one student come in last semester and talk with me because he didn't feel he was getting much out of class and was hoping for a more seminar style. I told him he would see more of that when he moved beyond Hamsters 101. It was actually a nice conversation and he turned out to be a great student.
ReplyDeleteTake care here.
DeleteI attended a faculty meeting where we were actually informed the way to remedy the "authority gap" is to honor "what the students bring to the table," in other words, they are peers.
Here's how I think of it: a student may well be my equal in intelligence. However, he or she is not my equal in terms of training and experience in the field. So I try to treat them as potential colleagues, but not as actual ones.
ReplyDeletethat seems fair.
DeleteI have found that the students who are intelligent are often the nicest,least arrogant, least entitled and sometimes even the most deferential. Now I'm not suggesting we treat our students disrespectfully or expect them to bow down to us, but some recognition/acceptance of the fact that I run the course would be nice.
ReplyDeleteExactly: those who have the reasoning powers to recognize that experience trumps tuition dollars in the classroom actually GET that the professor isn't out to get them and is a person who has earned some respect simply by putting up with flakes for years on end, at the very least (at least on Day 1). I've had my share of asshole professors and colleagues, but at least on Day 1, before they even know me, when I'm going through course policies, some level of respect should be expected on both sides of the table.
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