Dear Professor,

[warty goblin]

Thank you so much for writing a midterm so long, hard and unlike the last two months of homework that over half the class failed. I really appreciate thoughtful little gestures putting six problems on a test you said would have four, the question that involves material you said would not be on the midterm or the 'simple' proof that requires three different identities and a theorem only briefly mentioned in class to prove.

But thank you even more for announcing, without warning, that the lucky 60% of the class who did not memorize every lemma ever mentioned, had to redo the entire thing. Making it due at midnight was a particularly insightful touch, because I love doing measure theory at all hours of the day and night. Indeed I begrudge the accursed weakness of my mortal frame that still requires food and sleep. If only these frailties could be removed, there would be nothing to disrupt my aescetic contemplation of Borel sets. Thanks to you, that aching, midterm shaped hole in my afternoon has been filled.

Oh, and that other midterm I have this week? No worries. I'm sure I'll get the studying for that one done in the ample free time my other two classes and teaching duties furnish me with. There is absolutely no chance I was going to use this afternoon and evening to review the approximately 300 pages of material I need to learn for that by Thursday morning.

Sincerely,
A student.

*******

Seriously, guy's been teaching for years. You'd think he'd have figured out how to write a midterm people could actually do. Or, failing that, curve the bloody thing like a normal human being. This is a statistics department after all, they should know how to do that.

Anybody else for professorial horror stories?

[razark]

Anybody else for professorial horror stories?
Wait until you have a professor that believes "If I think you should know it by this point in your life, it's fair game for the test.", and means it.

Still can't believe I missed the distance from the earth to the moon.


He was the best damn COBOL professor I've ever seen, though.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Last semester one of my professors gave a final that was literally impossible to finish. He placed questions on it that were barely even tangentially related to what we had learned in the course, things that made absolutely no sense whatsoever. One girl broke down crying partway through and had to be escorted out. I started crying at the end of the test.

And yet somehow I stomped it to the ground and beat it to a pulp without even realizing it...

[noparlpf]

My Physics II prof. wrote exams with the intent for the class average to be 50%, which he curved to a B.
I remember exams in his class where the class average was in the high twenties.
This year, he doesn't even allow equation sheets in any of his classes.

[ThePhantasm]

If the prof outright lied about what was going to be on the test and how many questions there'd be, wouldn't that be grounds for a complaint to the school administration? I'd think there'd be someone higher up you could talk to about this confidentially.

[Deathslayer7]

Wouldn't help if he is tenured.

But yes, they do surveys at the end of the year (before finals) where you rate how well the professor has done. I know this because I am the guy who administers these surveys for every class.

This partially reflects on the professor but in the end doesn't matter much.

Now if they aren't tenured.... that's a whole different ball game. :smallbiggrin:

[Ceric]

My Physics II prof. wrote exams with the intent for the class average to be 50%, which he curved to a B.

If it's curved, I don't care what the percent is. Still means that half the class got a B or an A. You have to shift your thinking so that it's okay to not finish everything on a test but as long as the grade's fine does it matter?

[OracleofWuffing]

Do you know how well the people who passed, passed by? I mean, if 60% of the class fails but 40% of the class hits a 95% average, curving or adjusting things won't do much good unless you want to give out 145% scores. Which, I mean, yeah, there's nothing stopping a professor from doing that, but it doesn't look good. Or it looks too good. Or... Okay, yeah, I'll just stay away from numbers again.

[Madara]

Ouch, that really sucks. :smalleek:

My class is very unified, we either all pass with high marks, or just bomb it. So, I've only once ever had a teacher grade on a curve.

Worst teacher ever. Looking back, I learned very little, he taught very little, and he gave out crazy grades. We were so young we didn't realize that the curve grading was changing "D"s to "B"s and no parents or other faculty realized the problem, cause they only knew the end result.

That said, the school did squat about it, he still teaches there, and has a terrible reputation that even my current teacher(in high school) knows about.

Yes, I could go on about how awful he was for quite a while.

[The Underlord]

My sister has a physics teacher in high school that is so bad, she pretty much teaches the class. I am not kidding.

[Marnath]

Not a professor, but a high school teacher story. My chemistry teacher had really lax standards for what he considered a passing grade on tests and essays. The tests were mostly multiple choice with the correct answer and 3 that didn't really relate to the question at all. The final exam was that easy too, but it represented 70% of the final grade. You could literally do no homework and fail every test and get more than a passing grade by doing decent on that exam. As a result I passed in flying colors without ever learning the composition of freaking salt. H2O is literally the only chemistry I know.

I heard that he was fired a few years later when he apparently decided to give up any pretense of caring and started italicizing the correct test answers.

[Katana_Geldar]

Well, given that uni lecturers receive little to no training on actually teaching...

The best lecturer I had at uni had been a teacher. He was awesome. Every time I put on cotton underwear I think of his lectures about the industrial revolution.

[Madara]

My sister has a physics teacher in high school that is so bad, she pretty much teaches the class. I am not kidding.

Yep, some of them are like that...and of course they put on a show when the school board makes their yearly visit. Today just Happens to be the one day that we're doing a lab/discussion and I look good :smallconfused:


Also,
Well, given that uni lecturers receive little to no training on actually teaching...

The best lecturer I had at uni had been a teacher. He was awesome. Every time I put on cotton underwear I think of his lectures about the industrial revolution.

TMI :smalltongue:

[SaintRidley]

Wouldn't help if he is tenured.

But yes, they do surveys at the end of the year (before finals) where you rate how well the professor has done. I know this because I am the guy who administers these surveys for every class.

This partially reflects on the professor but in the end doesn't matter much.

Now if they aren't tenured.... that's a whole different ball game. :smallbiggrin:

I hate student evaluations. Half of the students don't care. A quarter do care but the evaluations are dumb anyway. Just about a quarter have some slight, real or imagined, from the professor that causes them to try and punish the professor for by giving a negative evaluation. One percent give worthwhile and honest feedback.

You would not ask an apprentice blacksmith to evaluate the performance of his or her master. Nor would you of an apprentice plumber, or electrician, or anybody else.

Yet somehow we expect students, many of whom simply do not want to be there, to evaluate their professors? We actually expect the neophyte to be able to provide a thoughtful and effective critique of someone who has demonstrated mastery of the field?


If student evaluations are to be worth something, they should be given after at least a semester's time. Give time for the information to sink in. It often takes time for a student to truly realize what they have learned, even if they thought they had learned nothing at the time.

[Deathslayer7]

I fully agree. The problem with that is then we have to hunt down individual students. The chances of students coming to the office are slim to none, and that is probably more work than it is worth.

[Anarion]

Yep, some of them are like that...and of course they put on a show when the school board makes their yearly visit. Today just Happens to be the one day that we're doing a lab/discussion and I look good :smallconfused:

I had one English teacher who reran the same lesson plan two days in row, the first day to go over it with everyone and the second day to show off to the evaluators for her class. Still not sure why I didn't report it, other than the fact that I was 14 at the time and deathly afraid of her, but that's not really an excuse.

On curved physics and math tests though, anything goes. The fact that they put problems on the test that nobody should legitimately be able to solve and then some percentage of the people manage to solve them anyway is a realistic, if not particularly fair, way of figuring out who in the class is either a super genius or just cares that much.

[Starscream]

Had a calculus professor my first year of college who was just plain awful. Her English wasn't very good, causing her to stumble over even the simplest of explanations. She never did examples of the stuff she was teaching, only proofs. And she constantly made mistakes.

I'm talking really simple stuff, like multiplications I could do in the 6th grade. I don know if she was really incompetent, or just scatterbrained, but it was impossible to learn from her.

Fortunately it didn't last very long. A week or so into the semester, we got an email from another calc professor in which he cheerfully pointed out that technically you only need to show up to class for midterms and finals, and homework could be given to TAs, so technically you could attend another lecture entirely covering the same material and be fine, y'know, if you felt you responded better to a different "teaching style". Also, coincidentally, he just happened to be teaching that same class at the same time, and had been given a really big lecture hall. Not that he's suggesting anything, no sir, not at all.

Mass exodus ensued. I gather about 85% of my class either started going to this guy's lectures or not at all.

[Elemental]

I was blessed with good teachers all throughout my schooling.
They all knew what they were talking about and they all taught well. Even the strictest of my teachers were good.

So, I can't add to this discussion at all...
Except, you'd think they'd give lecturers a ten-week course on what to reasonably expect from their students...

[Nai_Calus]

I had a teacher who was fond of bad tests once.

I rather unfondly recall the time a final exam had the question 'According to the book, what does RAID stand for?'. Multiple choice, and both Independent and Inexpensive were present, both of which are potentially valid. But the question was which the book used. Now, RAID was mentioned once in the textbook for this class on Windows XP. In one of the last chapters. That nobody had read because it wasn't required to be read because it wasn't relevant and was stuff we already knew. (I looked it up later. As a testament to how staggeringly bad a test question this was, no, I don't remember now eight years later which it was.)

It was unceremoniously tossed off the test at our next session after the entire class complained, since it was one of those things where even if you *had* read it, you weren't going to bother remembering which one the book used. (I have no idea why we had a class after the final, but we usually did there.)

More sensible was the math teacher who put extra credit questions on the tests of things we'd only briefly covered or hadn't really covered much, where trying didn't count against you.

[Elemental]

Oddly enough, your post just reminded of a humourous happening from one of my maths exams in grade eleven.
I was the only person in the class to get an A for a particular question, even though I had gotten it wrong.
Our teacher, Mr. Walsh, said it was because he couldn't figure out the mistake I had made, and that my working had been perfect.

[Krazzman]

In my time at the in Germany called Realschule (Secondary School you attend for 6 years where you can qualify for the A-Levels and have to switch schools to attend the A-Levels) I had an German teacher that seemed to hate me.

The main problem was the dean of this school was busy with politics (she attempted to be voted as city mayor) and wasn't really standing to the problems I (and another pupil) had with this teacher. Lets call him Mr. B.

Unfair Grading 1:
In the 9th grade we had a phase of practical "training". I went to a Machine Construction Company that builds prototypes for making Tetrapacks and such.
At the end we should write an exam on this. In the Introductionary (for which I got 0 points) I should mention the location of the company and so on. The reason why I got 0 points in this? I forgot to mention that it was in Aachen Laurensberg...I wrote just Aachen. The middlepart was quite good (while the whole work should have been a 4- or in American Standart a D-) but the last part was about my opinion about this sort of work. I got 0 points for that because I mentioned that the whole thing about sorting certain parts, stacking them together and so on reminded me of playing with Lego.

Unfair Grading 2:
Additionally at the end or beginning of 9th/10th grade...can't really remember anymore we had to make a book analysis and review or how it is called in english. The main points were to give insight in the history of the author, the characterization of the characters, the content of the book and another thing I can't remember anymore.
So we had this rather crappy list of books or we could suggest one (I couldn't because the books I pointed out weren't good enough[tried Anders from Hohlbein]) but another one could take Lord of the Rings...
The short end of the stick lead to me to take a book which was written in a berlinish accent and dead dry. We had 2 Schoolhours (1.5 Hours) for 2 Pupils. And I was the 6th or 8th to present my work. The guy before me took nearly 1 Hour leaving me with some more than 30 minutes. Additionally I was interrupted twice because of one guy having a medical appointment. Which lead to me being over the time. In the end I broke things down because Mr B said I should make it faster so the others won't need to stay that long and so I still needed 10 Minutes more into the end of class.
I got it back as a 4 (D) with the reasoning: my presentation was too short.

Longest correcting ever!
So of course we wrote a few exams in the 3 years I had german with mr B. But one took him really really long to correct. We became it back at the day before the next exam. Which was about 12 weeks later.
Edit:
Every other teacher got it done over the course of a week or two. And of course you couldn't really complain over the grade because it was due for that long...

I hope you now can understand my deeply rooted hate for this teacher...

[Elemental]

Removed for length.


That... That's just the school equivalent of a nightmare...
Never in all my years, have I heard of a more unfair individual.
You were asked on your opinion, and you got no marks for it? Can an opinion even be graded?
And you're presentation wasn't too short, the other person's was too long, and the teacher told you to cut it down. None of the teachers I ever had would have tried anything like that.
And what was he doing for those twelve weeks?

Ultimately, after rereading the opening of your post, I see that the dean of your school neglected her duties, I certainly hope she didn't get to become mayor if she couldn't even focus on doing her current job.
We were fortunate to have a highly dedicated principal, one of the best in the state in my opinion.

[GnomeFighter]

I hate student evaluations. Half of the students don't care. A quarter do care but the evaluations are dumb anyway. Just about a quarter have some slight, real or imagined, from the professor that causes them to try and punish the professor for by giving a negative evaluation. One percent give worthwhile and honest feedback.

You would not ask an apprentice blacksmith to evaluate the performance of his or her master. Nor would you of an apprentice plumber, or electrician, or anybody else.

Yet somehow we expect students, many of whom simply do not want to be there, to evaluate their professors? We actually expect the neophyte to be able to provide a thoughtful and effective critique of someone who has demonstrated mastery of the field?


If student evaluations are to be worth something, they should be given after at least a semester's time. Give time for the information to sink in. It often takes time for a student to truly realize what they have learned, even if they thought they had learned nothing at the time.

Um, I think you have the wrong idea. Student evaluations should be about the quality of the teaching, not the content, and after 16 odd years of school most studens should know good teaching from bad. Few, if any proffessors demonstrated mastery of the field of teaching, in some cases coming far below standards that would be expected from a school teacher.

Some students may not care (In which case asume it was ok) some may missuse it. Thats the real world - I suggest you go and look at the threads about working in retail or service sector and how annoying customers can be.

You may not ask an apprentice blacksmith or apprentice plumber to evaluate the performance of his or her master (actualy they do when the apprenice is part of modern collage/work based traning rather than some 19th century view) but the customer would not expect to be told "you know nothing" if they gave feedback. You are, after all, providing a service to your students of teaching them, often at a cost of many thousands of dollars.

[danzibr]

[...]measure theory[...]statistics department[...]
You do measure theory in statistics?

EDIT:
[...]when the apprenice is part of modern collage[...]
I'd like to be put in a collage. Sorry, had to do it.

[Karoht]

Test question, in basic statistics.
Bob has 5 oranges.
Blah blah blah blah blah numbers blah blah blah blah blah percentage of something blah blah blah blah blah apples blah blah bananas blah strawberries blah sample size blah blah blah blah.
How many oranges does Bob have.

The professor failed anyone who dared to write the number 5 instead of some big lengthy 'work' to indicate that Bob only had 3 oranges.
I'd like to point out that no where in the paragraph long question did oranges get mentioned beyond the original declaration that Bob has 5 oranges, and the question regarding the number of oranges that Bob has.

When the entire class argued this, we actually produced 5 oranges, and acted out what the question asked. At no point did we remove an orange from Bob, nor did we actually manipulate any of the other fruit that was mentioned.

Did bob have 3 oranges?
If he did, the professor couldn't give us any form of logic which indicated such.
But he still insisted that 3 was the correct answer. Yeah.

This question of the test was 5 marks out of the 50 total of the test. And this test was a pretty big chunk of our final grade. So 10% off the top of everyone, because this guy was a moron at writing tests, or failed at understanding the subject which he was teaching, I honestly can't tell which.

[Mono Vertigo]

[Kafkaesque story about counting oranges]

"If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five", said George Orwell.

[CoffeeIncluded]

There was one teacher in my high school, some of you may remember the thread from two years ago...Granted, I didn't help matters much, but it was bad. Very bad. The school nearly screwed me out of my future even though right at the beginning of the year I said to my mom, "I don't have a good feeling about this," and she immediately went to the office to get me switch (which failed) and the superintendent nearly got involved.

[Karoht]

"If he says that two and two are five — well, two and two are five", said George Orwell.Try explaining that to a statistics professor. They provide numbers out of thin air to prove any point. 9 out of 8 doctors know that.

[warty goblin]

Um, I think you have the wrong idea. Student evaluations should be about the quality of the teaching, not the content, and after 16 odd years of school most studens should know good teaching from bad. Few, if any proffessors demonstrated mastery of the field of teaching, in some cases coming far below standards that would be expected from a school teacher.

Some students may not care (In which case asume it was ok) some may missuse it. Thats the real world - I suggest you go and look at the threads about working in retail or service sector and how annoying customers can be.

You may not ask an apprentice blacksmith or apprentice plumber to evaluate the performance of his or her master (actualy they do when the apprenice is part of modern collage/work based traning rather than some 19th century view) but the customer would not expect to be told "you know nothing" if they gave feedback. You are, after all, providing a service to your students of teaching them, often at a cost of many thousands of dollars.

Exactly. The academy operates under the strange assumption that it isn't providing services to customers. Despite the fact that students are paying upwards of $100 per classroom hour. I hardly think it unfair to subject the service providers (aka professors) to some customer feedback.

My take has always been that I'm hiring the college to provide me, the student, with education. If they do a bad job, I think I have every right to complain, whether or not I'm expertly qualified. If I hire a plumber and he causes my toilet to explode, my lack of a plumbing background doesn't stop me from noting he did a crappy job. If my professor can't write a midterm that a group of highly motivated and well trained people cannot do well on, I think it fair to say he did a bad job.


You do measure theory in statistics?


Mathematically, statistics is pretty much all measure theory at some level. We just call measurable functions random variables, and use a probability measure that maps the whole space to 1. The integral becomes the expectation, and distribution functions are induced measures. Then we add some strange things like independence, convergence in distribution, and so forth.

Of course since everything is real valued, outside of the measure class, it just ends up looking like calculus.

[danzibr]

Mathematically, statistics is pretty much all measure theory at some level. We just call measurable functions random variables, and use a probability measure that maps the whole space to 1. The integral becomes the expectation, and distribution functions are induced measures. Then we add some strange things like independence, convergence in distribution, and so forth.

Of course since everything is real valued, outside of the measure class, it just ends up looking like calculus.
Man, I had no idea. I'm a pure mathematician (or, well, will be someday). Notta clue...

[noparlpf]

Oddly enough, your post just reminded of a humourous happening from one of my maths exams in grade eleven.
I was the only person in the class to get an A for a particular question, even though I had gotten it wrong.
Our teacher, Mr. Walsh, said it was because he couldn't figure out the mistake I had made, and that my working had been perfect.

Do you by any chance still have the exam in question? I'm really curious what the question and your answer were.


Test question, in basic statistics.
Bob has 5 oranges.
Blah blah blah blah blah numbers blah blah blah blah blah percentage of something blah blah blah blah blah apples blah blah bananas blah strawberries blah sample size blah blah blah blah.
How many oranges does Bob have.

The professor failed anyone who dared to write the number 5 instead of some big lengthy 'work' to indicate that Bob only had 3 oranges.
I'd like to point out that no where in the paragraph long question did oranges get mentioned beyond the original declaration that Bob has 5 oranges, and the question regarding the number of oranges that Bob has.

When the entire class argued this, we actually produced 5 oranges, and acted out what the question asked. At no point did we remove an orange from Bob, nor did we actually manipulate any of the other fruit that was mentioned.

Did bob have 3 oranges?
If he did, the professor couldn't give us any form of logic which indicated such.
But he still insisted that 3 was the correct answer. Yeah.

This question of the test was 5 marks out of the 50 total of the test. And this test was a pretty big chunk of our final grade. So 10% off the top of everyone, because this guy was a moron at writing tests, or failed at understanding the subject which he was teaching, I honestly can't tell which.

What kind of mathematics professor claims that three equals five? (And doesn't even prove how or why?)

[Mono Vertigo]

Try explaining that to a statistics professor. They provide numbers out of thin air to prove any point. 9 out of 8 doctors know that.
"Sanity is not statistical."
Also George Orwell.
The fact he's getting relevant in this thread scares me.

[WarKitty]

Exactly. The academy operates under the strange assumption that it isn't providing services to customers. Despite the fact that students are paying upwards of $100 per classroom hour. I hardly think it unfair to subject the service providers (aka professors) to some customer feedback.

My take has always been that I'm hiring the college to provide me, the student, with education. If they do a bad job, I think I have every right to complain, whether or not I'm expertly qualified. If I hire a plumber and he causes my toilet to explode, my lack of a plumbing background doesn't stop me from noting he did a crappy job. If my professor can't write a midterm that a group of highly motivated and well trained people cannot do well on, I think it fair to say he did a bad job.

I think the compromise is usually that students should fill out evaluations, but that evaluations should be reviewed by someone with teaching experience in the area, rather than some random administrator. Basically, someone that can tell the difference between a legitimate complaint and just whining should look them over. I've had legitimately bad instructors (and legitimate complaints about my own teaching), but also got a lot of negative comments on my evaluation to the effect of "instructor expects us to know all the material in order to get an A."

[Maxios]

This isn't actually about a professor:
When I went Kindergarten, I loved it. I loved learning, I loved writing, I loved all of it. Then after Kindergarten, my family moved across town and I had to go to a new school for 1st grade.
There, I had the teacher of hell. Not only did she favor the girls more then the boys, she favored me the least of the guys. She would mark questions I got right wrong, pick on me for no reason, and do whatever she could to be a jerk.
Finally, my parents realized I started to hate going to school because of this horrible teacher, and began the process to take me out of this school and take me back to my old school.
This teacher then said I was mentally unstable, and then after a note from my doctor told her I was mentally fine, she tried saying I had ADHD or a mental disease that inhibits learning.
The doctor is the specialist for ADHD or learning-inhibiting diseases in the town, and sent her a note saying once again I was fine. The Teacher then tried saying my doctor had no clue about what he was talking about. At this point, the process was complete and I got to return to my old school.

[razark]

What kind of mathematics professor claims that three equals five? (And doesn't even prove how or why?)
3 does not equal 5. But the answer to "Did Bob have three oranges?" is "yes".

Bob had five oranges labeled A, B, C, D, and E.
Therefore, he has the three oranges labeled A, B, and C. Also, he has the three oranges labeled A, B, and D. And A, B, and E.
B, C, and D.
B, D, and E.
and so forth. In addition to the three oranges, he also had two oranges.

Did Bob have 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 oranges? Yes to each case.
How many oranges did Bob have? 5.

[Karoht]

3 does not equal 5. But the answer to "Did Bob have three oranges?" is "yes".

Bob had five oranges labeled A, B, C, D, and E.
Therefore, he has the three oranges labeled A, B, and C. Also, he has the three oranges labeled A, B, and D. And A, B, and E.
B, C, and D.
B, D, and E.
and so forth. In addition to the three oranges, he also had two oranges.

Did Bob have 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 oranges? Yes to each case.
How many oranges did Bob have? 5.
Your answer is still more simple than the hour long discussion we had where he insisted that the entire class was wrong.



This isn't actually about a professor:
When I went Kindergarten, I loved it. I loved learning, I loved writing, I loved all of it. Then after Kindergarten, my family moved across town and I had to go to a new school for 1st grade.
There, I had the teacher of hell. Not only did she favor the girls more then the boys, she favored me the least of the guys. She would mark questions I got right wrong, pick on me for no reason, and do whatever she could to be a jerk.
Finally, my parents realized I started to hate going to school because of this horrible teacher, and began the process to take me out of this school and take me back to my old school.
This teacher then said I was mentally unstable, and then after a note from my doctor told her I was mentally fine, she tried saying I had ADHD or a mental disease that inhibits learning.
The doctor is the specialist for ADHD or learning-inhibiting diseases in the town, and sent her a note saying once again I was fine. The Teacher then tried saying my doctor had no clue about what he was talking about. At this point, the process was complete and I got to return to my old school.I had this teacher in grade 5.
In the same year of school, I was beaten into the ground by bullies. They put me in anger management classes. Did they put the bullies in there? Nope. Not even the one that did over 10 grand in dental bills worth of damage to my face. But me? Apparently I was a danger to the other kids. You know, the kid who stood there and got his teeth knocked in because he was told that if he so much as pushed the kids to get away from them, he'd be suspended or even expelled. Yeah. Grade 5 was a really crappy year.

[noparlpf]

If the question were, "Does Bob have three oranges?", three would be the right answer. As it is, five is the right answer, and saying that three is the right answer is attempting to equate three and five.

[razark]

If the question were, "Does Bob have three oranges?", three would be the right answer. As it is, five is the right answer, and saying that three is the right answer is attempting to equate three and five.
The answer could be either "yes" or "no". "Three" is not a valid answer:
Does a cow give milk? Three.


Did bob have 3 oranges?
This would be the question that I answered.

[Tavar]

Hmm...well, I do remember a Physics teacher that taught at my highschool. I never had her, but some of my friends did. She was supposed to teach Honors Physics, but she seemed incapable of properly teaching regular physics, much less a somewhat higher level.

There's also my Sister's Geosystems teacher. Oh lord, was he bad. I was unable to help her with anything, because not only would he give the wrong information as answers, but he'd put the right answer as one of the choices. Real basic stuff too. For instance, which of the following is basic equation for force:

A)F=Mass x Acceleration
B)F=Mass x (Acceleration)^2
C)F=Velocity x Distance


The answer, apparently, was B. This was for a graded assignment.

Another good one was the following:

Rank the following by wavelength

Gama Rays
Radio
Yellow light
Blue Light
Infrared Light
X-rays
Ultraviolet

Two equally valid answers, and my sister got it wrong because she chose to have 1= the shortest wavelength.

[Liriel]

This was an Intro Philosophy class - general college requirement. The professor was fond of at least triple negatives in his questions (usually more like 4 or 5 negatives) and the same amount in any multiple choice answers as well. Test formats were multiple choice and then writing (short answer & essay). You'd get a headache trying to figure out what he was asking before you could even start in on attempting to answer.

Had another prof who was brilliant, but scatterbrained. He often tested us on the chapters ahead of where we were.

Probably the worst though, was a cross-listed Linguistics class (available to both undergrads & grads). I was taking it as an undergrad. He was using his own book (with tons of mistakes - he got very upset when you corrected him too) and expected the students to know statistics. Most of the students were either English or Linguistics majors and weren't required to take anything higher than algebra. I had already done stats, so I was the only one who knew what he was talking about. I ended up teaching everyone basic stats before the prof showed up. (I got the impression he didn't much like undergrads either. He was a grad student adviser and didn't really pay as much attention to us undergrads.)

[noparlpf]

Test question, in basic statistics.
Bob has 5 oranges.
Blah blah blah blah blah numbers blah blah blah blah blah percentage of something blah blah blah blah blah apples blah blah bananas blah strawberries blah sample size blah blah blah blah.
How many oranges does Bob have.

That's the question that I answered.


Hmm...well, I do remember a Physics teacher that taught at my highschool. I never had her, but some of my friends did. She was supposed to teach Honors Physics, but she seemed incapable of properly teaching regular physics, much less a somewhat higher level.

There's also my Sister's Geosystems teacher. Oh lord, was he bad. I was unable to help her with anything, because not only would he give the wrong information as answers, but he'd put the right answer as one of the choices. Real basic stuff too. For instance, which of the following is basic equation for force:

A)F=Mass x Acceleration
B)F=Mass x (Acceleration)^2
C)F=Velocity x Distance


The answer, apparently, was B. This was for a graded assignment.

Another good one was the following:

Rank the following by wavelength

Gama Rays
Radio
Yellow light
Blue Light
Infrared Light
X-rays
Ultraviolet

Two equally valid answers, and my sister got it wrong because she chose to have 1= the shortest wavelength.

What. How did this person have this job?

[Karoht]

That's the question that I answered.
You both answered the question fine.
The prof didn't. Thats the point.
Part and parcel (to a much larger issue of the institution I was at) of why I dropped out of that school.

[danzibr]

The answer could be either "yes" or "no". "Three" is not a valid answer:
Does a cow give milk? Three.


This would be the question that I answered.
Yeah.bufferbuffer

[Partof1]

My teachers have been more or less okay. I've had ones that were generally unpleasant, one of which gave me a detention for colouring poorly in a grade 5 French class, others who didn't like being argued with, and in social studies, that's a touch of an issue, but overall, I've been fine.

One that stood out was my grade 10 social teacher. She was barely a babysitter, much less an educator. There were several classes where everyone would sit and waste time while she played gaes on her blackberry, and occasionally, she'd simply leave when we got noisy.

What I've heard about university and college profs is that they often really aren't teachers. they care about their own research and teach for the grant money.

[SaintRidley]

Exactly. The academy operates under the strange assumption that it isn't providing services to customers. Despite the fact that students are paying upwards of $100 per classroom hour. I hardly think it unfair to subject the service providers (aka professors) to some customer feedback.

My take has always been that I'm hiring the college to provide me, the student, with education. If they do a bad job, I think I have every right to complain, whether or not I'm expertly qualified. If I hire a plumber and he causes my toilet to explode, my lack of a plumbing background doesn't stop me from noting he did a crappy job. If my professor can't write a midterm that a group of highly motivated and well trained people cannot do well on, I think it fair to say he did a bad job.

The problem with that idea is that when students believe they are customers they believe they are entitled to the grade they want. They paid so much money for it after all.

You are paying the school to provide the learning environment and professors to teach you. It is up to the student to do the actual learning. And it is up to the student to demonstrate that they have learned. When a student gets the grade they deserve rather than the grade they want their evaluations are compromised - how many students complain about a professor because their grade isn't as high as they want and then use that as the basis for saying the teaching was poor?

I'm in favor of peer evaluations. Student evaluations carry too many issues for my tastes.

[Starwulf]

I think the worst teacher I ever had was a math teacher in High-School. I had missed school one day because I was sick. It just so happens that the day before that I had dyed my hair an orangish-blonde(first time, and my hair doesn't take well to blonde dye unless I dye it 3-4 times in a row). When I came back into school the next day, he started literally harassing me, saying that I missed school because I dyed my hair and that I was a pansy for doing so. I got so pissed off that I stood up, picked my chair up and hurled it at him, dared him to come after me, then walked out of his classroom screaming profanities so loud that my friends on the other side of the school could hear me. Sadly, because I over-reacted, the administration refused to take my side and I got kicked out of school for 3 days because of it. He actually apologized at the end of year(it was my senior year) and said that he shouldn't have said what he did. I gracefully accepted it, since I was graduated and didn't give two whits about him anymore.

[warty goblin]

The problem with that idea is that when students believe they are customers they believe they are entitled to the grade they want. They paid so much money for it after all.

You are paying the school to provide the learning environment and professors to teach you. It is up to the student to do the actual learning. And it is up to the student to demonstrate that they have learned. When a student gets the grade they deserve rather than the grade they want their evaluations are compromised - how many students complain about a professor because their grade isn't as high as they want and then use that as the basis for saying the teaching was poor?

I'm in favor of peer evaluations. Student evaluations carry too many issues for my tastes.

I've never met a student who felt themselves entitled to a grade because they were paying tuition, nor do I believe that. At present count I have attended three different colleges and universities - two as an undergraduate and one as a grad student. In the later capacity I provide office hours and tutorial sessions for undergraduates. At this point I am probably best described as a professional student, and I have nearly a decade of experience in this role.

In all this, pretty much the only complaints I've heard or personally made are that professors ask questions about things that weren't covered during class or the homework*. Since tests are supposed to, as you put it, demonstrate what the student has learned, it seems an eminently reasonable complaint if said tests do not give their takers the chance to do that. Asking questions that the student has no reason to anticipate or prepare for based on the class material to date is really not a good way to reflect on what they have learned.

And pure peer review is a horrible idea. The moment the system for judging and rewarding of a group of people is administered by that same group is the moment it stops having any real claim to credibility. It's bad enough that we tenure people, the last thing that should happen is for the major evaluation of job performance to pass into their best buddies' hands.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I did also once complain that a class's homework was taking me upwards of 25 hours a week. I think that in light of being expected to take three other classes at the same time, this was a reasonable objection.

[WarKitty]

I've never met a student who felt themselves entitled to a grade because they were paying tuition, nor do I believe that. At present count I have attended three different colleges and universities - two as an undergraduate and one as a grad student. In the later capacity I provide office hours and tutorial sessions for undergraduates. At this point I am probably best described as a professional student, and I have nearly a decade of experience in this role.

In all this, pretty much the only complaints I've heard or personally made are that professors ask questions about things that weren't covered during class or the homework*. Since tests are supposed to, as you put it, demonstrate what the student has learned, it seems an eminently reasonable complaint if said tests do not give their takers the chance to do that. Asking questions that the student has no reason to anticipate or prepare for based on the class material to date is really not a good way to reflect on what they have learned.

And pure peer review is a horrible idea. The moment the system for judging and rewarding of a group of people is administered by that same group is the moment it stops having any real claim to credibility. It's bad enough that we tenure people, the last thing that should happen is for the major evaluation of job performance to pass into their best buddies' hands.

*In the interest of full disclosure, I did also once complain that a class's homework was taking me upwards of 25 hours a week. I think that in light of being expected to take three other classes at the same time, this was a reasonable objection.

I've seen complaints like that several times already. I had one formal complaint filed this year against me because I wouldn't allow a (non-disabled) student extra time to finish her test. And it's a long-running knowledge in the department that there's a few in each class that ask "I got A's all high school, why don't I have an A here?" I've had a few of those myself already, despite being one of the easier graders around. I've also had complaints from students that they got penalized for missing quizzes (when they had the chance to contact me for a make-up time).

I think you need a mix, honestly. Student evaluations are good and should be kept. At the same time the person reviewing them needs to be able to differentiate between legitimate complaints and just plain whining. I also think there should be a fairly direct feedback system between the students and the instructor - most of us actually are invested in having our students learn, and having feedback can help us tell when there are issues.

[bluewind95]

I've never met a student who felt themselves entitled to a grade because they were paying tuition, nor do I believe that.

You're a lucky man! I've seen plenty. And when you're not at a high school, or a college level... they get even worse. The parents intervene. And you get kids which will be given a passing grade even if they fail. And other godawful things.

[Ceric]

And it's a long-running knowledge in the department that there's a few in each class that ask "I got A's all high school, why don't I have an A here?"

Ooh, that happens here too. It's terrible because a lot of the students are first-generation college students so the parents believe this as well. As in, the parents tell the kids they'll pull the kids out of college if the kids don't continue getting the same 4.0 they got in high school. I'm pretty sure the parents stop saying that by about the end of the first year but it was still pretty scary to hear other students telling me that.

[DropsonExistanc]

Hmm...well, I do remember a Physics teacher that taught at my highschool. I never had her, but some of my friends did. She was supposed to teach Honors Physics, but she seemed incapable of properly teaching regular physics, much less a somewhat higher level.

There's also my Sister's Geosystems teacher. Oh lord, was he bad. I was unable to help her with anything, because not only would he give the wrong information as answers, but he'd put the right answer as one of the choices. Real basic stuff too. For instance, which of the following is basic equation for force:

A)F=Mass x Acceleration
B)F=Mass x (Acceleration)^2
C)F=Velocity x Distance


The answer, apparently, was B. This was for a graded assignment.

Another good one was the following:

Rank the following by wavelength

Gama Rays
Radio
Yellow light
Blue Light
Infrared Light
X-rays
Ultraviolet

Two equally valid answers, and my sister got it wrong because she chose to have 1= the shortest wavelength.
I was about to ask if you had heard of my high school, then I re-read that this teacher was female.

Bad news: there's two of them. And the one I knew also taught grade 8 science :smalleek:

Out of 3 or 4 friends who took physics 12 that year (some as grads, some as advanced placement), only one remained to the end. He said he did it so that the teacher wouldn't "win".

[Elemental]

Do you by any chance still have the exam in question? I'm really curious what the question and your answer were.



I might have it somewhere, but I really doubt it, as it was a few years ago.
I'm pretty sure it was solving an algebraic equation and it took at least sixteen lines of working. Apart from that, no idea.

Edit: And I can't believe the number of horror stories people have posted... My schooling was excellent. Or it would have been if I hadn't kept getting sick.

[Karoht]

Why do we tenure teachers anyway? It's like a license to not do their job if they don't want to. Seriously, what purpose is tenure supposed to serve?

[SaintRidley]

Why do we tenure teachers anyway? It's like a license to not do their job if they don't want to. Seriously, what purpose is tenure supposed to serve?

Note that this is for university professors.

Tenure originated as a way of giving professors job security. Before that, professors served at the pleasure of the trustees of the university and could be fired for any reason if the board decided they no longer liked the professor.

It's primarily a job security thing today. Professors would probably demand a much higher salary if they did not have security in the form of tenure, which is also a factor. The big philosophical reason, though, is academic freedom.

Teaching is a small part of what the professariat does. A good professor is expected to research and contribute to the field with new ideas. As with any system, orthodoxies tend to form and ideas outside the mainstream are discouraged. If a professor has tenure, they theoretically have the ability to pursue potentially controversial lines of research without fear of losing their job over it.

This is not to say that it's not an abusable system - sometimes a tenured professor gets older and stops caring about the research and doesn't contribute new scholarship. That's bad for the students and the academe. The best course of action there, at present anyway, is to hope and nudge them in the direction of retirement.

I've seen my share of professors who just are not good teachers. If they're good researchers (and poor teachers), however, I feel the best solution there is not to abolish tenure but to keep the professor away from teaching by perhaps having their graduate advisees doing some teaching assistantships so they can learn to teach and to keep Professor Badteacher away from the classroom.

If the professor is a bad teacher and bad researcher, it's very unlikely that they'll get tenure in the first place.


Reviewing tenured professors periodically (every seven years or so, perhaps) might be an effective check on abuse, as well.

[noparlpf]

You're a lucky man! I've seen plenty. And when you're not at a high school, or a college level... they get even worse. The parents intervene. And you get kids which will be given a passing grade even if they fail. And other godawful things.

My mum teaches at a private middle school.
But this is a thread for bad teacher horror stories, not for bad student/parent of student horror stories.


I might have it somewhere, but I really doubt it, as it was a few years ago.
I'm pretty sure it was solving an algebraic equation and it took at least sixteen lines of working. Apart from that, no idea.

Edit: And I can't believe the number of horror stories people have posted... My schooling was excellent. Or it would have been if I hadn't kept getting sick.

Aww. :<

I remember one Calc assignment where I could not for the life of me figure out why I kept getting the problem wrong, and neither tutor I went to could either.
Turned out I had accidentally dropped a coefficient in the first line.

[warty goblin]

Note that this is for university professors.

Tenure originated as a way of giving professors job security. Before that, professors served at the pleasure of the trustees of the university and could be fired for any reason if the board decided they no longer liked the professor.

It's primarily a job security thing today. Professors would probably demand a much higher salary if they did not have security in the form of tenure, which is also a factor. The big philosophical reason, though, is academic freedom.

The job security thing has always annoyed me. Everyone else in the cosmos deals with their bosses being able to fire them pretty much at will and gets on fine. This provides nice motivation to keep doing their jobs.

Hell, my dad works at a company that culls their lowest performing 5-10% every year as an institutional policy. The idea of a university doing this fills me with joy.


Teaching is a small part of what the professariat does. A good professor is expected to research and contribute to the field with new ideas. As with any system, orthodoxies tend to form and ideas outside the mainstream are discouraged. If a professor has tenure, they theoretically have the ability to pursue potentially controversial lines of research without fear of losing their job over it.
My complaint about this is that the people most likely to do non-orthodox research are younger, and hence less likely to have tenure. Unless I'm much mistaken, most groundbreaking new ideas don't come from 60 year olds.


This is not to say that it's not an abusable system - sometimes a tenured professor gets older and stops caring about the research and doesn't contribute new scholarship. That's bad for the students and the academe. The best course of action there, at present anyway, is to hope and nudge them in the direction of retirement.

I've seen my share of professors who just are not good teachers. If they're good researchers (and poor teachers), however, I feel the best solution there is not to abolish tenure but to keep the professor away from teaching by perhaps having their graduate advisees doing some teaching assistantships so they can learn to teach and to keep Professor Badteacher away from the classroom.
Or, you know, don't hire people who can't teach to teach classes. Far as I'm concerned, if there are a few hundred people every year paying tens of thousands of dollars for somebody's teaching abilities, they'd better have 'em. Putting professors who cannot teach well in charge of classes is deeply disrespectful to, and abusive of, the students.


If the professor is a bad teacher and bad researcher, it's very unlikely that they'll get tenure in the first place.
I've seen it happen fairly frequently. In one case it was well understood that a certain professor only got tenure because the department wanted her husband, and he wouldn't accept if his wife didn't also get tenure. Her teaching was absolutely despised by pretty much every student who took her classes. I personally, and at least one other student ended up significantly altering our career goals in no small part because she did such a bad job.

She might have been a good researcher, but I was, and a whole new generation of students are, paying ~$150/hr for her teaching. What she does outside of the classroom is irrelevant to that, particularly at the undergraduate level. If other people want to fund her research that's great, but it should not come on the backs of students if she can't do the job they're paying her to do.

More frequent than that though is the professor who pretty clearly isn't giving it their all anymore because they don't have to. I think it's pretty inevitable that a person with perfect job security is going to be less motivated than one whose career is still on the line. I know that most of the professors I respected the most, and thought did the best jobs, were pre-tenure.

[Karoht]

My mum teaches at a private middle school.
But this is a thread for bad teacher horror stories, not for bad student/parent of student horror stories.I am of the mind that the two topics are typically related, but I digress.



Note that this is for university professors.
Tenure originated as a way of giving professors job security. Before that, professors served at the pleasure of the trustees of the university and could be fired for any reason if the board decided they no longer liked the professor.And the only possibilities that people have come up with are 'fireable on a whim' and 'bulletproof' for some reason? I thought these people were educated.


Sorry, I know this isn't your line of reasoning, but it's pretty hard to not show contempt for it. Please don't take any of my responses here personally.


It's primarily a job security thing today. Professors would probably demand a much higher salary if they did not have security in the form of tenure, which is also a factor.When half the teaching staff at a highschool or university show up in porches and audi's that cost the same as my house, pardon myself for not having sympathy here. They want more money to do a job poorly? Pfffft.



The big philosophical reason, though, is academic freedom. Teaching is a small part of what the professariat does. A good professor is expected to research and contribute to the field with new ideas. As with any system, orthodoxies tend to form and ideas outside the mainstream are discouraged. If a professor has tenure, they theoretically have the ability to pursue potentially controversial lines of research without fear of losing their job over it.Thats nice, why does this have to impact students who are paying money to give them that freedom? Why does this come with little to no respect from the professor to the people paying for that freedom? Yes, I'm aware that not all the money comes from tuition, but they could bloody well show some respect.



This is not to say that it's not an abusable system - sometimes a tenured professor gets older and stops caring about the research and doesn't contribute new scholarship. That's bad for the students and the academe. The best course of action there, at present anyway, is to hope and nudge them in the direction of retirement.Again, I don't understand why the only options are 'lack of job security' and 'could take a dump on a students desk and still have a job' especially coming from educated people who should be the first people to point out the issues of such dichotomy.



I've seen my share of professors who just are not good teachers. If they're good researchers (and poor teachers), however, I feel the best solution there is not to abolish tenure but to keep the professor away from teaching by perhaps having their graduate advisees doing some teaching assistantships so they can learn to teach and to keep Professor Badteacher away from the classroom.Or the professor should get a research position in an actual research facility. Education should not come at the expense of research, and the inverse should also be true.



If the professor is a bad teacher and bad researcher, it's very unlikely that they'll get tenure in the first place.Students suffer poor education because some jerkwad with tenure has produced good research. This screws with other potential future researchers for the sake of one guy. The needs of the many and all that. Sure, this guy might be brilliant, maybe he'll cure cancer. But 10 other people who actually receive the benefit of his education might also cure cancer. Again, I don't understand how supposedly educated people do not see this.



Reviewing tenured professors periodically (every seven years or so, perhaps) might be an effective check on abuse, as well.Or, when an entire classroom of students complains to the administration that the professor hasn't shown up for weeks and the TA who's basically doing all the educating doesn't know what the heck they are on about, the administration could do something other than the typical response of placing their fingers in their ears and humming really loudly. But you know, that will never happen.

Review every year. Makes way more sense. Easier to spot trends. If, every semester for 2 years in a row (or indeed, 7 years in a row), a prof is getting extremely negative student reviews, that should already be a red flag.

Better yet. Make these reviews (student and admin) public information. If people can read about these profs and avoid that Professor Badteacher, odds are they would. And if students are actively not taking that professor or constantly dropping her/his courses, again, red flag.

[Alchemistmerlin]

Better yet. Make these reviews (student and admin) public information. If people can read about these profs and avoid that Professor Badteacher, odds are they would. And if students are actively not taking that professor or constantly dropping her/his courses, again, red flag.

If the reviews are made public then they should also no longer be anonymous, and the student's grade should be displayed along with the review, for the sake of full disclosure of course.

[Karoht]

If the reviews are made public then they should also no longer be anonymous, and the student's grade should be displayed along with the review, for the sake of full disclosure of course.
I'd be game for that. I see it though as a datapoint that would be often misinterpreted.

IE-Professor Badman got a poor review.
Concern: Badman showed up drunk to 3/5 classes every week.
Reviewer's Grade: F.
Is the negative review due to the grade or the prof's behavior?
Some people would interpret that as, person is only complaining because they got a bad grade, when the inverse could easily be true in that the bad grade is due to the reason listed in the complaint. Its hard get good grades when you have a poor professor. To have your comments ignored or downranked for that reason seems sily.

On the other hand, if literally every reviewer had poor grades, that would tell us something.
Average grade point per semester would be a bit more relevant. If that was supplied along with the grades of the reviewers, that might be easier to interpret but still open to misinterpretationn between poor student and poor professor.

IE-Professor Badman gets an above average review from the majority of his students. The one student who gives him a poor review got an F.
Comment: Refused to speak to me all semester.
Again, is the negative comment due to the grade or due to the prof's behavior?

But as far as disclosure goes, I agree.


EDIT:
I would like to clarify a previous point.
Paying Tuition.
If I'm paying the University for the privilage of the Professors time, it comes with the assumption of two key points.
1-That the Professor is qualified to teach, otherwise why would they be selling his/her services to me as such?
2-The Professor gives 100% effort towards the obligated service, otherwise why bother selling his/her services to me as such?
If that isn't how it is, then the University in question needs to no longer offer the professors time as a privilage for me to pay for.
It would be like me selling a bag of chips with a label stating there is 100 grams of product in the bag, only for you to find out that there is less than 100 grams of product in the bag. My request to institutions is to either change the label or stop selling the product, and maybe sell a different one.

[WarKitty]

I am of the mind that the two topics are typically related, but I digress.


And the only possibilities that people have come up with are 'fireable on a whim' and 'bulletproof' for some reason? I thought these people were educated.


Sorry, I know this isn't your line of reasoning, but it's pretty hard to not show contempt for it. Please don't take any of my responses here personally.

No, they aren't, but there's been problems with just about every other proposal people have come up with as well. Particularly since students can also have very bad reactions to non-orthodox teaching or teaching that challenges what they want to believe...I've seen many TA's have bad evaluations because someone got mad about having their views challenged, including several accusing them of imposing their liberal/conservative biases when their actual views were the complete opposite.


When half the teaching staff at a highschool or university show up in porches and audi's that cost the same as my house, pardon myself for not having sympathy here. They want more money to do a job poorly? Pfffft.

Where are you from? I'm on an academic track. Most of our faculty are not that well paid. Our newer ones are barely making enough to pay off the loans they took out to get through school.



Thats nice, why does this have to impact students who are paying money to give them that freedom? Why does this come with little to no respect from the professor to the people paying for that freedom? Yes, I'm aware that not all the money comes from tuition, but they could bloody well show some respect.


Again, I don't understand why the only options are 'lack of job security' and 'could take a dump on a students desk and still have a job' especially coming from educated people who should be the first people to point out the issues of such dichotomy.


Or the professor should get a research position in an actual research facility. Education should not come at the expense of research, and the inverse should also be true.

What research facilities? If you're not in one of a select few sciences, there is no such thing.

This is really the heart of the issue, imo. The way education has evolved, the modern university serves two different purposes. Universities are research facilities in addition to teaching institutions - these are both parts of their mission, and sometimes they conflict. If you base primarily on teaching ability, the research is going to suffer.

There's also differences between levels. I know one faculty member here who is really good at teaching graduate level classes and really bad at teaching undergraduate gen eds. Had one undergraduate that was brilliant at upper level courses but didn't have the abilities to keep the lower level classes interesting. The modern system is ill equipped to carve things like this up.

[noparlpf]

Yeah, both of my parents are teachers, and I can tell you that the salary isn't great.

[Karoht]

Where are you from?Canada. Friends in Boston and Florida have remarked similarly. Teachers parking lot looks like an expensive car show.


What research facilities? If you're not in one of a select few sciences, there is no such thing.Please name one field of science that does not have a research facility outside of Universities and Colleges. Field heavy research fields do not count, as they wouldn't be doing the bulk of their research in a University anyway.


This is really the heart of the issue, imo. The way education has evolved, the modern university serves two different purposes.It evolved into a system that serves two conflicting purposes? And not one of the highly educated people who facilitate this or it's evolution can see another way? Or even simple tweaks? Like holding professors accountable? Really? I find that remarkably hard to believe. Can someone explain to me the flaw in actually holding someone paid to teach to be accountable for teaching? Maybe I'm just missing something here.


Universities are research facilities in addition to teaching institutions - these are both parts of their mission, and sometimes they conflict. If you base primarily on teaching ability, the research is going to suffer.Again, the conflict can't be resolved by educated professionals? Don't most universities have a sociology department? Do they still teach conflict resolution, or is that handled by community colleges now?

Primary Cause of Conflict: Professors not held accountable for the teaching requirements of their position. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Solution: Hold them accountable.

If the job description of a Professor is "Teach and Research" and they want to ignore one part, then they need to find another job or shouldn't have bothered to enter it in the first place. Common sense right? If you don't want to have a professors job don't be a professor?


There's also differences between levels. I know one faculty member here who is really good at teaching graduate level classes and really bad at teaching undergraduate gen eds. Had one undergraduate that was brilliant at upper level courses but didn't have the abilities to keep the lower level classes interesting. The modern system is ill equipped to carve things like this up.Thats an administration issue then. Wrong people allocated to the wrong classes.

[Alchemistmerlin]

You know what question this thread brings up in me?

Why, in a modern society, do we still use standard-scale grading? Shouldn't all grading be comparative, especially in college? There is no standard-scale outside of academia, we are all competing with each other, should the same not be true in the classroom?

This would largely eliminate the problem of bad professors because, as everyone in a class has the same professor, the grades would similarly suffer. Wouldn't this sort of thing more accurately simulate, and better prepare students for, the real world?

[noparlpf]

Because it's not about how well you do in comparison to other people, it's about how well you do in comparison to how well you should have done. Which is why I don't like curves and think that if there's a need for a curve the teacher is making the tests too hard.

[Alchemistmerlin]

Because it's not about how well you do in comparison to other people, it's about how well you do in comparison to how well you should have done. Which is why I don't like curves and think that if there's a need for a curve the teacher is making the tests too hard.

That is, essentially, exactly what I was complaining about. The real world IS about how well you do compared to other people. Why does higher education not reflect this?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Because then your marks would suffer because you happen to have some genius in the class. You're not doing any worse than you would have, but your marks are much lower, because this guy is doing that much better than you.

[Karoht]

Why, in a modern society, do we still use standard-scale grading? Shouldn't all grading be comparative, especially in college? There is no standard-scale outside of academia, we are all competing with each other, should the same not be true in the classroom?Standard-scale does somewhat apply outside of academia.

Think about getting your drivers license. There's the written test to make sure you understand the rules to a minimum acceptable standard. Then there is the driving test to ensure competence in several areas.
-Negociating turns
-Parallel parking
-Observing the rules of the road
-Proper awareness of the drivers around you
-Etc.
If you can't perform to a minimum standard in all of those areas (and more) odds are you won't receive a drivers license.

Many careers, especially trades, work this way. There is a standard scale, it's just a scale based on an acceptable minimum standard. On the drivers test you aren't competing with anyone else. If you get an A or a C it doesn't matter so long as you pass and recieve your license, or fail and don't get your license, and the success or failure of other students around you is irrelivant.

Unless one of them sideswipes you with their car on your drivers test of course. Which happened to me. Didn't even make it out of the parking lot.

[Alchemistmerlin]

Because then your marks would suffer because you happen to have some genius in the class. You're not doing any worse than you would have, but your marks are much lower, because this guy is doing that much better than you.

Yes? And?

He is doing better than you, he deserves to have a higher grade. Why should his higher accomplishment not be recognized in the manner it would in the real world?

[Dihan]

Why do we tenure teachers anyway? It's like a license to not do their job if they don't want to. Seriously, what purpose is tenure supposed to serve?

I had a tenured professor who would leave lectures for up to 20 minutes at a time to get coffee, come back for 10 minutes and then go and get more coffee. The lectures were an hour.

[Ceric]

You know what question this thread brings up in me?

Why, in a modern society, do we still use standard-scale grading? Shouldn't all grading be comparative, especially in college? There is no standard-scale outside of academia, we are all competing with each other, should the same not be true in the classroom?

This would largely eliminate the problem of bad professors because, as everyone in a class has the same professor, the grades would similarly suffer. Wouldn't this sort of thing more accurately simulate, and better prepare students for, the real world?

At my university, engineering degree if it makes a difference, pretty much all my classes curve their grades. The only ones that don't are easy GEs where everyone passes the class anyways, or have a thousand and one complaints about how the professor failed half the class when he's "supposed" to curve.

Problem is, some people go to class to learn, not just to get a letter grade :smalltongue:

Also what Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll said.

[noparlpf]

Because then your marks would suffer because you happen to have some genius in the class. You're not doing any worse than you would have, but your marks are much lower, because this guy is doing that much better than you.

Which is why I hated exams in that Physics II class where the teacher aimed for a class average of 50%. If one guy got a raw score of 80/100, we'd all do terribly.


Yes? And?

He is doing better than you, he deserves to have a higher grade. Why should his higher accomplishment not be recognized in the manner it would in the real world?

It's the difference between the smart person getting 100 and you getting 90, and the smart person getting 100 and you getting 75 when the average raw score was 90.

[WarKitty]

Canada. Friends in Boston and Florida have remarked similarly. Teachers parking lot looks like an expensive car show.

Yeah, definitely not that way here. I'm not even sure all of our newer faculty have cars.


Please name one field of science that does not have a research facility outside of Universities and Colleges. Field heavy research fields do not count, as they wouldn't be doing the bulk of their research in a University anyway.

You do realize there are fields other than the hard sciences that do research? Us humanities people do research too. And even in the hard sciences, most of the abstract research occurs in the universities, because it's almost impossible otherwise to get funding for stuff that you can't prove has a marketable application in the next 10 years.


It evolved into a system that serves two conflicting purposes? And not one of the highly educated people who facilitate this or it's evolution can see another way? Or even simple tweaks? Like holding professors accountable? Really? I find that remarkably hard to believe. Can someone explain to me the flaw in actually holding someone paid to teach to be accountable for teaching? Maybe I'm just missing something here.

Again, the conflict can't be resolved by educated professionals? Don't most universities have a sociology department? Do they still teach conflict resolution, or is that handled by community colleges now?

...You do realize the faculty at most universities have very little say in this kind of thing? The main deciding factors that I've seen are:

(1) Government allocation of resources (most universities are heavily funded by the public).
(2) Administrators, who are as interested in publicity (which good researchers bring) as the teaching ability, because publicity brings in money.

All these educated people? Don't actually have a lot of say in the process. In fact many of the worst decisions I've seen for the students come from the administration over the objections of the faculty.


Primary Cause of Conflict: Professors not held accountable for the teaching requirements of their position. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
Solution: Hold them accountable.

If the job description of a Professor is "Teach and Research" and they want to ignore one part, then they need to find another job or shouldn't have bothered to enter it in the first place. Common sense right? If you don't want to have a professors job don't be a professor?

If you're in a field like mine (philosophy), there are no options other than being a professor if you want to research. You'd be wasting your best research talent and valuable resources for our graduate students.

Thats an administration issue then. Wrong people allocated to the wrong classes.[/QUOTE]

That's my point. The current administration system is simply not set up to handle this kind of thing.

[Mono Vertigo]

That is, essentially, exactly what I was complaining about. The real world IS about how well you do compared to other people. Why does higher education not reflect this?
No.
Competence is not a matter of statistics.
If you are the only one who can achieve a task (in a barely satisfying, but in no way exceptionally awesome way) among a group of incompetents or lazy morons, that doesn't make you a genius. It makes you decent. You should be recognized as better than your peers, but not considered absolutely amazing.
In real life, being an average person among incompetents is not the same as being a genius among average people.

[pffh]

Yes? And?

He is doing better than you, he deserves to have a higher grade. Why should his higher accomplishment not be recognized in the manner it would in the real world?

There are two departments in my university that use competition like that (only X many can pass) and they are famous for the huge amounts of sabotage and backstabbing that is rampant amongst their students.

[Ceric]

There are two departments in my university that use competition like that (only X many can pass) and they are famous for the huge amounts of sabotage and backstabbing that is rampant amongst their students.


At my university, engineering degree if it makes a difference, pretty much all my classes curve their grades.

...Well now I'm scared of what upperdivision classes will be like. Mind if I ask what the approximate value of X is?

[pffh]

...Well now I'm scared of what upperdivision classes will be like. Mind if I ask what the approximate value of X is?

It's a small university so the numbers wouldn't really reflect anything but I have stories from a friend that is in one of those departments (dentistry):

If someone leaves a laptop out in the open either their notes will be deleted or edited to be incorrect.

Paper notes are stolen or again edited.

You do not ask anyone for help with anything because they will give you incorrect answers.

People will try to disrupt your studying if they can (for example if you are studying at school they will at best talk loudly close to you and at worst intentionally spill a bottle of soda on you and your notes).

You better have headphones while waiting for an exam to start or arrive at the minute it starts since everyone will be spreading false knowledge around hoping some of it will stick in your mind.

Oh and I hope you can concentrate with constant tapping of pencils, coughing or whatever people think they can get away with in exam to disrupt other peoples concentration and thoughts.


Basically it's not an environment that facilitates higher learning.

[Karoht]

You do realize there are fields other than the hard sciences that do research? Us humanities people do research too. And even in the hard sciences, most of the abstract research occurs in the universities, because it's almost impossible otherwise to get funding for stuff that you can't prove has a marketable application in the next 10 years.Fair enough, but wouldn't that be mostly field research anyway? IE-Surveying a sample size of students.
I'm entirely unclear as to what kind of facilities one would need to do humanities/philosophy research, so I'm also unclear as to why you need a university specifically to do that research. I'm admitting ignorance here, not criticising, and I'm the highly curious type, so I'm all ears.



You do realize the faculty at most universities have very little say in this kind of thing?
The main deciding factors that I've seen are:
(1) Government allocation of resources (most universities are heavily funded by the public).
(2) Administrators, who are as interested in publicity (which good researchers bring) as the teaching ability, because publicity brings in money.
Employees usually have some kind of say in how a company runs. The opinion of the man in the trenches is typically respected somewhere. You can't tell me that the university admin can just ignore the opinions of it's tenured professors who bring in those research dollars and publicity. If they're so valued as to warrent tenure, this attitude towards them seems senseless. If the university is so centered around these people to the point where they are willing to give them tenure in the first place, then not listening to them is absurd. I don't buy this.



All these educated people? Don't actually have a lot of say in the process. In fact many of the worst decisions I've seen for the students come from the administration over the objections of the faculty.The faculty is still in favor of this dichotomy that produces education at the expense of research and vice versa. Or they wouldn't bother becoming professors in the first place. Again, it's not a mystery that as a professor you are expected to teach AND research. If they don't want to perform one or the other, they shouldn't be professors.



If you're in a field like mine (philosophy), there are no options other than being a professor if you want to research. You'd be wasting your best research talent and valuable resources for our graduate students.Grad students who may never see any benefit whatsoever of your research, and their research may be of even greater benefit. I'm sure we could debate the speculative benefits of research VS educated individuals, and that would probably be an entire thread all to itself.
Also, I will admit my ignorance again and state that I am unclear why you need a university in order to perform research in [insert field] that could perhaps be better performed elsewhere. Your particular field especially has me curious.



That's my point. The current administration system is simply not set up to handle this kind of thing.And we agree. A big part of why it's not set up to handle a better allocation of resources is that for the most part, it's just not concerned with it. Administration doesn't really seem to give a hoot about the quality of education anymore. The loss of focus on the student because of this dichotomy affects more than just the professors and students, it affects allocation of educational resources as well.
Matching the right teacher for the right class is such an allocation.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Yes? And?

He is doing better than you, he deserves to have a higher grade. Why should his higher accomplishment not be recognized in the manner it would in the real world?

Yes, he deserves a higher grade. But do you deserve getting that lower grade just BECAUSE he had a higher grade?

Situation A: You got 70 out of 100 questions on the test right. Your mark is 70%. That represents how much of the content you understood.

Situation B: You got 70 out of 100 questions on the test right. Your mark is 43%, because Johnny got 100 out of 100 questions right, and your marks were adjusted to fit the bell curve. What does that 43% actually represent? It represents how you are not being marked on how much of the content you understood. Last I checked, the intention of the course was to make sure you understood as much content as possible.

[Alchemistmerlin]

There are two departments in my university that use competition like that (only X many can pass) and they are famous for the huge amounts of sabotage and backstabbing that is rampant amongst their students.

See, an accurate simulation of real life.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

See, an accurate simulation of real life.

Yes, but does that prevalence of backstabbing and sabotage actually mean that YOU LEARN MORE. University is there to advance learning. It's not there to become a microcosm of the backstabbing ways of capitalist society as a whole.

[Karoht]

See, an accurate simulation of real life.How is sabatoge 'fair' exactly? Not only is it against the rules (laws and social morals/norms/customs) it is also extremely counterproductive.
Would we really want education actively or passively encouraging that? I highly doubt it.

PS-I am aware that you were most likely joking.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Ugh, I sincerely hope that I won't encounter that kind of backstabbing later on in my college career. So far all the lectures have promised that they only curve up, not down (I still think the curve is stupid anyway). And even if there is a curve, I'm still going to work with my friends who are also in the class and equally capable (and I am definitely doing this in organic chemistry next year; we're all either pre-med or pre-vet and have far too much at stake). There's room for more than one person to get an A, and even if there wasn't, I find the idea of sabotage abhorrent and unthinkable.

[Alchemistmerlin]

How is sabatoge 'fair' exactly? Not only is it against the rules (laws and social morals/norms/customs) it is also extremely counterproductive.
Would we really want education actively or passively encouraging that? I highly doubt it.

PS-I am aware that you were most likely joking.

I am not joking. Fair does not play into real life. People will attempt to sabotage you, things and people will work against you, people you trust will betray you.

I feel like I'm being a negative nancy or an emo eric but there are BAD things about life to go along with the good.

Less Joking, more...counterbalancing with extreme but not necessarily incorrect viewpoints?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I am not joking. Fair does not play into real life. People will attempt to sabotage you, things and people will work against you, people you trust will betray you.

I feel like I'm being a negative nancy or an emo eric but there are BAD things about life to go along with the good.

So you believe that learning the content of the course should be sacrificed in favour of purposefully encouraging an atmosphere of foul play?

Isn't the point of education to try and create a better society?

[Karoht]

I am not joking. Fair does not play into real life. People will attempt to sabotage you, things and people will work against you, people you trust will betray you.

I feel like I'm being a negative nancy or an emo eric but there are BAD things about life to go along with the good.

Less Joking, more...counterbalancing with extreme but not necessarily incorrect viewpoints?

Don't forget Debbie Downer.

Yes, the world is a cruel and horrible place. Actively encourging people to be cruel and horrible by placing them in such an environment will only make it worse. I would argue that this kind of competition is partly to blame for getting us here in the first place, but that really becomes a whole other thread.

The world also features things like rape and murder. Murder another student, get an A? Be the student murdered and get an F?
Counterbalancing with the extreme eventually pushes into absurdity. Lets not go there just yet. Give it another page or two maybe?

[SaintRidley]

Fair enough, but wouldn't that be mostly field research anyway? IE-Surveying a sample size of students.
I'm entirely unclear as to what kind of facilities one would need to do humanities/philosophy research, so I'm also unclear as to why you need a university specifically to do that research. I'm admitting ignorance here, not criticising, and I'm the highly curious type, so I'm all ears.


I'm pretty sure the situation is similar in philosophy as it is in English, so I'll put the big one down.

Access to scholarship. Outside of universities, particularly in the humanities, there are no dedicated research facilities. We don't produce a marketable product that can be sold in the next ten years. If we want to research, we need a university. One of the most important reasons for that is because universities have access to a wide array of refereed journals and databases with which we can do our research.

If you were to personally subscribe to the journals you need to perform your research, you'd be out a ton of money. Heck, if you wanted a subscription to the Oxford Online English Dictionary online (quite useful when studying Anglo-Saxon literature, for example) so you could examine the context of a particular word throughout its entire history with the English language you're looking at a $295 annual subscription for an individual.

Good, up to date scholarship is only cheaply available for university faculty and students, and only that because the university requires it to perform its function.



Employees usually have some kind of say in how a company runs. The opinion of the man in the trenches is typically respected somewhere. You can't tell me that the university admin can just ignore the opinions of it's tenured professors who bring in those research dollars and publicity. If they're so valued as to warrent tenure, this attitude towards them seems senseless. If the university is so centered around these people to the point where they are willing to give them tenure in the first place, then not listening to them is absurd. I don't buy this.


The administrations in American universities care about butts in seats. Or in bleachers watching the football games. They do not care nearly so much about the education. If it brings them attention to bring a noted researcher in, then they're for it because it will bring in money. The research is not even on the radar for possible goals. Administration will encourage professors to offer barely passing grades rather than Fs because an F will hurt the student's chances of paying more money to take more classes in the future. A D or C keeps them happy enough to continue paying so they can walk out with a degree they may or may not have actually earned.



The faculty is still in favor of this dichotomy that produces education at the expense of research and vice versa. Or they wouldn't bother becoming professors in the first place. Again, it's not a mystery that as a professor you are expected to teach AND research. If they don't want to perform one or the other, they shouldn't be professors.


In many cases, the only way to do the latter is to become a professor. Which saddles you with the former, whether the professor likes it or not.

Personally, I love both aspects. But if all you want to do is research, especially in the humanities, you're going to have to become a professor and teach too. There are not other options.

It's also up to the administrators what a professor's teaching load is. And administrators by and large don't seem to see how giving a professor a 4/4 teaching load cuts into their time to produce research or how you might want to give your research wonderkind who cannot teach for peanuts a 1/1 load where the professor does a research-based course each semester.

Nope. They just do what they can to maximize butts in seats.




And we agree. A big part of why it's not set up to handle a better allocation of resources is that for the most part, it's just not concerned with it. Administration doesn't really seem to give a hoot about the quality of education anymore. The loss of focus on the student because of this dichotomy affects more than just the professors and students, it affects allocation of educational resources as well.
Matching the right teacher for the right class is such an allocation.

Pretty much, yeah.

[Alchemistmerlin]

So you believe that learning the content of the course should be sacrificed in favour of purposefully encouraging an atmosphere of foul play?

Isn't the point of education to try and create a better society?


My point is not that those things are good or to be encouraged even, simply that they are the truth of highly competitive fields.

Also, no I don't think the purpose of higher education is to create a better society. The purpose of higher education is to give someone the tools, talent, and certifications they need to have a competitive edge in the job market.


Don't forget Debbie Downer.

Yes, the world is a cruel and horrible place. Actively encourging people to be cruel and horrible by placing them in such an environment will only make it worse. I would argue that this kind of competition is partly to blame for getting us here in the first place, but that really becomes a whole other thread.

I would argue that yes, in fact, competition IS what got us here in the first place...but I would have an entirely different meaning in the statement than you.

Competition in nature, and in our economic system, is integral to the process. Resources are limited, there is/are only so many/so much money/jobs/food/housing to go around and your goal in life is to make sure you get it before the other guy, because he is certainly trying to get it before you.

I did not think this way when I left college, but a few years in the workforce in this economy sort of fixes the idealistic views you leave college with.

[warty goblin]

Competition in nature, and in our economic system, is integral to the process. Resources are limited, there is/are only so many/so much money/jobs/food/housing to go around and your goal in life is to make sure you get it before the other guy, because he is certainly trying to get it before you.

I did not think this way when I left college, but a few years in the workforce in this economy sort of fixes the idealistic views you leave college with.

There's a fundamental difference between trying to get there first, and stabbing the other guy in the back in order to manage it. There's an even greater difference between setting up a test of competence, and setting up the same test, but giving everybody daggers and carte blanche to knife each other. The former means that, assuming your selection method is reasonable, you end up with a generally better selection of people than picking at random. The later just means you get the meanest SOB, which may not actually be what you, or the rest of the world, wants.

[Mewtarthio]

Also, no I don't think the purpose of higher education is to create a better society. The purpose of higher education is to give someone the tools, talent, and certifications they need to have a competitive edge in the job market.

But your suggestion would not encourage tools and talent and would devalue the certifications. Say I'm hiring employees and I see that one guy has a Bachelor's from Merlin University while the other has a Bachelor's from, say, MIT. I can be fairly confident that the MIT guy earned his Bachelor's by learning the relevant skills needed to work in that field. That's what a degree is supposed to mean: It's supposed to indicate the skills you've learned. Your candidate, however, could just be a sociopath who's really good at sabotaging his colleagues.

EDIT: In fact, a Merlin University degree would make me pretty wary of that candidate, since I know Merlin University is a place that encourages amorality and backstabbing. It would be like a candidate walking in and bragging, "Yeah, you know I'm good with numbers, 'cause I've managed to dodge fifty thousand bucks in income tax and embezzle millions from my last employer without getting caught!"

[Karoht]

My ability to put others down is not a measure of my competance to drive a car, program a computer, restore a picaso, balance a mathmatical equasion, calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle, or perform open heart surgery.

And any competant employer will not see the ability to put others down as an employable skill.

[Maryring]

I don't know. I'm sure you could get a good job as a political commentator.

I have had few good teachers. Honestly, grades is pretty much throwing dice with your future. Same answer to same question can get you an A or an F depending on the teacher. I've had a teacher devaluating my grade because I didn't read sexuality into a novel analysis (I was at an ultra-conservative Christian school, so I've no idea how this pervert of a teacher even got a job there) and I've had a teacher say to me that I need to stop talking because he didn't want to give me an A.

I really do not like school and its grading system.

[WarKitty]

I would argue that the "I just want a grade whether I deserve it or not" is actually part of what encourages some of the bad teachers to stay. Administrators, as has been said, care mostly about butts in seats. I am well aware of this looking at our system - I will be quite honest, I should not be solo teaching this semester the way I am. I do enjoy teaching, but I'm quite new and almost completely unsupervised, which means I'm not getting the kind of classroom help I could use. But as a TA I'm far cheaper than an experienced instructor would be. And a lot of my students just want to get through and pass the class, without caring what they get. A lot of the others are also not well off enough to afford a better school, which is also a problem.

[Karoht]

Not to knock you there Warkitty, but this is part of my problem.
I pay for a professor, I get a TA.
Or I get a disgruntled professor.

It's like paying for Arnold Swartzenegger's autograph and getting his stunt double. If Arnold did that, people would sue. Universities pull off the old Bait and Switch all the time. For butts in seat statistics.

I don't get one thing. If they are so concerned with research, why do they even care about butts in seat? If teaching is so unvaluable to the University, why do they even offer it in the first place? Especially since tuition isn't what pays the bills, the research does. Can anyone explain that?

[CoffeeIncluded]

I would argue that the "I just want a grade whether I deserve it or not" is actually part of what encourages some of the bad teachers to stay. Administrators, as has been said, care mostly about butts in seats. I am well aware of this looking at our system - I will be quite honest, I should not be solo teaching this semester the way I am. I do enjoy teaching, but I'm quite new and almost completely unsupervised, which means I'm not getting the kind of classroom help I could use. But as a TA I'm far cheaper than an experienced instructor would be. And a lot of my students just want to get through and pass the class, without caring what they get. A lot of the others are also not well off enough to afford a better school, which is also a problem.

If it makes you feel any better, I care about the material I'm learning just as much as I care about doing well in the class; and I'll admit it when I don't deserve an A.

[SaintRidley]

Not to knock you there Warkitty, but this is part of my problem.
I pay for a professor, I get a TA.
Or I get a disgruntled professor.

It's like paying for Arnold Swartzenegger's autograph and getting his stunt double. If Arnold did that, people would sue. Universities pull off the old Bait and Switch all the time. For butts in seat statistics.

A few points on that.

How do you expect the TA to gain the experience needed teaching in order to be a teacher if not by teaching? A TA is a professor-in-training. They are a professor for all intents and purposes, just greener and without the dissertation.

Unless you go to an R1 university, odds are you'll only encounter TAs as instructors in entry level courses. Even at an R1, upper level courses that have TAs running them are run by TAs who are in the final stages of their degree. Within a year or two they will have their doctorate in hand and will be the professor you're looking for.

I know that a year or two from being that professor might sound bad, but at that stage they're more or less focused on teaching and writing their dissertation. They are not a new PhD candidate in their second year in the program. They're in years five and six and expected to teach the mid- to upper-level courses because they'll be doing them for a profession soon enough.





I don't get one thing. If they are so concerned with research, why do they even care about butts in seat? If teaching is so unvaluable to the University, why do they even offer it in the first place? Especially since tuition isn't what pays the bills, the research does. Can anyone explain that?

Because butts in seats bring in even more money, especially if you can put those butts in seats and then direct them to the flashy football and sporting events where they get to fill even more seats and bring in even more money.

Remember that we are talking about American universities. I don't know about Canadian universities, but what I know from professors who have taught and been educated in Europe, sport and academics do not mix anywhere near as much as they do here in the States.

Sports there are usually a municipal affair, not affiliated with the university at all. Sports here are often the largest attraction of a university. Penn State, to pick an example that made national headlines recently (largely for disgraceful action and inaction on the part of the sporting administration and the larger administration) is a football team with the academics being a nigh-vestigial organ. But that's another issue entirely.

[noparlpf]

...and I've had a teacher say to me that I need to stop talking because he didn't want to give me an A.

Reminds me of the tenth grade Chem teacher who asked me to fail the final because she didn't like having students with an average over 100%.
Same teacher curved all the tests significantly to get the average up to passing. She DID NOT CURVE MY GRADES. She just gave me my raw score, and curved everybody else's grade.
I should have been in the Honors class, but having just transferred into a huge public school, my counselor didn't think I should be pushing myself too hard. (Mind you, I ended up graduating as #21 in a class of ~640, a month after turning sixteen, and I spent all of twelfth grade playing Pokemon.) -_-

[Ceric]

Not to knock you there Warkitty, but this is part of my problem.
I pay for a professor, I get a TA.
Or I get a disgruntled professor.

Idk, I never signed anything saying I was buying the services of a professor. I just want to learn the stuff and/or get the grades. I don't care who the teacher is as long as they're good at teaching.

Besides, sometimes they balance out with really awesome professors :smallbiggrin: Today was our last physics (electricity and magnetism) lecture for the quarter and the professor said he'd do one last demonstration. He went into the back room, presumably to get some supplies, while his assistant set up some other things at the front of the lecture hall. I was chatting to my friend and didn't pay attention until the assistant turned off the lights and turned on the electricity to a metal sphere, which started crackling with a LOT of electricity :smalleek: Professor came back into the room... wearing a long black Matrix-style jacket and a Darth Vader mask, holding a lightsaber. Okay, it was a fluorescent tube light, but it successfully looked like a lightsaber. The demonstration was about the metal sphere generating a field strong enough that the light was on even though it wasn't hooked up to anything. But come on, professor wearing a Darth Vader mask :smallbiggrin:

[warty goblin]

Idk, I never signed anything saying I was buying the services of a professor. I just want to learn the stuff and/or get the grades. I don't care who the teacher is as long as they're good at teaching.


That's always been basically my view. I don't give a crap about what sort of degree a person has. I want them to know the material well enough, and be a good enough teacher, to transfer that knowledge to me. Once you work your way towards the top of a subject, that probably requires a Ph.D., but I know I've had some very good teachers who only had a Bachelor's.

[noparlpf]

Idk, I never signed anything saying I was buying the services of a professor. I just want to learn the stuff and/or get the grades. I don't care who the teacher is as long as they're good at teaching.

Besides, sometimes they balance out with really awesome professors :smallbiggrin: Today was our last physics (electricity and magnetism) lecture for the quarter and the professor said he'd do one last demonstration. He went into the back room, presumably to get some supplies, while his assistant set up some other things at the front of the lecture hall. I was chatting to my friend and didn't pay attention until the assistant turned off the lights and turned on the electricity to a metal sphere, which started crackling with a LOT of electricity :smalleek: Professor came back into the room... wearing a long black Matrix-style jacket and a Darth Vader mask, holding a lightsaber. Okay, it was a fluorescent tube light, but it successfully looked like a lightsaber. The demonstration was about the metal sphere generating a field strong enough that the light was on even though it wasn't hooked up to anything. But come on, professor wearing a Darth Vader mask :smallbiggrin:

That is excellent. Completely beats my Physics II prof. My Physics I prof. was pretty cool, though. He made a reference to Cowboy Bebop once.

[warty goblin]

That is excellent. Completely beats my Physics II prof. My Physics I prof. was pretty cool, though. He made a reference to Cowboy Bebop once.

I had a classics professor who would routinely bring up Xena. Man I loved that class.

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Only one bad professor, but she was a doozy! And the book too...

History and Poli Sci major, but had to take science classes for a "well rounded" education. Took biology just because I wasn't sure if my math was up to physics or chemistry. First Biology class was fun, so I took the second one the following semester.

The Science Textbook was filled to overflowing with inaccuracies, falsehoods and downright propaganda! While I've forgotten a most of it, the one that stuck firmly in my head was that the world's population would swell to 50 billion by 2050. Seriously? (I thought it might have been a typo, but it confirmed the 50B three times.

I've read the studies, most put it at between 7.5B and 10.5B, with tapering off and dropping populations beginning in 2040 and 2060 respectively. (The UN High Growth shows the population at 10.5B in 2050, no drop off, while the Median is at 8.5, and beginning a downward drop in the 2060's, and the low growth peaking in 2040, dropping to 5.5B by 2100).

The professor insisted that the book was right, and that I just didn't understand the model being used in the calculations; even though I was able to show her the U.S. Census Bureau stats with my laptop (this was the early internet era, I had to use AOL dialup on a phone line that happened to be in the classroom.) Everything in the book was "The Sky is Falling! Run for your Lives! Wear only clothes made out of hemp, hand woven by native craftsmen!"

EXCEPT for one article where the writer basically said "The World will NEVER run out of anything, it's too big. Stop worrying and go back to your homes."

Um, I guess that was their attempt to be "Fair and Balanced." 350 pages of fear and panic, one page of "chill out, hippies." :smallsigh:

Anyways, after slamming on the book, she gave me a C for the class, and a D for the labs, even though I only missed one. I was on Active Duty at the time, and the school was supposed to make allowances for Military Personnel. No make up lab (it was just a tour to the waste recycling plant, no actual "lab" or any actual work other than walking along, listening and taking notes.)

She only taught that one semester, she needed the teaching experience to complete her Doctorate in Marine Biology.

[Fiery Diamond]

See, an accurate simulation of real life.

Okay, I can't even make myself keep reading further into the thread before replying. Are you being facetious or "funny" here? Because if not, I cannot understand you.

You are advocating simulation of the worst aspects of "real life" as if mimicking the things which should be stamped out in the name of justice is a good thing. I understand your viewpoint no more than I would understand the viewpoint of someone who advocates murder as conflict resolution simply because killing is used to that effect in war. (This isn't an analogy or accusation of you advocating killing people, it's simply a hyperbolic comparison so you understand just how vile and outrageous I see your argument as being.)

To tie this into the topic of the thread: This reminds me of a ninth grade English teacher who, when it was pointed out that she was being unfair, responded with "Life is unfair." No duh. That's not a license to be unfair. That's a reminder that we always need to be on the lookout for unfairness in our own actions and notice when others are treated unfairly so that if possible we might do something about it. Just because something is so does not mean that it is good or desirable, and even if we can't change the basic truth of the unfairness or competitiveness of many aspect of life, we can still try to maintain fairness and justice in the smaller areas where we do have control.

[Karoht]

Idk, I never signed anything saying I was buying the services of a professor. I just want to learn the stuff and/or get the grades. I don't care who the teacher is as long as they're good at teaching.I don't sign anything when I buy the services of a plumber. The company advertises competent certified plumbers, so when I phone them up to send someone over to my house, there is still the expectation of having a competent certified plumber show up.

The University advertises it's professors. Not it's TA's. It's still the bait and switch.


The demonstration was about the metal sphere generating a field strong enough that the light was on even though it wasn't hooked up to anything. But come on, professor wearing a Darth Vader mask :smallbiggrin:Okay, you got me there. My entire arguement is rendered invalid, because that is pretty awesome.



She only taught that one semester, she needed the teaching experience to complete her Doctorate in Marine Biology.Case in point.



I had a classics professor who would routinely bring up Xena. Man I loved that class.
"Any time you see something like this, a wizard did it."--Lucy Lawless, in reference to Xena. Source: The Simpsons.
By any chance did your professor comment on that quote?

[warty goblin]

"Any time you see something like this, a wizard did it."--Lucy Lawless, in reference to Xena. Source: The Simpsons.
By any chance did your professor comment on that quote?

The only one I specifically remember was her mentioning Bruce Campbell playing Autolycus who was Odysseus' great-great grandfather. This was when we were doing the Odyssey, obviously. I know Xena got mentioned a couple other times as well.

It was really a delightfully relaxed class. The best part is that I got credit for taking essentially the same class a year later because the school I transferred to decided I needed a 'writing intensive class.' I wrote all of 8 pages for their writing intensive version.

[DiscipleofBob]

I could bring up some of my horror stories from high school and college, but really they're cake compared to most of the people on here. The only one that sticks out in my memory is my very vindictive high school math teacher who, among other things, erased all the memory of my graphic calculator the first day including all the games (because I might be using it to cheat), and tried to count the entire homeroom tardy when the town had flooded to the point where we were rerouted around the entire town just to get to class.

But I do have shout-outs to give to my 7th-grade Social Studies teacher and my high school Chemistry teacher. I have too many stories to count but here are some of the highlights.

One morning our Social Studies teacher meets us with a grim announcement: the school in an effort to save money is now charging 10 cents for each individual piece of paper, including handouts for homework. If we couldn't pay for each piece of homework it counted as a missing assignment. He agreed with us that the policy was unfair, and even allowed us a chance to write letters to our principal in protest. We wrote some letters and one person went down to deliver some of them. A few minutes passed and the student returned. A few more minutes passed and our principal came down tot he classroom, didn't say anything, but just sat in the back of the class and watched. After we'd been given a chance to finish writing our letters of protest against unfairly charging us money for paper, the Socil Studies teacher goes to the front of the class, trying to hide his grin: "So," he begins, "Today let's talk about how Britain was taxing the colonies." The entire class had been trolled. The principal had no idea what was going on either, but he just sat and watched without giving the game away. The other great thing about that class was our final exam: Instead of an actual test, the exam was to write a letter pretending to be a soldier during the Civil War, citing actual examples in appropriate context. Then, after giving us a grade on a separate piece of paper, we would soak the "exams" in tea and singe the edges so he could pass these off as authentic letters from the Civil War to next year's class.

My high school chemistry teacher was even better. First of all, I've always done horribly in science courses all through school, especially in chemistry. I aced that class, not because the teacher was easy, but because he was the only teacher who would actually make sure you were learning the material and would explain things until you got it. If you needed more time, he would go out of his way to schedule time with you. The only way you got less than an A in his class was if you didn't put it in the effort, which, despite what some people may claim, is rarely the case in most classes. But that's what made him a good teacher, not what made him an awesome teacher. He had a new trick every week, starting out the class with asking one of the girls to go to the other science lab and ask for some Dihydrogen Monoxide. The girl had to come back because the teacher in the other lab replied "Bottled or tap?" The best of his lessons, and probably the best lesson in my entire high school career, was the day he showed us a documentary on why the moon landing could have been faked, complete with tons of evidence and experts saying why the footage we have of the moon landing is fake etcetera. After the documentary, he asked by show of hands who in the class thought the moon landing could possibly be fake. A good number of hands went up, impressionable teenagers we were. He then asked why, and we proceeded to give examples from the video. He then proceeded to debunk each and every piece of "evidence" from the video one by one. Best lesson ever.

[Alchemistmerlin]

Okay, I can't even make myself keep reading further into the thread before replying. Are you being facetious or "funny" here? Because if not, I cannot understand you.

You are advocating simulation of the worst aspects of "real life" as if mimicking the things which should be stamped out in the name of justice is a good thing. I understand your viewpoint no more than I would understand the viewpoint of someone who advocates murder as conflict resolution simply because killing is used to that effect in war. (This isn't an analogy or accusation of you advocating killing people, it's simply a hyperbolic comparison so you understand just how vile and outrageous I see your argument as being.)

To tie this into the topic of the thread: This reminds me of a ninth grade English teacher who, when it was pointed out that she was being unfair, responded with "Life is unfair." No duh. That's not a license to be unfair. That's a reminder that we always need to be on the lookout for unfairness in our own actions and notice when others are treated unfairly so that if possible we might do something about it. Just because something is so does not mean that it is good or desirable, and even if we can't change the basic truth of the unfairness or competitiveness of many aspect of life, we can still try to maintain fairness and justice in the smaller areas where we do have control.

I was feeling confrontational yesterday so I don't believe I ever injected any reason into my devil's advocacy.

Yes, taken to their extremes policies which encourage a competitive atmosphere with no regulation would be harmful.

Similarly, though, handholding policies are harmful in that they do not prepare students for the structure of the workplaces many fields lead to.

Of course too much of anything is bad, and taking the argument out to "Well murder exists in real life so let's prepare them for murder" is ridiculous hyperbole.

The particular line you quoted was bottled Essence D'Snark :smalltongue:

[Karoht]

No one was asking for handholding, in fact we were incensed towards that as well. Asking for a fair shake is not the same thing as what some students/parents are doing, demanding a passing grade for merely paying tuition.

[THAC0]

Penn State, to pick an example that made national headlines recently (largely for disgraceful action and inaction on the part of the sporting administration and the larger administration) is a football team with the academics being a nigh-vestigial organ. But that's another issue entirely.

Um, yeah, despite the horrible stuff that happened there and the mishandling by several people, that hardly makes the academic side of the university a "nigh-vestigial organ." I know I got a superlative education in my field there.