Tests

[seventhe]

So that test was hard. Hard is an understatement; that test was impossible, unless you actually memorized every single page/slide of the notes given to us in class. Which I am fairly sure that no one in the class actually did: every single student was still (frantically) writing at 8:00pm when the professor ordered us to stop and hand in the tests. I saw a lot of blank pages from other people, too, and I heard a lot of disappointed complaining afterwards.

So. I'm not a child who's going to complain about how "totally unfair" the test and teacher(s) was/were just because I did poorly. In fact, I'm grown-up enough to just flat-out say it: of course I didn't know enough to do well on that test.

Is that my fault? Obviously it is, and I'll even say "mostly" because I'm willing to take the responsibility. There was a lot of chemistry-related stuff* that I didn't know, and while I'm sure my background in engineering is showing, I could've taken more time to memorize those particular slides with the chemical structures and formulas. There were some equations I hadn't memorized. There was some other stuff I could've spent time on.

The thing is, I certainly did study for this test. It wasn't like I didn't prepare for it at all.

But the profs didn't prepare us for it either. Obviously, we didn't LEARN enough. I take as my evidence the fact that the entire class did NOT finish the exam within the time given, and pretty much the 80% of the class I ran into on my way out the door was horrified at what they'd just seen. The other 20% were behind me, but I am pretty sure they all looked distraught as well.

At that point? It is not a matter of "the students didn't study enough". It is partially "the teachers did not do a good enough job at TEACHING".

I'm not going to complain about the test just because I did poorly. But at the same time, I am sick and tired of the bullshit attitude that how a college student (or grad student) does in a class is solely the fault of the student.

I am paying YOU money to teach me things. This is an intro-level graduate class. Grad school is supposed to be so much more than "hey just know this shit" - it's supposed to lead to a more personal connection between the student and the department. It leads to personal and interpersonal learning - not just rote recitation of knowledge, but learning. At least, that's the rhetoric.

So I studied concepts. I tried to understand the things that were shown in the class, rather than just memorizing slides. I tried to apply them. Maybe this is because I'm an engineer, by nature, rather than a scientist**. But that's what looked important to me: the class is called "Polymer Concepts", so I made sure I had the concepts down pat. Color me surprised when I look at the test and realize that a whole SHLOAD of the questions were, yes, tiny little details taken directly from the handouts that apparently we were supposed to be able to regurgitate.

And look: when only 1 out of 4*** professors we've had for this class gave us any sort of review sheet, what does that say? 3/4 of the professors don't respect the class enough to even mention the exam. Of course I didn't spend my time memorizing every little detail on the slides. I didn't think it was going to be that kind of test - NO ONE DID - and I didn't get any advice otherwise.

By the way: the one professor who DID give a review sheet? I ACED his portion of the exam, I am fairly sure. He respected me enough to give me some direction, and in return I put in a good deal of work on his section.

I just. This rant isn't even about the test anymore. I'm really tired of the attitude in "higher education" that a professor doesn't have to GIVE anything to the class. Everything's the student's responsibility: studying, memorizing, understanding, asking questions if you don't know (even if you don't know what you're supposed to know and what you're not, since you're not given any sort of guide or even an outline), what what what.

I am not a young, starry-eyed student. I'm not even a grad student who has to tread carefully in their department and suck up doing someone's shit work so that they can tack themselves onto an advisor and get an actual grad project. I am a jaded, cynical adult - I am a professional in the very industry you are teaching - and as I said to Rina this morning, I do not have time for your bullshit.

I think classes should have to go both ways. And I definitely think teachers need to be held accountable for actual teaching.

We - the CLASS - very obviously didn't learn what we were supposed to in this class, for this test.

Should we have tried harder and studied more? OF COURSE.

But I am not a child. I expect more from my professors, too.


- (footnotes) -

*"Chemical Engineering" is kind of a misnomer in that being a chemical engineer really doesn't require a lot of chemistry. Most ChemEs only take basic chemistry, 1-2 semesters of O-Chem, and P-Chem 2 (because P-Chem 1 is all Thermo, and if you're a ChemE you live and breathe Thermodynamics). And honestly P-Chem is less chemistry and more this is how molecules and atoms are built, i.e. "physical chemistry", hence the name.
I run into a lot of people who are like, "Oh, chemical engineering? Man, I was horrible at chemistry." Well, guess what, I was too! ChemE is more about running reactions and reactors, making and finishing product, finding the best and cheapest and most efficient way to run your chemical process, and most importantly making sure shit does not (a) blow up or (b) ruin other shit. It is definitely not about basic chemistry, because if there's anything my life has told me, it's that I suck at basic chemistry.

**Yes, there is a difference. A big one. This is why Engineering is usually a separate College at a University: there's Engineering and Arts&Sciences, and they are very different disciplines.
Much to my dismay, my MS is re-teaching me this lesson in fucking spades.

***This is a whole separate issue. I despise classes taught by more than one professor. The classes become totally disorganized, completely disjointed, and students have to adjust to multiple styles of teaching and testing. In many cases the teachers either overlap subjects, or contradict each other completely in certain things. Anyway, it's one of my main pet peeves about higher education. I think it's very, very difficult to make a multiple-professor class go anything other than poorly.



So, yes, I am going to go drown my sorrows in the Trick or Treat Meme and in Pirate AUs. Be alert, because Pirates may be appearing in your LJs in the future.

[ETA] - I actually didn't realize I'd made a "studying sucks a nut" tag before trying to tag this entry. Sometimes I make myself laugh.

[ETA #2] THIS IS IMPORTANT, GUYS! This week's cockeyed_art challenge is FF characters in Halloween costumes. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO DO IT, DON'T LIE.

Comments

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

A-fucking-men.

On pretty much everything. Which is why my touchy feely math class is freaking me out so much (and you can guess where I am right now).

My work keeps nudging me about grad school (Informatics... which is neither a science or an engineering). I'm feeling a bit nervous about that.

But word, basically.

~Cendri

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I just think universities are getting completely out of hand. With tenure and all, there's absolutely NO accountability on the part of the professor for, you know, actually TEACHING. The prof is so swept up in his life changing research that he/she doesn't really care about teaching.

And with more and more people going to graduate school, this is a Very Bad Thing IMO.

We need professors who want to TEACH and not just do research, for crying out loud. Is that so hard?

P.S. Pay attention in class. ;)

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

And considering what I see with a lot of University research, most of that is not life changing.

(Best thing ever: Michael Griffin, who is the current head of NASA came to talk at my Real College and some guy asked a question just to complain that his research got its funding cut. Griffin shut him down hardcore and politely)

~Cendri

P.S. Actually, I commented just BEFORE class, as I was just sitting there and had woken up early enough to go to office hour. Now I am done with class. I paid attention because we are getting into the shit I don't understand.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why people think academic research is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than industrial research. Sure, you can say that industry is just in it to turn a profit, and that academia is in it "for the love of learning/for the love of science". But you know what? That's bullshit.

Academics are in it for the money JUST AS MUCH as industry is, because their department thrives on the grant money they can bring in for doing certain projects. So they have to pose questions that OUTSIDE COMPANIES are willing to pay to get the answers for. They can't just do something for the "love of science", because it doesn't bring in any grant money. Trust me, world, I know this, I didn't get paid for my senior year undergrad research because the prof I was working for forgot this simple fact and bankrupt basically his whole team.

There's nothing lofty in it. Industry's just more honest about it. And frankly, Industry answers to "the consumer", and that's almost more fair.

Can you tell that research and education are two of my major hot buttons? XDD

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

Well, they should be hot buttons. Considering what we majored in, we see lots of epic fail.

Funny you should mention grants. That's what a lot of the "side projects" that my company does is funded by. The game I'm working on actually beat out several academic groups for the grant because we had an actual business plan. Not only that, we have a couple products that we work on to keep us from going bankrupt.

So yeah, I see where you're coming from. XD

~Cendri

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

This is why I like talking/ranting to you. Fellow engineers unite (and try not to blow up the world). :D

I just feel like the entire world of academia is totally changing, because colleges/universities are becoming a BUSINESS (not that they weren't always so, but it's much more significant now) and because everybody and their mom nowadays needs a college degree to "get a good job". And yet universities are holding onto all of this "lofty science" rhetoric to make themselves look better than industry when in all honesty they are just as bad. They're their OWN industry.

And I hate that research has become the #1 center of any college (in technical fields, sciences and engineerings, anyway). COLLEGE IS ABOUT LEARNING, YOU MOTHERFUCKERS.

I'm glad you guys are taking grants away; it seems like you have your heads on straight, anyway.

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

because colleges/universities are becoming a BUSINESS

Funny you should mention that.

Now, I rather like how my Real University handles things like that. We have companies pay us to do stuff for them all the time. So it's like industry, but with the resources of the university and the possibility of being all "this sucks, you fail". I understand that.

The pure sciences, sometimes, I do not.

Let's take a trip back to when I was in high school. See, I almost (but thankfully not) became a particle physicist. I mean, I still keep up with the discoveries and what's the current theories because it's fascinating, but overall ya. Anyway, I liked the group I worked with then (we were making particle ray detectors) because they had an educational goal as well as some For Science.

Let's fast forward to now. This University (also the one I worked with in high school) now wants to make a Corporate Park... using state money.

Hold the motherfucking phone?

Now, my Real University just lets other companies pay for that. This hippie college is following the stupid rhetoric of the government having to pay for everything.

How about we just, I don't know, focus on the actual education part? You want to become a corporation, sign the fucking paperwork.

I think the main problem with the "college not being about learning" thing is that the reasons people go to college have shifted. Originally it was for rich people to read poetry and philosophy and sit around and think because they had a shit ton of money what else would they do? Now it's become the working man's out into white collar work.

And guess who's picking up the slack there? The Ivy Techs of the world. They get you that associates degree or an in to one of the bigger universities, and bam, you're on the track to a job outside of fast food.

So what we have is a rift between the hardcore academics and those that realize "shit, you gotta get a job some day". It's chaos.

I'm pretty sure I meandered around to my point, too. XD

~Cendri

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I think the main problem with the "college not being about learning" thing is that the reasons people go to college have shifted.

Yes. YES. Exactly. So you've got the old professors who were basically like I never want to work a day in my life, I want to stay at university versus a bunch of young folks who want to go out into industry, sometimes even with a PhD (SHOCK! GASP!).

And there's a conflict between people who go to college to get a degree in something they LIKE (aka, if I had actually majored in music, or in photography) versus people who are getting a degree to get a job (aka, what I actually did).

Higher education is so confused right now. And alumni just keep pumping in money, so there's no reason to be concerned.

I just wonder... I mean, EVERYONE gets a degree nowadays to get a job. What happens when we all have degrees? Will we have garbagemen with BSs? Will we have McDonalds workers with MSes? There's something wrong with the system, in that case, if you base jobs on degrees.

And I could probably, honestly, count the things I learned in college that apply to my job on both hands.

Yeah, I said it. How many times have I used thermodynamic equations? Not many. (The "life lessons" I use every day. The "lofty knowledge" -- not so much.)

We ramble because we care!

[irish-ais.livejournal.com]

Fucking signed. I've had professors not even mention anywhere, on the syllabus or in the classroom, that there was a test. I've had to find stuff out like that from other students in different sections. Having teachers who don't care enough to teach properly=utter fail.

(And OT, but I've gotta finish my mother's dress today, so that'll take me an hour or so, and then I can distract you with TLO.)

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

It's ridiculous! Especially with the number of jobs today that depend on college degrees. Professors need to take some fucking responsibility.

(EEEEEEEE. I only wrote a little, but at least I got something out?)

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

I had this problem a few times in undergrad, as well. I mean, if we all do so horribly because we literally didn't even understand what you had written on the test because it was never taught, how can you expect us to actually be able to finish it? My Calc II final I ended up srsly cheating the entire time because no one in the entire classroom knew how to do 4 of the 12 problems... we'd literally never been taught it. How does that work?

SOMETIMES HIGHER EDUCATION IS FUCKING BULLSHIT. ^___^

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

IT IS. THEY'RE DOING IT WRONG.

What bothers me mostly is that, especially in undergrad, nobody ever challenges the teacher. Nobody ever says, "If a 65 is an A, and my 34 is a C, then your test was too goddamn hard," because nobody ever feels like that's something they're allowed to say.

But yeah. I'm old, I'm loud, and I'm certainly willing to say it this time if no one else is. XD

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

Go for it, someone needs to challenge the screw-ups in the education system!! ^___^

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

What are they going to do, kick me out? I've already got an advisor, and part-time students who have large companies paying for their classes are the easiest money a university's going to get. XD

[katmillia.livejournal.com]

I have faith in you.

ALSO. ONE WEEK TIL I COME AND SEE YOU. HOLY COW I AM SO FREAKING STOKED!!!

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, I KNOW. I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT TODAY OMGOMGOMG.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I JUST SENT YOU THE EMAIL ABOUT THE PARTY. HEEEEEEEEE

[eerian_sadow]

and the piss poor professorship of which you complain is exactly the reason why i flunked out of calculas and british literature. and also probably the reason that i never wanted to go back to school while i was still married.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Professors who don't care about teaching shouldn't be there. Period. I am sure plenty of people could argue with that statement, but it's how I feel. XD

[jennyclarinet.livejournal.com]

That's weird because Kurt just had a similar experience with his math midterm. He did very poorly, but no one in his class did very well, and many people did much worse than he did. In that case, I think it reflects the teacher's teaching and preparing the class for the test. Profs have to be held accountable for some of the learning or lack thereof!

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I agree with you 100%. This is the same sort of situation, and I think when it's wide-spread throughout the class, it's MUCH more the prof's fault than the fault of any individual student. It's obvious WE don't know what's going on, or else we wouldn't be in class!

[lassarina]

You would have worshiped my favourite undergrad history professor (the one whom I took three classes from despite the fact that the workload from any one class of his was worth 2.5 other history classes). The second class I took with him? Final paper topic was on the syllabus he handed out day one. ♥

I will bite them for you!

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

*summons "Angry Meglet"*

[lassarina]

*chomps on stupid professors and shreds with Angry Kitten Claws of DOOM! (tm)*

[yi-sen.livejournal.com]

My entire experience in chemistry in college was a bunch of asshole professors who gave tests where the mean was 33%.

The whole point was to demoralize you and ask you stuff that you weren't prepared for. I thought that they were fuckers back then and I still think that they're fuckers now.

Honestly, if I had gone to a different college, I'd probably be a doctor right now. No joke.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a moron who took Honors O-Chem because I heard the prof was "better". One test I got a 32. The highest grade was a 65%. My 32 was a C. To me, that just says you can't write a fucking test. I shouldn't be getting an A in a course I also scored a 32 in. Something is just not right there.

They are fuckers. The whole system is (mostly)* broken.

*Mostly, because every now and then you meet that one inspiring prof who likes teaching and likes students and changes your life. Sometimes.

[aesriella.livejournal.com]

Blegh, sorry abut the test.

I may only be in the last year of secondary school (as a side note, my "o" key appears to be omg brken so stay with me) but I know exactly what you're talking about.

One f my histry teachers, the guy who handled Tudors last year and CE Europe this year, has this strategy to make us learn facts for the exam; he'll give us a wadge of photocopied reading material and then say "learn twenty facts". Um, which twenty facts? THAT'S FOR ME TO KNOW AND YOU TO FIND OOOOOOOOOOOOOOUT. So what this boils down to is that we have to go throough the entirety of a source which can be anything between 30 and 200 pages long(which, cmon, is a lot for a 17-year-old taking four other subjects all with excessive reading involved) to identify all the facts and learn them, but this teacher's version of facts isn't just "when did HVIII officially split with Rome" it's also "how many sheep were in the whole f England?" and, mre weirdly, descriptive answers that take a single word from the source ("What was the impact of enclosure on the people?" the answer he wanted that time was "subtle but significant economic change", straight from the source, so despite the fact I'd written two pages summary of said changes I was apparently still wrong). Consequently you wind up learning 300 facts, 60% irrelevant, 30% useless for the exam and at least 90% useless for his own test.

Because my school is, at beast, mediocre, I've self-taught from SATS onwards but it's getting to the stage where I can't do it anymore; some things you just need external input on. For example, again with the History, I've had As and A*s all my life but our whle class got Es, Ds and one C for ne part f last year's cooourse because our teachers did bugger all to prepare us for it. It ruined my results day and when we asked about it they were all "yeah, LOL, this happens every year, do yu think we should d something different maybe?" So now at the time of coursework panic every student in my class has to take a resit exam. I still got an A overall last year but nly because I aced the other modular exams. Is anything happening to help us now? No. No extra classes, no advice or anything, just "everyone dooes better n the resit". It's the same; last year ten of us took Music AS level a year early instead of GCSE and we only found ut abut a week befre the exam we'd been doing the wrong syllabus, all ur coursewrk from the previous year was wrong and had to be redone and that we'd been given the wrong pieces f music t learn for ur musical study exam. How did I find oout? I realised by reading the revision guide (which dear old teach claimed didn't exist) that our recordings didn't match the structure in the book and I found a new recording. Total class results of tw As (me, wh was tutored by my pianoo teacher at the last minute, and a guy with perfect pitch), one B, 3Es for Us. Did anything happen to the teacher? Nope, he's still teaching, only they don't offer A Level any more.

[aesriella.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean by loads of teachers too; I have 8 teachers for GS (rotates every week, 1 lesson/week), 1 for Geography, 2 for Lit (4/week), 2 for History (5/week) but worst f all is three teachers for only four lessons of French a week. It's a nightmare.

The business thing? Here's my example:

My sister is a third year vet student and she worked her ASS off to get in; she gave up every summer from the age of 12 to accumulate work experience and did tremendous amounts of work to get an A in Maths A Level (she hates maths) just to get in. It's horribly exclusive; she got one ffer (thankfully the one she wanted) from 5 unis she applied to. The start of her second year, the uni shipped in 35 Americans to her group who hadn't done any work experience, hadn't been interviewed, hadn't sat entrance exams, hadn't done any vet work (most were biolgists of one description or another) but still got precedence on trips, units and professor time. Her class size tripled, they had to leave the Vet buildings and use the Geography buildings (other side f the city from both the farm and her flat) and spent 3/4 of the first year redoing everything they'd done last year for the import students, just because they pay a fee to the university. Thing is, everybdy suffered; my sister and many people failed some of their exams that year and had to do resits (she was studying while taking care of elephants in Thailand, not fun or easy) and it didn't do the US students any favours; 8 of them made it into third year. The uni stopped caring about teaching them and instead got obsessed with using them for their research projects.

Anyway, you don't want to read all that crap so GO INDULGE YERSELF IN PIRATES XD.

Hope ya feel better soon.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

First of all, this was hilarious to read mostly because of your "o" key. XD

Second, yeah, I'm glad it's not just me that feels this way. I get so angry, though, because the students are the ones PAYING for this experience, and -- well, what's the ratio of "profs you actually like" to "profs that pretty much dicked you over"? Not very good, in my personal experience. Not 0, but not very good.

[lassarina]

I...maybe Northwestern is weird! But I really only remember one prof (and it wasn't even a prof, she was a TA) who dicked me over. I was varying degrees of neutral to a lot of my profesosrs, and just flat out loved some of them. Then again, part of the reason I went into history was because the history department was so much awesome.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I also think there is a huge, huge difference between liberal-arts departments and the more "technical" science/engineering departments. As far as I know, although liberal arts depts do still do research, it isn't as HIGH of a priority, mostly because it isn't bringing in so much money to the university that the libarts people feel responsible for anything. (I mean, no matter whether or not you agree with it, "New depths to translations of Russian poetry from 1651" doesn't rank up on the "high-profile" scale with "OMG THIS POLYMER MIGHT CURE SURGERY" or whatever.)* Anyway, they're just happy to teach and read and go on their way.

Whereas in "scientific" departments a professor is usually JUDGED on his research - his ability to do that research and bring in those grants pretty much determines his worth as a prof. Teaching is a far and distant 3rd, or maybe 4th.

The couple libarts classes I got to take usually featured teachers who actually CARED about teaching.

*Usually I insult someone when I make this distinction! I'm just sayin'. Whether or not it's "right" - this is what I've seen.

[lassarina]

Yeah, that makes sense. Although I wonder if comp sci profs tend more toward the liberal arts side of that spectrum, just because they could be making orders of magnitude more money in the "real world" versus academia.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how much research ties into comp-sci, but you could definitely be right.

Basically, it bothers me how much of a HUGE chasm there is between "research" and "making sure students learn", and which is more important to professors versus which SHOULD be. >

[lassarina]

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY. Srsly.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I KNOW. MY EDUCATION IS A BUSINESS. No wonder it makes me so wrothful!

[justfriending.livejournal.com]

I do have to say, as a fairly new science professor at a major university... (and this is not all aimed at you; some is a response to the tenor of the comments that your post has gotten)

Writing good tests is REALLY FRICKIN' HARD. My class just recently finished a midterm. I spent several days working on this test. I took various iterations of the test several times. My TAs took iterations of this test several times. I had charts of how long it took us to answer all of the questions. The students had 3x as long as it took either of us to work the exam.

I worked very hard at making sure that the points on the questions and the time it took to answer the questions were consistent. Same with the subjects covered by the questions and the time spent in class on various subjects. It covered both straight memorization, and concepts/understanding.

Mean on the exam was around 50%. 75% of the class didn't finish the exam. Not because I'm evil, not because I didn't try to write a good test - because it takes a whole lot of experience to figure out where to draw the line between an exam that is way too easy and doesn't really test understanding of the material, and an exam that kills the soul of your students.

There's a good chance your professors are people like me - who are putting huge amounts of time and emotional energy into these classes, who are not getting sleep trying to put together the research and the teaching without neglecting either, who are tearing their hair out trying to reach out to all the students with a huge number of different backgrounds and different issues with the class.

When I see people complain about how all those university professors don't care about their teaching, it really doesn't ring true for me. In my department, there is one professor who doesn't really care about teaching. All of the rest of us care a lot. It's why we're in a university instead of in industry - we'd get paid a heck of a lot more for many fewer hours of work if we went to work for a company instead of putting ourselves into academia. But then, we wouldn't get to teach.

And sometimes, our students make us so happy and proud. And other times, they make us want to cry. But either way, we do care, and we do try.

Just sayin'.

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that there are some people out there still who go into higher education for the, y'know, "education" portion.

And I definitely understand where you're coming from, too -- I was a TA for an entry-level engineering class, and we spent a good deal of time before every test trying to construct questions that were fair and yet challenging, and then ALSO trying to construct a review that would be fair without giving everything away.

So I certainly hear you, having been on that side of it (obviously not as far as you are, please don't think I'm trying to one-up you here! XD), and moreover I'm glad you've come in to toss your two cents in and make me think that maybe "higher" education isn't so bereft after all.

Maybe it's just in my experience, but I can't say I've found the majority of my profs to be profs like you. I've found that younger professors certainly care about their classes and about teaching, and sometimes older professors want to help share their experiences to younger students -- but the majority of my profs have been research-driven egotistical folks who don't really seem to care whether or not they are actually being understood by their students. This is both undergrad and grad, in both an engineering and a pure-science field. Perhaps I am just unlucky!

I just get the feeling that these research-driven professors don't really understand that sometimes, it is not the student's fault for not understanding what is going on -- sometimes, it's the prof's fault. (Again, not YOU. You sound like a pretty responsible teacher. I'm using "prof" in the general sense here.)

And what else is starting to rub me the wrong way is that at some point in your career, you might have to make that choice between "research" and "teaching". And, in the university's eyes, if you choose "teaching" at the expense of your research... well, you're not making the university any money, are you? And if you choose "both", you will run yourself ragged. This doesn't seem like a fair system to me - not fair to people like you, who came into this field to teach, and not fair to the STUDENTS who are paying money to learn things from professors who actually care.

I guess if my professors come in tomorrow and tell the class that they spent a lot of time designing this test, and that they felt it was a fair measure of the things an entry-level graduate class should be handling, and they felt that class performance was really where they expected -- well, then I'll eat some of these words, I guess (although obviously not all). XD But from them, at least, I get the feeling that they just don't care. I just - we're had FOUR professors over six weeks, and not ONE of them could take the 5min required to send out an email saying, "You should probably bring a calculator to this test". (This is in PolySci, where math is not exactly common.) That just doesn't sound like respect to me.

Anyway! I am sorry to have gone on for so long about this! <3 Best of luck with your class anyway. If I'm not prying, what subject do you teach in?

[justfriending.livejournal.com]

I can go on forever about it! Given that I care a great deal about teaching and all, ya know =) By the way - in case it is not explicitly clear elsewhere in the post - thank you for taking my comments seriously; I am enjoying this discussion, and I am not taking anything personally or aiming anything personal at you!

Even anonymous, there probably aren't that many fandom-obsessed profs in my field so I'll leave potentially identifying details aside; I'll just say I'm in one of the hard sciences that is sufficiently research driven that I'm expected to pull in multi-millions in grant funding to be granted tenure. Yes, at the same time as I'm expected to maintain quality in teaching. The way the other profs phrase it is that while good teaching is not sufficient to get you tenure over bad research, it is necessary and thus bad teaching can get you denied tenure.

I've been lucky enough to never be caught in a team-taught course. They're incredibly difficult to put together. The idea is supposed to be that each prof can teach their specialty area, and thus the students will get the best possible person for each section. Instead, you tend to get no one prof having real ownership for the course, and the course moves so very quickly that the profs have difficulty keeping any continuity between sections. Communication usually falls apart about 3-4 weeks in.

I agree that you should have some idea of whether a calculator might be necessary on the exam - if there is a chance that it should, then at least some problems in homework or class should have required a calculator to do. And, if it is really required, the prof or TA really ought to bring at least one or two extra calculators to hand around to students who forgot them (especially if they have any restrictions on type of calculator allowed). At the very least, there ought to be significant partial credit for setting up the problem correctly even if you don't get to an answer.

At the same time, what frustrates me about my own class is that I don't think I've been able to make a real connection of any sort with the middle of the class; I hate to think my students might have similar complaints about me as you have about your profs! The top students ask a lot of questions in lecture, and we have some good discussions based on that; I'm made very happy by that, since it's hard to get discussions going in large lecture classes in the sciences. But there's probably 50% of the class that I've not been able to reach on any level - they aren't coming to office hours, they aren't asking questions, they aren't picking up their quizzes, and they're not performing as well as the group I taught last year in the same subject. What else can I do to reach out to them and help get the material across? I know that my class is hard - and for many of these students it's the first really hard class they've hit in university, and it's a real system shock. What can I do to help them make the transition to better study habits, since the major just gets harder after they get through me?

I try to learn the names of all the students I interact with. It's frustrating to think about the students I know by name in the class, and to realize that they're almost all either the ones who are failing, near-failing, or A students. Those aren't generally the ones that a prof can do anything about - how do I reach out and grab the students in the middle and try to increase the level of knowledge there?

And at what point have I done everything I can, and it really is the students' fault for not listening or hearing? Probably, when I've told the students since day 1 that memorizing a particular table is important and will be one of the first questions on the exam and they DON'T, that's a good sign that the students really ought to be respecting the professor as well. Again, not aimed at you personally - aimed at my frustration with the results on the first question of my recent exam =) (Concretely speaking - what I'm going to do about it is something I've borrowed from a prof down the hall - midcourse correction where I ask for student feedback now instead of at the end of the course).

i am fairly sure this will break the comment limit, too

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

Ditto back at you -- I am enjoying this discussion, and I certainly hope YOU aren't taking anything personally as well. I also hope it doesn't sound like I am too down on academia! Most of the "ranting" is usually a reactionary thing from people in academia looking down on me because I am an industrial researcher. I certainly have a lot of respect for academia in general, and in specific I HAVE had the great opportunity to learn from a couple of really good profs who have definitely made their mark on my education. And, obviously, I'm getting a grad degree; I can't think it's all bullshit, right? XD

I definitely agree with you on the team-taught courses. In theory, it's a fantastic idea, especially for an entry-level grad course like the one that prompted this rant - get a lot of new students to meet a lot of potential advisors and start choosing whose research (and styles) they like, right? Brilliant? Except that, yeah, it falls apart in theory. Again, I am sure there are classes and professor-combinations out there that work, but in my experience, the class always loses out on a certain something when a department tries to do that.

while good teaching is not sufficient to get you tenure over bad research, it is necessary and thus bad teaching can get you denied tenure.
-- I find this interesting! And I certainly find it meaningful, and I really like the idea behind it. At the same time - at Case, at least, a professor was up for potential tenure within three years. Obviously every professor is working for tenure, because that means you are free to do your research in any way you want without having to worry about whether or not it will get results (which, I'll say, is the point of "true science" or "pure research" like that). So at CWRU basically a prof only had to make it through his first three years, and do it well, and then he/she was set for life. There isn't any real accountability to the department after that in terms of "teaching requirements", since they can't really be fired. So maybe this is what has affected my own experiences so hard -- the fact that a lot of my profs, once they have earned tenure, let the teaching thing fall by the wayside. (And I mean this. I once had a professor forget to grade a lab for a senior lab course until we reminded him the final day of class. XD)

I don't really know how it works at UAkron, where I am now, or how it works at other universities either, so I could be missing something important... but once you (general 'you' here) have the tenure, I think there can be a lot taken for granted, and I think that's what I've seen, since most of my profs in general have been the older types.

(I know this is a HUGE generalization. Like I said, I've also had older teachers who definitely care and want students to learn... it just seems like they are SO in the minority, and it makes me sad.)

What can I do to help them make the transition to better study habits, since the major just gets harder after they get through me?
I totally know the type of class you're talking about. The "weed-out" class. XD It is hard to connect, definitely, as a younger student. I say "younger" because of course now I'm part-time, I have a job, and I have NO shame in asking my professors all kinds of "stupid questions" and making sure they know exactly who I am and how much I care. But I remember being an undergrad and just kind of wanting classes to go on, and not really caring about making a connection with a teacher. I can understand why this would be frustrating, and again, I TOTALLY commend you for caring this much. (I think my degree needs more folks like you.)

Sadly, I remember poor exam grades being a "wake-up call" for not only me but friends of mine as well. It sucks that grades are the only tool you can use sometimes, but ...sometimes that's the way it is. Getting banged up on that first or second test in the class - yeah, that's a wake-up call as to "Shit, dude, I should've paid more attention".

(...cont..)

...and yeah, i broke it like a bitch :D

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

(Which was what was even more frustrating with the test I was referring to in this rant. I TOTALLY should have studied more, yes, but in the end I don't even think that would've helped me get a really good grade - which is where I turn a mutual finger to the other students and professors and say, "You know, we've had a huge miscommunication here.")

And at what point have I done everything I can, and it really is the students' fault for not listening or hearing?

This is an awesome question. It is DEFINITELY a student's fault for doing poorly on an exam if you've given them all the tools. In the class I TAed for there would actually be days where Dr M would say, "This will be on the next test". Explicitly. XD I hope I'm not implying that I think it's all the professor's fault? I mean, students are certainly there to learn, and they have to learn how to work and how to study as well. I just don't think it's 100% a student's responsibility. Perhaps 75/25 is a good guesstimate. And when a prof won't even take that 25% responsibility to be sure his/her students have LEARNT what they should -- well, obviously, Sev gets enraged.

[justfriending.livejournal.com]

(wow, first time I've gone way over character limit and had to split a comment!)

Back to your comments instead of my own troubles, though - department culture does a great deal to set the importance of teaching for the faculty. If the department places an emphasis on good teaching, they will select new faculty hires based on how well they think they will do in classes as well as their research abilities. In addition, they will make sure that the research projects are such that undergraduate and graduate student training and mentoring is a large part of the laboratory research. There are a lot of studies out there showing that getting students involved in research as an undergraduate is associated with higher graduate rates and higher grades. This is one reason we do have research universities and not just teaching universities. Well, that and basic research - there is a huge split between industrial research (no sharing results until 10 years later when the lawyers have cleared it; no looking at any subjects that aren't designed to make profits within a 3-year time span) and academic (Oooh! Look at that useless shiny system over there! Let me study it!)

But the split between research and teaching in research universities will never be resolved while states are cutting funding to higher education - we spend a great deal more per student for the education than we get back in tuition dollars. The extra money has to come from somewhere - and currently that's the federal government, through grant indirect costs. Which is still coming from taxpayers, just much less directly than state support of higher education. In the meanwhile, I'll run myself ragged - and count myself lucky to be doing so in a job I love with sufficient financial reward, unlike the elementary, middle, and high school teachers who run themselves just as ragged, for students who care even less, and a lot lower salary. But that's another discussion entirely.

(By the way - you're totally right about us all being egotistical - I'll definitely admit that is one of my major character faults. And boy, does that make faculty meetings just a ton of fun when all of us type A personalities have to try to make communal decisions about anything! When each of us is obviously the most right!)

[first-seventhe.livejournal.com]

getting students involved in research as an undergraduate is associated with higher graduate rates and higher grades -- and also much better and easier job placement for those who go into industry. I definitely support this! It's part of what makes college such a unique experience for those of us in the sciences.

Re: Industrial "vs" academic research -- ha, ha, this is one of my hot-topic buttons, in a good way. One of the things I've learnt about myself is that I clearly need a direction - something to shape my research - and thus I'm a much better fit for industrial research, where I can use "project guidelines" and "performance targets" and "cost reductions" to give me some direction and guidance. I'd fumble and flail in academic research because I would be lacking the "purpose" that I personally need. Because I realized this, I can totally support the need for people who are NOT like me -- people who can chase down those fascinating "useless" things and keep making discoveries in the name of science. :P

But that's another discussion entirely. -- YES. Another discussion entirely, but I'm pretty sure I agree with the sentiment behind this 100%.

(And LOL, I totally did not mean you as egotistical! I was picturing some of my old asshole profs in Chem-E at CWRU. However, it's good to know it fits the bill ;) )