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What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

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Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#131

Post by chasing »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #111
chasing wrote: post #109

Students and professors are not peers. A professor has to be able to force a student to do something they don't want to. "You don't understand this." "You're not doing this right." "You're not working hard enough to learn what you need to learn in the limited amount of time we have, here." Etc. A student might find this unpleasant, embarrassing, or whatever. But that doesn't mean the professor is wrong. Or bad at the…

Why 'unfair'? Because they're being rated by a person that knows them from only a few hours exposure a week, in a stilted environment and based on a narrow context of arcane skills? Sounds like a student's life. Cry me a river, professor.

Students and professors are not peers.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#132

Post by kefka »

sklogic wrote: post #26
Siecje wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No say at all? Not even trigger a review? Profs that consistently get poor reviews are getting them for a reason.

Back in my days in the university we (all the students) hated mostly the toughest professors. Now, many years later, the only stuff that I still remember well, to a degree that I can go and pass an exam, despite not using much of it in my work, is from the courses of those most hated professors. And now students are much worse, they're expecting a "value for money", they want to be entertained. They do not like being…

Who's paying?

Simple question. Really convoluted answer. But the end payers are the students. And they want their money's worth.

Of course, the worth is derived from their uneducated selves, and "higher educated" peoples know what's best for them.

A percent of income for X years seems much fairer way of paying for education. But even that has its flaws. We have yet to see the full blowback from our current way of financing higher ed. My estimate is 20 years. And 2008 will be a walk in the park.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#133

Post by chasing »

codefisher wrote: post #129

I would like more accountability from professors somehow. Maybe not from student reviews, but at least someone unknown to the professor randomly attend a few classes to check the quality of them. Right now I have a professor that says things during class that are obviously incorrect, and can be verified as incorrect. Her attitude towards students is also disrespectful. But there is nothing we can do about it, no way…

Have you actually tried to communicate with the university? Because I suspect you could find someone in the department willing to hear your complaints. Now, they very well might disagree with you. Or they might not immediately act. But surely you have contact with an academic advisor or know the name of a department head.

If you make this sort of contact, though, I'd recommend against saying anything like "[you] should be embarrassed and ashamed to have such a professor." Stick to facts.

Also, note that even very accomplished and intelligent people can make mistakes when they speak. I don't know what "obviously incorrect" facts you professor is stating, but I've had good professors bumble words and even ideas. And I know (as a former student) that students love discovering and pointing out those errors. Even if they have no real bearing on the quality of education being delivered.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#134

Post by kefka »

chasing wrote: post #131
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why 'unfair'? Because they're being rated by a person that knows them from only a few hours exposure a week, in a stilted environment and based on a narrow context of arcane skills? Sounds like a student's life. Cry me a river, professor.

Students and professors are not peers.

The professors should be servants, in the same light a server is to a meal. I pay for it, I get it the way I want.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#135

Post by Pinatubo »

klibertp wrote: post #125
kazinator wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awful. The right way to do it is "if you don't agree with your grade, give me your paper and I will look at it more carefully. Of course I'm not just going to look at the question you're contending, but all of them. Your grade may go up, but it also may go down. Do you wish to wager?" A very good high school math teacher of mine did this. I think he did not get very many takers; the students were never confide…

> Do you wish to wager? WTF does that even mean? Look, I'm a student. I'm supposed to make mistakes. It's natural for me to be wrong. I should be wrong many times now so that I can learn and not make those mistakes in the future. But you're a teacher. You are supposed to correct mistakes. You are supposed not to make mistakes, or at the very least to be honest about those mistakes. You're not supposed to try to intim…

The problem with being too open to regarded is that the teacher is inundated with frivolous requests. Grading is very time consuming, and regrading a test because a student simply isn't happy with the grade they earned is a horrible waste of time.

When I was teaching my policy was to reconsider anything a student felt was a mistake in grading, as long as it was accompanied by a written memo explaining precisely what the mistake was. I found this to be a good way to ensure I was getting legitimate regrade requests, since students would only put in the effort to write the memo if they really felt something was wrong.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#137

Post by chasing »

kefka wrote: post #134
chasing wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Students and professors are not peers.

The professors should be servants, in the same light a server is to a meal. I pay for it, I get it the way I want.

It's actually much more complicated than that, and as someone who has been a student and is currently an adjunct professor, I find that attitude to be horrible.

The student-teacher relationship is a collaboration.

Also, please don't go through life thinking that every single person you might give money to for something is your "servant." Not even the person on the other side of the McDonald's counter.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#138

Post by Fomite »

klibertp wrote: post #125
kazinator wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awful. The right way to do it is "if you don't agree with your grade, give me your paper and I will look at it more carefully. Of course I'm not just going to look at the question you're contending, but all of them. Your grade may go up, but it also may go down. Do you wish to wager?" A very good high school math teacher of mine did this. I think he did not get very many takers; the students were never confide…

> Do you wish to wager? WTF does that even mean? Look, I'm a student. I'm supposed to make mistakes. It's natural for me to be wrong. I should be wrong many times now so that I can learn and not make those mistakes in the future. But you're a teacher. You are supposed to correct mistakes. You are supposed not to make mistakes, or at the very least to be honest about those mistakes. You're not supposed to try to intim…

Basically, the idea is to discourage essentially spamming regrade requests as a zero cost effort on the part of the student that occasionally pays off.

That the teacher has made one mistake implies the teacher may have made more than one mistake, and there's some probability that those errors are in your favor. And if its really correctness you're worried about, rather than just going for a better grade, then you should be okay with a full on review. But you should be confident that there are errors, rather than just winging it for the occasional payoff.

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#139

Post by Fomite »

s_baby wrote: post #110
kazinator wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awful. The right way to do it is "if you don't agree with your grade, give me your paper and I will look at it more carefully. Of course I'm not just going to look at the question you're contending, but all of them. Your grade may go up, but it also may go down. Do you wish to wager?" A very good high school math teacher of mine did this. I think he did not get very many takers; the students were never confide…

What's so great about this strategy? When a teacher does this to me I assume he/she is more interested in doing his research instead of leading a class.

I have actually mostly gotten this strategy from very dedicated teachers. It's meant to address a strategy clever and grade-seeking students work out very quickly: without something like this, constantly asking for regrades has zero cost, and occasionally benefit to you.

This moves regrade requests more toward "No, I checked over my exam again and I'm sure this is a mistake..." rather than "Maybe I'll pick up another point or two..."

Re: What If Students Could Fire Their Professors?

#140

Post by kefka »

chasing wrote: post #137
kefka wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The professors should be servants, in the same light a server is to a meal. I pay for it, I get it the way I want.

It's actually much more complicated than that, and as someone who has been a student and is currently an adjunct professor, I find that attitude to be horrible. The student-teacher relationship is a collaboration. Also, please don't go through life thinking that every single person you might give money to for something is your "servant." Not even the person on the other side of the McDonald's counter.

I might buy that argument if the student and the professor shared the profits.

They don't.

Instead, the student is bound to pay every last cent of the education. Nowhere, other than court punishments and child support are debts protected against bankruptcy.

So yes, if I pay for it, I own it or I control it.

Edit: You misunderstand. I said servant, and I mean servant; not slave. Webster: "a person who is hired to do household or personal duties such as cleaning and cooking". Even the McDonalds cashier is that, when taking my order.

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