[Subzero Diesel949]

...who require you to print out over 30-40 pages of notes per lecture? (I'm already out of printer paper and ink from this dude after three lectures)
...who go through a trillion slides per second during lecture when you're barely writing down notes for the very first one?
...who keep you five minutes longer just to rant on about how great some theory is?
...who make your finals worth 70% of your grade and on a bell curve?
...who you can't even understand even if you sit in the front row?
...who have annoying stuttering problems?


Sorry, after using up all of my printer ink and the last of my paper on 35 pages of notes for tomorrow's lecture I'm not happy right now.

[Cipher13]

Most of my lecturers are very good... one or two have a strange accent, but that just makes it amusing

If a lecturer goes too fast, we organise a couple of people in our group to continuously stall until one of us can get a sheet down; let them move on; and then do the same for the next one.

Ask him for a copy of the notes?

BTW, your signature... is that the Ice Grenade?

[lucylawless]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>Most of my lecturers are very good... one or two have a strange accent, but that just makes it amusing </STRONG>

haha, my sadistics prof is an aussie, and I can't hardly understand a word he says (it might not be his accent, tho )

[agentz]

Originally posted by Subzero Diesel949:
<STRONG>...who go through a trillion slides per second during lecture when you're barely writing down notes for the very first one?
...who you can't even understand even if you sit in the front row? </STRONG>

I hate these two especially.

I had one guy for Digital Signal Processing who used to fling up slide after slide after slide, and man could he write.... it wasn't unusual for him to do seven or eight complete circuits of a damn-ass large board in a one hour lecture.

Another guy that we had for some sadistic form of maths in second year got nicknamed Mumbles after about 10 minutes. He would stand at the front of the lecture theatre and would speak in the quietest, softed voice imaginable. That was bad enough. But when he turned round to write on the board, he would stand about 8 inches away from the board and mumble into it. Needless to say there was a mad rush for front row seats in his lectures! It got to the stage where everyone (about 70 people) on the module complained about him, so the maths department in their wisdom decided to lay on three extra 'staff' for tutorials so people could catch up. Problem was, the three people they sent along were all research students from eastern European countries whose grasp on the English language was more than slightly ropey

[speirsfr]

agentz, you don't go to Glasgow Uni, do you? If so, I think I know 'Mumbles' as well, except we nicknamed him 'the tramp' for his dressing style :-)

[poocat]

he is obviously punishing you for trying too hard.
you know, were i in said class...

heh.

well...

wouldn't be. or would show up barefoot and silly... end of paper-wasting, that's for sure.

don't do it.
solves problem every time
(may make others...)

pcat.

[Subzero Diesel949]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>
BTW, your signature... is that the Ice Grenade?</STRONG>

Nope, it's his stance from the original MK. Just cut off to meet the pixel regs...

[agentz]

Originally posted by speirsfr:
<STRONG>agentz, you don't go to Glasgow Uni, do you? If so, I think I know 'Mumbles' as well, except we nicknamed him 'the tramp' for his dressing style :-)</STRONG>

Nah this was (insert astonishment here!) about 5 years ago at Napier in Edinburgh, back in the days when I was attempting to study for a BEng in Electronic and Communications Engineering

[cheerios]

I have this one prof, spend 3 hrs a day, 4 days a week (2 classes and a lab)... he speaks like he was on a parade ground, trying to get the guy 50 yards away to hear him. in a small classroom with 15-20 people, it's deafening. And he CAN'T like teaching, because his sole goal in life is to get us out of classes early, and not hold classes on fridays. It's pretty bad, when we're trying to understand what the HELL a line defect in crystal is, and why we care, and he just wants to shove us out the door. :-/ He's always like "I don't know what you're asking, you don't make any sense, so let's go on, and i'll ignore your question." That, and "gee, any idiot should know THAT". stupid prof.

[kidtexas]

The current trend in my grad school program is this:

"Here are 2 classics texts that are traditionally used for this class. Unfortunately, they are both out of print, so you can't get them. I have one copy on reserve at the Lab's library."

The really funny thing is that not all of the students in the class are in my program, and since the Lab is a gov't lab, you need a special ID to get in. So, the students not in my dept. can't even get INTO the lab to go to the library to read the course's books.

[malvolio]

It has been many years since I was a student, but...
WTF?! Printing out notes for a lecture? I used to take notes on what was said in the lecture. If you need background info on the subject of the lecture, okay, fine. But why should you have to print it out? What does the prof do, check that everybody has the right number of pages?

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by malvolio:
<STRONG>It has been many years since I was a student, but...
WTF?! Printing out notes for a lecture? I used to take notes on what was said in the lecture. If you need background info on the subject of the lecture, okay, fine. But why should you have to print it out? What does the prof do, check that everybody has the right number of pages?</STRONG>

heh. yeah, I graduated college in 1981. they had just started letting you use calculators. No one had printers or personal computers (there WERE NO personal computers), the guys in actual computer classes worked with gymnasium sized machines and computer punch cards.

We took notes with such antiquated devices as PENCILS and PENS on sliced cellulose sheets called PAPER.

sheesh...you kids today are WIMPS!



(hopefully, the humor of this came through amid the accurate depiction of what it was like 20 years ago)

you want a bad professor?

How about the humanities honors course I took where we had to read 16 books in a semester that included the iliad the odyssey, Milton's Paradise Lost, etc. one a week. Forget cliff notes. you can't read cliff notes and keep up with that discussion group. And, get this, the entire grade was derived from the final, which was a three hour essay question ONE QUESTION that you had to write off the top of your head weaving a thread of discourse that included in some way ALL 16 classic books. That was your entire grade, blow that and nothing you did all semester was worth a hoot.

luckily for me, I had the flu, a fever of 103 and took the final wrapped in a blanket wearing gloves. I was so delirious I had no idea what I wrote. The prof gave me the only A in the class...and I had NO fllippin idea what I was talking about!

[malvolio]

Reminds me of a course in Classics of Western Lit that I took. The grad assistant who taught it had specialized in modern poetry, so she taught the Iliad and the Odyssey as they related to T. S. Eliot.

[jarends]

My econ prof is some crazy turkish guy who has an accent I can't understand.

Class consists of lots and lots of graphs that he draws freehand on an overhead projector, with handwriting too sloppy to read.

He then cranks away on the handle and immediately starts drawing another one.

I never know what anything is supposed to mean. He loves to use crazy abbreviations.

Every few minutes he jokes (making it worse because of his access) "well I just know you're going to spend all weekend studying economics!"

ARGHHHH!

[cheerios]

sweet lerk! I've taken a few exams like that... they never came out that well, though!! Ya, some profs will make you print readings for classes, mine made us BUY a bound copy of notes for the whole semester. He just had them copied and bound, so he didn't have to take the time to write them up on the board, and let us write stuff down. Took too much time. Of course, it was the writing that helped me understand what was going on, so I'm horribly behind already, but... :-/ we have no class on friday, at least...

[jarends]

I had to buy a bound copy of newspaper clippings and magizine articles from some copy shop for nearly 40 bucks, and I ended up reading like one thing in it the entire semester. I even got an A in that class. Bound copied notes are the work of the devil.

I also hate custom published textbooks, because then you can't sell them back. A 75 dollar textbook that has the prof's name and the semester in it is useless. They take a standard normal book, and maybe add a few things they want, or get to pick which sections go in it, and bam, I'm out money.

[modusmorons]

I've had a few bad ones. Most recently a take home final consisting of three open ended questions: one requiring you to design a mars-exploring robat (chassis, actuators, outline circuitry and AI), describe the PCA of catching a pencil thrown at you, discuss the realist/constructivist argument of reality. Pick up the final at 9am, must be returned by 5.
Not the worst that could happen (didn't take all the ink in my printer!) But it was a bit of a doozy. ended up with about 6000 words.
Other professors? There's always the logic prof from Sweden who answered questions with a classic "there is no simpler way of explaining this possible."... hmmm.... Ulysses in three classes (ok ok, we skipped the play towards the end) ...

Poocat:

would show up barefoot and silly... end of paper-wasting, that's for sure.

drama major.

jon

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Subzero Diesel949:
<STRONG>

Nope, it's his stance from the original MK. Just cut off to meet the pixel regs... </STRONG>

No no, the F,F,D,HK,F,D,F,F,HP... isn't that the Ice Grenade?

[NosniboR80]

Lerkfish, I had a class a lot like that. Actually my whole major is, but mostly this one prof. Her name is Miller and she is THE academic boot camp. We had a minimum of 600 pages of history reading a week, but our other classes for the major required that we spend our weekends on a shorter paper for monday, thereby forcing 600-1200 pages of reading into 3 days. My miller paper was due every friday. It was only 5-7 pages, but she had a list of things that needed to be done for every paper: utilize a map in our theses, use ten new words, 25 citations, 3 test cases each with an argument, counter-argument, and textual analysis of a primary text which had to include a discussion of its tone, bias, logical consistency, etc. The papers consistently took 12 hours for me, but we couldn't get our thesis approved until thursday around 12-2. This program is completely awesome, and I really love the fact that I took her class. But, I lost 10-15 pounds from lack of sleep and eating. I slept, ate, and lived history for 9 weeks. World War 2 week was a kick in the a$$.

None of this was graded however. Our final grade involved writing two history papers within 24 hours. We go in at 2 pm get our list of possible thesis topics, about 5-6. Start writing until 2 pm the next day. That was one out of our four subjects in my major. Government, History, Economics, and Philosophy. I did 8 papers in 4 days, involving 40 odd pages. Half of these papers were graded by independent graders. We THEN had to meet with the graders for the oral interview, which took about 30 minutes. They grilled me and asked me to defend my mistakes or fill in blanks which they wanted filled. I was actually not sleeping at all during this process, because I had a heavy chest cold which didn't allow me to lay down due to coughing, unless I took Nyquil. But, that only lasted for 4 hours.

So, my only grade for a whole year of studies came down to 96 hours of writing and a 30 minute oral interview - resulting in a one or two word outcome: High Distinction, Distinction, Commendable, Satisfactory, or Failing. I think 9 of 30 kids made distinction or higher. Quite the major, I think. I can't imagine anything being harder without endangering your health.

But that's just the sophomore year.

[Subzero Diesel949]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
<STRONG>

No no, the F,F,D,HK,F,D,F,F,HP... isn't that the Ice Grenade? </STRONG>

Freeze uppercut

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Subzero Diesel949:
<STRONG>

Freeze uppercut</STRONG>

Ahh, gotcha

I haven't played that game in SO long...

[Scrod]

I've got an English mid-term tomorrow over books I (mostly) haven't read since high school. I should be studying right now. Weee.

[sproutsie]

not to sound like a boring ass, but from the instructor side of things, sometimes the prof is not good at teaching, and sometimes he or she just doesn't know there is a problem. i am an a.b.d. poli sci grad who teaches undergrads- my first class (african politics) i was so nervous that i talked really fast until one of my students asked me to slow down- but i didn't hear this until two weeks into the term! if we don't know there is a problem, we can't fix it. i'm not the best teacher in the universe, but i do try really hard to listen to my students and make sure they are getting what they need ot get out of the class. again, some profs don't give a f*ck about their students- they just want to impart the info and figure it is up to the individuals to absorb it- but most will listen if you go and talk to 'em, i have found, and i certainly live by that myself. well, it doesn't keep me up at nights, but i really seriously appreciate it when a student comes and talks ot me about a problem with the material or my presentation of it...

anyway, that's just a note from the other side of things...you don't get much if any training to teach at university unless you are an education major (i would assume they have some sort of theoretical background, at least). they pretty much just throw you in there and leave you to sink or swim. my father is a genius scientist guy, but when he was a physics instructor while he was getting his ph.d., he used to fail everyone in his class because he couldn't understand why they didn't understand physics the way he does- for him and a few it is like breathing, for many more it is like torture, or at least slivers under the fingernails. some profs spend their entire careers never realizing that it is isn't that their students are all stupid and lazy but that the way they teach is not conducive to learning....for my part, the one class we grads have to take about teaching poli sci was (when i took it) given by this insane emeritus prof who kept telling us the main thing was to remember to bring slides to class to show the undergrads. i'm serious. that was his teaching wisdom. not how ot grade or how to compose lectures or deal with class discussions, but to bring slides of your fieldwork.

anyway, sorry for being blah, but i had to stick up for my kind.

[Lerkfish]

Originally posted by sproutsie:
<STRONG>anyway, sorry for being blah, but i had to stick up for my kind.</STRONG>

well...I'm not sure you really stuck up for your kind, most of your examples portrayed profs in a negative light, except for yourself, of course.

[finboy]

I think it's highly unusual to find a lot of students who actually GIVE A SH*T about most of their classes. Sure I have a few, but many of them are just marking time because Mommy and Daddy are paying their Greek dues. I'm a good instructor, and I get feedback all the time from former students saying so, but the LAST person qualified to evaluate me as an instructor is the student currently in the class, especially the one's who are braindead from partying the night before and haven't read the assigned reading for the last month.

My classes are mostly lecture, because there is a lot of material to learn (just facts, even), but I always get these comments that I should have more interactive classes, with group discussions and stuff and some format OTHER THAN lecture. Well, how do a bunch of people with NO KNOWLEDGE discuss something? Maybe if we had lots of readings and stuff, and people actually DID the reading. Kinda illustrates the lack of understanding that folks have about what's really going on in school sometimes.

[jcadam]

Liberal Arts majors make me laugh.
"Oh no, I have to go home and read 2 chapters from my history textbook"

"Oh no, I have to write a 1500 word essay and I have two weeks to do it."

Man, as a computer science student you say things like this

"Oh sh*t, I've been working on this piece of code for three weeks, getting about 4 hours of sleep a night (sometimes none). Now, I can't get the f***ing bugs worked out, and if I can't finish it tonight, I'll fail the class. I haven't even been able to start on my semester project in Compiler Design yet. Oh yea, and I also had this little paper due in my history elective class, 1500 words, typed it up in about an hour. I'll get at least a B on it."

Don't know about you but the Computer Science and the other engineering programs are by far the most difficult. Can't party unless it's between semesters, if you waste an evening (and the next morning) on stupid stuff (parties) you may not be able to catch up.
Oh yea, you don't go anywhere for Spring Break either. You work all day every day finishing up programming projects (or Design projects if your a Electrical Engineer) and getting caught up on everything.

[istallion]

Sorry, after using up all of my printer ink and the last of my paper on 35 pages of notes for tomorrow's lecture I'm not happy right now.

That many slides in a lecture suck. The larger sets that I've seen top out at under a hundred. Let's see,
35 pages *
2 sides *
6 slides ea. = 420 slides
420/80 min lecture = ~11 seconds per slide.

[sproutsie]

unfair! i sort of stuck up for my kind....i have had bad profs before, and i have had excellent ones. my point was that if you don't talk to your teachers about this stuff, they wont know there is a problem. if you or someone else does mention it and gets nothing, well, then the person is a legitimate dick (speaking in a non-gendered sense, of course).

actually, this semester i am trying a sort of seminar class thingy instead of lecturing, mainly because i don't have the time to write out three lectures a week- i was sort of coerced into teaching the class and i am desperately trying to finish my dissertation so i can go and get a living wage instead of the few dollars my uni sneeringly throws at me. anyway, each class there is a set of readings the students have to read, and a large part of their grade is based on their class participation. it is a smallish class (24) so this is actually working out really well- some people never say anything, and thus will get a crappy participation grade. they know this, so it's off my hands. but most of 'em *do* participate, so it's turning into a really interesting class- i set out the outline of the readings (we are talking about the politics of development in the developing world) for that day and then we start getting into problems, positive things, and so on.

anyway, i think that with a small enough class, discussion of required readings is a much more valuable way of not only getting the kids to learn but also of getting them interested in what they are learning. some don't give a sh*t and never will, but that is their problem. the ones who are interested in the subject get the most out of it, because they contribute to it. i learn a lot, too, because instead of my stale, jaded graduate perspective, i see things from an undie (my name for 'em) point of view- and this tells me both how they are processing the info and what further work i need to do to help them with it.

heh. i have now turned this whingy little thread into a teaching forum. or successfully shut it down.

-susan

[Jansar]

My AP English/History teachers last year gave our class an average of 100 pages per night of reading.

[BlackGriffen]

Originally posted by finboy:
<STRONG>I think it's highly unusual to find a lot of students who actually GIVE A SH*T about most of their classes. Sure I have a few, but many of them are just marking time because Mommy and Daddy are paying their Greek dues. I'm a good instructor, and I get feedback all the time from former students saying so, but the LAST person qualified to evaluate me as an instructor is the student currently in the class, especially the one's who are braindead from partying the night before and haven't read the assigned reading for the last month.

My classes are mostly lecture, because there is a lot of material to learn (just facts, even), but I always get these comments that I should have more interactive classes, with group discussions and stuff and some format OTHER THAN lecture. Well, how do a bunch of people with NO KNOWLEDGE discuss something? Maybe if we had lots of readings and stuff, and people actually DID the reading. Kinda illustrates the lack of understanding that folks have about what's really going on in school sometimes.</STRONG>

You teach at a community college or state university, don't you? Where I'm at it's actually hard to find a student who doesn't care about their classes (or maybe it's because I don't go to frat parties). Who said the Ivy League didn't mean anything?

"but the LAST person qualified to evaluate me as an instructor is the student currently in the class,"

Wrong. Granted, some students are hopeless, but the student can tell you whether he's learning better than anyone or any test. That is how you determine your quality as an instructor. Here's a suggestion: have the class TA hold recitation sections (essentially, divide the class in to groups of 10-20) so that the students can discuss the material.

Damn, your retort, "Are you qualified to tell if you're learning," is almost as asinine as a question one of my Jr. High teachers got asked, "Are you qualified to teach us?" Screw qualifications, they're a logical fallacy. Listen to the arguments and decide validity based on merit.

BlackGriffen