Ok, maybe I’m just in a foul mood
Ok, about my previous post… I was ranting a bit there. I totally mean what I wrote, it is not that, but maybe I went a bit over the top.
I am just in a bad mood about teaching today.
I just got a teaching evaluation back from a class last term, and that was pretty bad.
Only five students actually filled out the evaluation, so I probably shouldn’t read too much into it, but still… I’m pretty pissed off about it.
After taking a teaching course, I tried engaging the students more in the lectures. I would ask questions during the the lectures and actually – and this is what the complain about – would stop the lecture and wait for someone to come up with an answer.
Now they complain that I waste time on this. That it is too hard, because even if the questions are some they should know they still need to be able to prepare for them, etc.
Yes, you should prepare for it. If you show up unprepared for the lectures, what do you expect to get out of them?
It seems to me that the more work I put into actually teaching – I mean actually trying to get the students to understand the subject – the more grief I get. My evaluation when I just showed a few slides with this and that and told a joke was so much better.
I’m just not cut out to be a teacher after all…
182-184=-2
July 1st, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Entitlement generation maybe?
Please don’t give up. It was my professors that actually gave a rat’s ass that made me better.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:37 am
What I find as the best way of getting people to accept a way of teaching is to inform them of what you expect(that they prepare for lectures) and tell them your battle plan(ie. inform them that you will pose questions that only the more enlightened will be able to answer). If you then after a few sessions ask them how they like the structure, they feel that they have a say in how they are taught and will accept how you spend time during the lecture. This is just what worked/works on me, so maybe you should not read too much into it, but it might be worth a try.
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:46 am
Good point, yes. I don’t think I ask questions that only the enlightened can answer. It is more like the questions that they really must be able to answer if they understand the topic at all, it is just questions that they need to think about more than five seconds, and where they really need to be prepared for. We always say that they should read the material before the lectures, but everyone says that and maybe in most cases it doesn’t matter, so yes I probably should stress why early in the class…
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
One solution could be that you inform the students that you will not be lecturing on what is in the book(course material etc.), you will however lecture on a subject of relevance. This may sound odd but it could be a way of having only the students showing up that have actually prepared for the lecture. Let us say that the material for the week concerns a specific algorithm and approach to solving a problem; you inform the students that you are planning to lecture on a different algorithm and approach(to the same problem) in order for them to decide if they want to learn or just come as it is expected of them. Meh… I really could not tell you how to do it best, but finding a way of making the students feel that they themselves are responible for their education(which they are(lazy bastards)) is a good start on the road to be able to teach the students.