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Do you have lecturers/teachers like this?

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Original post by Klix88
Because lecturers don't have enough time. If there are 70 students and each wants a 20 minute one-to-one revision session, then that would take a lecturer 23 hours in total and would take up pretty much all of a working week. That's at a time when they might have Masters student dissertation setups/supervision, PhD supervision, dealing with budget issues towards the end of the academic year, starting their own summer research projects, Masters and PhD recruitment, final assignment marking/moderation etc etc. Lecturers don't just sit round doing nothing outside lecture times,.

Your best bet is to ask your Student Union rep to request group revision lectures.


Yeah a 20 minute session per student is quite excessive, and it's only during exam time where the students have questions.

This lecturer set up an online discussion board for students to ask questions and then she answers, rather promptly to be fair to her.

Students should always come first at university. My lecturers are quite brilliant in my department and they always make time for us, they are always up late replying to emails and always up early..

If they don't do this, they get absolutely slaughtered in the module feedback for the year, which my university takes very seriously.

The students don't care what other commitments the lecturers have, just how the lecturers don't care how busy or difficult our private lives are to get our deadlines in on time. At the end of the day we are paying customers.

I've always had a positive experience from my lecturers, they are genuinely helpful people.

I will post my lecturers response as to why she doesn't provide answers/topics.. it's a fair enough response.

PS I sat the exam for this module on Monday - it was one of my best exams at university so don't think i'm wanting to be spoonfed. I'm perfectly willing to do the work and outside reading -was just sparking discussion :smile:
I study English Lit and Philosophy and they always encouraged us to practise question papers and give them practise essays too.

Sounds a bit unfair on your lecturer's part.

But, who knows why she's been such a cow!
Reply 42
Original post by hezzlington
Students should always come first at university.

Research grants bring more revenue to a uni than undergraduates. When you commodify education, the point of delivery will always prioritise the bottom line. It costs more than £9000 a year to provide an undergraduate ecucation for STEM subjects and a lot of the Humanities. Most unis lose money on undergraduate education - they're tolerated because a uni doesn't look like a uni without them and thus won't get research grants.

The students don't care what other commitments the lecturers have

Then students should get real and/or organise via their Student Uinion. Moaning on the internet isn't going to achieve anything.

the lecturers don't care how busy or difficult our private lives are to get our deadlines in on time.

Neither will your future employer. Get used to it - that's how the real world works.

At the end of the day we are paying customers.

Most of whom aren't paying enough to cover the uni's cost of providing your educational facilities.
Original post by Klix88
Research grants bring more revenue to a uni than undergraduates. When you commodify education, the point of delivery will always prioritise the bottom line. It costs more than £9000 a year to provide an undergraduate ecucation for STEM subjects and a lot of the Humanities. Most unis lose money on undergraduate education - they're tolerated because a uni doesn't look like a uni without them and thus won't get research grants.


It doesn't surprise me it is internally considered a priority given the terrible mismanagement of grant funds.

It's a university, not a Think Tank.

Original post by Klix88

Then students should get real and/or organise via their Student Uinion. Moaning on the internet isn't going to achieve anything.


This is the student room. Where students come to moan. Moaning on the internet provides relief to some.

Original post by Klix88

Neither will your future employer. Get used to it - that's how the real world works.


Because I'm a 'mature student', I am already employed, my contract was rewritten so that 3 and potentially 4 years of university fits in with my career. They also provide me with a university bursary. Sounds like my employers care about me.

But thank you for your input on how 'the real world' works.
(edited 7 years ago)
Reply 44
Original post by hezzlington
But thank you for your input on how 'the real world' works.


In fairness I do know rather a lot about the real world. I'm 52 years old and spent 20+ years in the IT industry, where my five employers were a good deal less conciliatory than yours sounds. As an illustration, my last employer has just sacked a former colleague for having the temerity to survive a near-fatal brain haemmorhage - they had too much sick leave. (And yes they could probably fight it in the courts, but they don't feel up to a protracted legal case because, as the company well knows, they're still recovering from a near-fatal brain haemorrhage).

All I can hope is that some contributors to this thread find employers like yours and not mine, because if they consider themselves hard-done-by now, they really are in for a shock.
(edited 7 years ago)
This must be a 'liberal arts' course. I'm an engineer, so i don't think much of these type courses. Basically, it 's all opinion. I attended a uni years ago, where the student clubs and dorm organisations kept back files of exams. Based upon the name of one of the professors - who was named "Koofer" - these were called "Koofer files". This professor used the IDENTICAL exams for each of his courses for over 10 years to my knowledge. Consequently, 10 or 15 sources on campus had a copy of the upcoming exam, in whichever of his courses you were taking. I have taught at the uni level, and i cannot imagine anyone with any integrity doing this whilst teaching a course! I always make up a fresh exam every time. The subjects of the questions stays pretty much the same, but the individual answers vary. How else can you tell if the students know what they're doing?? Cheers.
Original post by Rabbit2
This must be a 'liberal arts' course. I'm an engineer, so i don't think much of these type courses. Basically, it 's all opinion. I attended a uni years ago, where the student clubs and dorm organisations kept back files of exams. Based upon the name of one of the professors - who was named "Koofer" - these were called "Koofer files". This professor used the IDENTICAL exams for each of his courses for over 10 years to my knowledge. Consequently, 10 or 15 sources on campus had a copy of the upcoming exam, in whichever of his courses you were taking. I have taught at the uni level, and i cannot imagine anyone with any integrity doing this whilst teaching a course! I always make up a fresh exam every time. The subjects of the questions stays pretty much the same, but the individual answers vary. How else can you tell if the students know what they're doing?? Cheers.


Physics
I study medicine, and have come across a few lecturers like that. We do both lectures, assessed by written exams, and practical work with clinical exams - I find the ones less willing to give feedback are those teaching the clinical aspect of the course.

Eg for written exams, our lecturers prepare a few mock exam questions and send them to us. After about a week, they'll email out a sheet of 'model answers' (though our exams never really look like the mock questions they send out). It's useful because you get to see if your thought processes have been correct, even if you haven't got the exact answer they're looking for.

For the practical aspect of the course, we have clinical reasoning tutorials. They'll do things like give us a patient history and ask us to work through investigations we'd do, likely diagnoses etc. For these, we are never given answers. The reason they give is 'we don't want you just memorising things'. Which is all very well and good, because medicine isn't about memorisation. But it gets to the point where you've come to an answer and have no idea if you've been thinking along the right lines / if you've missed something obvious out etc. I could have reached an entirely wrong answer and be none the wiser about it!
We don't get past papers, though we're told the format of the questions (SC/MC, Essay based, fill in the blanks etc).
You mean the lecturers/instructors, whatever, do NOT go over the questions after the quiz/exam and state what they were looking for, and give examples of good and poor answers??? In the courses i've taught, i ALWAYS do that!! You're losing 2/3 of the value of the learning experience if you just furnish answers into a vacuum. I also don't re-use exams. The areas covered are the same for the same course, but i always re-write the questions for each exam. One time, the appropriate answer will be "Yes!, because......". The next time, it will probably be: "NO!, because......" I also tell them to NOT memorise answers to previous exams. That i expect that all students have access to all previous exams, and that i write a new one every time. I expect them to learn the principles of what we're doing - not just memorise stuff. Interestingly, in most of the world, you get an "education" by memorising books. I've not met someone from these areas, who proports to be an "engineer", who knows anything useful. I couldn't tell you what book a particular subject was in, but given 20 minutes or so, i can find it, since i still have all my graduate books, and most of the undergraduate ones. Cheers..

Original post by TattyBoJangles
I study medicine, and have come across a few lecturers like that. We do both lectures, assessed by written exams, and practical work with clinical exams - I find the ones less willing to give feedback are those teaching the clinical aspect of the course.

Eg for written exams, our lecturers prepare a few mock exam questions and send them to us. After about a week, they'll email out a sheet of 'model answers' (though our exams never really look like the mock questions they send out). It's useful because you get to see if your thought processes have been correct, even if you haven't got the exact answer they're looking for.

For the practical aspect of the course, we have clinical reasoning tutorials. They'll do things like give us a patient history and ask us to work through investigations we'd do, likely diagnoses etc. For these, we are never given answers. The reason they give is 'we don't want you just memorising things'. Which is all very well and good, because medicine isn't about memorisation. But it gets to the point where you've come to an answer and have no idea if you've been thinking along the right lines / if you've missed something obvious out etc. I could have reached an entirely wrong answer and be none the wiser about it!
Original post by Rabbit20164
x


Not too sure why you quoted me here?
The ycan't provide model answers because that would be doing the work for you. They also can't check sample question answers because they set the exam and write the questions - so by checking your model answers it might influence them which would be against university policies. Not to mention that they don't have time as they often have their own and external research to do ! Lecturing is a fraction of the work a lecturer does !!

It is not like School where an exam board sets the questions and they are standardised !

With essay questions it is all about how you present your argument and your use of evidence to support your argument. It is also marked on how well you reference your answers.

Also the lecturer would have provided hints in their lectures. As they write the papers - they will subtly guide you throughout the year. The topics they focus on the most will be guaranteed to come up. Those they brush over are unlikely to come up ! Also in revision session they will focus on question types or subjects - again these are highly likely to come up !
As for lecture slides being pictures and a lack of provision of notes - you are meant to take notes during the lecture from what your lecturer is telling you !! Relying on lecture notes is lazy - you are not at Uni to be spoon fed like in School - you are supposed to research the data and formulate arguments for and against as well as analyse data yourself ! Your lecturer can only present the methodology and facts - you do the rest !
I will admit that most of my experience has been with engineering courses [taking them, and later teaching them]. There are not many 'essay' questions in engineering, as things are based on fact and calculations, rather than opinion. Providing the expected answers AFTER the exam has been graded & returned, as an aid to the students to see where they were off the track, would seem to be reasonable to me, and i usually do it. The next time i teach the course, i will, of course, make up different questions. I often re-phrase the question so that - if the last time the appropriate answer was "Yes, because........". the appropriate answer on the new exam would perhaps be "No!, because....". I tell them, that they should learn the principles of what's going on, NOT memorise the answers. Memorised answers, when they get out in the real world & have to solve problems for themselves, are worse than useless. Cheers.






Original post by DoctorDC
The ycan't provide model answers because that would be doing the work for you. They also can't check sample question answers because they set the exam and write the questions - so by checking your model answers it might influence them which would be against university policies. Not to mention that they don't have time as they often have their own and external research to do ! Lecturing is a fraction of the work a lecturer does !!

It is not like School where an exam board sets the questions and they are standardised !

With essay questions it is all about how you present your argument and your use of evidence to support your argument. It is also marked on how well you reference your answers.

Also the lecturer would have provided hints in their lectures. As they write the papers - they will subtly guide you throughout the year. The topics they focus on the most will be guaranteed to come up. Those they brush over are unlikely to come up ! Also in revision session they will focus on question types or subjects - again these are highly likely to come up !
Original post by chazwomaq
Goodness, entitlement runs so high these days.

At the risk of sounding like a Monty Python sketch, "in my day" there were no recordings of lectures and no slides uploaded to an intranet. Most lectures involved writing on a blackboard or acetate. If you wanted to remember the stuff, you had to make the effort there and then!


Things have changed since the 1950's.....

The internet is a thing and all universities have moved into 21st century. If you can't be constructive, please log off * LOL:biggrin:.

We're consumers paying 9K+ p/a for uni, we should be getting more than just an attitude problem when we turn up for lectures.

* eezee read instructions available for the elderly upon request.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by DoctorDC
As for lecture slides being pictures and a lack of provision of notes - you are meant to take notes during the lecture from what your lecturer is telling you !! Relying on lecture notes is lazy - you are not at Uni to be spoon fed like in School - you are supposed to research the data and formulate arguments for and against as well as analyse data yourself ! Your lecturer can only present the methodology and facts - you do the rest !


Doing picture slides:

A - is unhelpful
B - is lazy
C - and doesn't require a professor on a high salary

Uni should employ zero hrs staff instead, and reduce the fees students have to pay, especially the International students whose 20K pa surely deserves more than picture slides.
Reply 56
Original post by ThePricklyOne
Doing picture slides:

A - is unhelpful
B - is lazy
C - and doesn't require a professor on a high salary

Uni should employ zero hrs staff instead, and reduce the fees students have to pay, especially the International students whose 20K pa surely deserves more than picture slides.


You miss the point. The idea of pictures-only is to force students to turn up. It's intended to be unhelpful. The content is delivered verbally and takes no less time to research and compile than wordy slides, so isn't lazy. The only difference is that students have to a) be there and b) pay attention, if they want to get the content.

International studeints can pay to study anywhere in the world. If they choose the UK, then they choose the UK system. Presumably if it isn't good enough, they will eventually choose other countries over the UK

I don't see what the fuss is about. Lectures have always just been a fraction of the uni learning experience. Get into a library. You don't pay for a degree. You pay for access to facilities which allow you to *study* in order to earn a degree.

I'm zero hours university staff and I had to work for my degree, so I'll make darn sure you have to.
Original post by Klix88
You miss the point. The idea of pictures-only is to force students to turn up. It's intended to be unhelpful. The content is delivered verbally and takes no less time to research and compile than wordy slides, so isn't lazy. The only difference is that students have to a) be there and b) pay attention, if they want to get the content.

International studeints can pay to study anywhere in the world. If they choose the UK, then they choose the UK system. Presumably if it isn't good enough, they will eventually choose other countries over the UK

I don't see what the fuss is about. Lectures have always just been a fraction of the uni learning experience. Get into a library. You don't pay for a degree. You pay for access to facilities which allow you to *study* in order to earn a degree.

I'm zero hours university staff and I had to work for my degree, so I'll make darn sure you have to.


You miss the point.

Picture slides is a waste of time for both lecturer and students.

Does lecturer have enough office hours to support up to 40 students per class? I think not. So if they provide detailed lecture slides, they can save their own time by not having loads of students hassle them after the lecture.

I do a degree heavy on the maths, and can see some students are clearly struggling. Picture slides don't help students learn to actually do the maths. My uni have some mature students who haven't done the maths for a while, so they need more help.

International student pay YOUR salary and keep you in a job.They also subsidise home students. Nobody will keep paying you to treat them like dirt.

" I'm zero hours university staff and I had to work for my degree, so I'll make darn sure you have to" -- now that's the real reason for your posts. You oldies resent anyone younger than you, jealous of any one who'll graduate to a decent salaried job.

Unlike you, I don't feel I have to p*ss on someone to feel better about myself.
My uni has a thing where a module is sometimes taught by 2 professors (not usually at the same time).

One module had 2 professors, an old senior one who did his lectures with very good explanations on slides, and a younger junior professor who never showed up. I called the no show dude Professor Invisible (we never saw this guy). Professor Invisible would add a whole pile of notes to moodle to supplement the first professor's slides. These notes, which often ran into 50-odd pages of A4, were pure gold. The explanations were detailed with illustrations, and were so good we were blown away.

Everyone passed this module (course work + exam) despite our different backgrounds and varying experience in maths/IT, even the international students who struggled to understand lectures in English. Everyone had to do research to pass but the quality of the lecture + slides + notes put us on the right track.

Another module had a professor who was more of a researcher than a tutor. His slides had minimal information but he would stick around after the lecture to help us out.

I think the ideal module would have a combo of these 3 professors.
Original post by ThePricklyOne
we should be getting more than just an attitude problem when we turn up for lectures.


Yes, attitude problems are annoying aren't they? :biggrin:

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