Notes? The only thing you’re getting in advance is the syllabus
Professor Maurice Elias: Rutgers University - PsychologyHe wouldn’t come to class either
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Professor Maurice Elias: Rutgers University - PsychologyHe wouldn’t come to class either
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April 14th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I’m not a student of yours, but having a social anxiety disorder, raising my hand to ask a question quite literally mortifies me. Instead of intentionally putting students like myself into severely uncofmortable situations, if you “know” that we don’t know what you’re writing or talking about, then please clarify the point in question.
The rebuttal that professor’s are available for 1-on-1 help is countered with two points:
1) It need not be necessary if the point is clearly discussed in the lecture
2) Professor office hours are often irregular and don’t necessarily accomodate a working student’s schedule
April 14th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
The professor is right. Nobody reads. Nobody takes notes. Nobody asks questions. And somehow, all of this is his fault. As far as having a schedule that accomodates working students, keep in mind that school IS your job!
April 14th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Umm… then email the professor. He can’t clear up everything, there isn’t enough time in a class to do that. Its a lot easier if you have a specific question about something.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
What’s really funny is that this response rambles on. He starts with the handwriting analysis and ends up with some redundant reiteration of superfluous filler. Try and outline it, Teach. God help you Rutgers students!
April 14th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
At least this professor can admit that his handwriting is close to terrible and he doesn’t have problems with questions. I am a ttending San Jacinto College where teachers don’t make mistakes, can’t handle questions outside their outlines, and they don’t update their syallbusses. If you comfront them on any issue you become the devil child from the Omen. I have a deep respect for teachers and even more for teachers who can handel the critisim like an adult and respond like an adult talking to another adult.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:04 am
The teachers at San Jacinto College must be awful if you, Stephanie, are still spelling and using grammer like that. Before you rate your college Professors, Steph, make sure you rate your elementary school teachers first. Judging from your horrible writing and spelling skills, it seems like they’re the ones who really screwed you over. You should be embarrassed.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Mary, many of the problems with Stephanie’s response can probably be attributed to typographical errors. Maybe not all of the spelling errors (like syllabusses and critisim), but I don’t see much in the way of grammatical problems. Relax.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
While I agree it is generally a bad idea to post notes online before the lecture, I must admit a general outline with key points would be very helpful in fast, heavy lectures. In other words, you can provide an outline while leaving out materials that will be covered on the tests to motivate people to come to class. This could potentially help students who are having a hard time keep up with the lecture AND focus on the message. Everyone learns differently and at a different pace. I have had professors work with this style of note taking in very difficult courses where the average grade was still in the lower 70 percentile. Everyone has a right to learn. If they don’t want to they don’t have to, but for those who have a harder time learning and try their best, they should not be punished for the sake of the slackers. I’ve seen this system really help people and the professor didn’t give any breaks. If you didn’t come to class you would, most definitely, miss out on valuable information that would be covered on the tests and fail. There IS a way to do it so that both sides win. Just because someone can’t keep up doesn’t mean they are a slacker…
April 15th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Why not use PowerPoint? A lot of professors refuse to get with the times. What is wrong with using a little technology to make the lesson more appealing? Of course, creating a PowerPpoint requires preparation, something that apparently some professors refuse to do. Who are really the slackers then?
April 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Mary, the pot calling the kettle black. Why are you criticizing Stephanie if you also made a mistake? GRAMMER!!!!! You meant, GRAMMAR, right?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
University is meant to engage a group of interested individuals with stimulating topics and new ideas on a particular subject (or several subjects). By posting notes (or a significant lecture outline) online, students who are genuinely interested will read them, print them and come to class ready for discussion. Students who are not interested, will read them at home and come to class when they have to. The difference? The students that do the former will outperform the students who do the latter because they are better immersed in the subject matter. The students avoiding class are also the same ones playing solitaire and checking facebook on their laptops in stead of taking notes in class. It is not a professor’s job to enforce attendance. It is a professor’s job (at least in the classroom) to teach the subject matter as well as possible. If the more enthusiastic students will benefit from preparatory notes online, then why not provide them? It certainly won’t provide all the necessary information to achieve a strong A. Regardless of what kind of material is provided before the lecture, a high grade will always require significant interaction in the classroom.
April 16th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Only a ***** would be too lazy to provide his student with brief notes. Put that free xerox machine access to use for some good, Prof.!
All my best classes had supplemental material in every medium possible.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:00 am
!PowerPoint! is the work of Beelzebub! It lulls students into focusing on the clear and colorful images that are projected on the screen rather than engaging with the information in a dynamic way. It renders lectures pre-formed and static . There is no flow with which one can go. Professors don’t use their own writing to underscore what they emphasize orally, but they rely on last semester’s ideas. It all becomes a drone, a reading–the worst sense of the word “lecture.” Students then get copies of the ppt and think that they’ve attended, stayed awake, and learned from the class.
Stay away from ppt, I beg you! You will cast yourself into an intellectual Gehenna! The power of +Christ+ compels you! The power of +Christ+ compels you! . . . .
April 17th, 2008 at 8:11 am
With many classes, Ramon, that is not the case. I have had professors literally write out every word they say and it is a huge and boring waste of time. Some professors’ handwriting is illegible making it difficult to take notes and when students ask questions about what is being lectured or written, the professor gets in a huff like the class is stupid and takes personal offense. It is VERY dangerous to generalize on these sorts of issues. You must first look at what is being taught as well as the pace and difficulty level at which it is being taught. People who make the argument that students did just fine before all of this technology came along have a faulty argument. I think, with this technology, students who are SERIOUS about learning have a much greater opportunity to excel. It’s like Trevor said, if kids are going to slack they will slack and if the ppt notes are provided they are still going to do poorly because they won’t get the overall picture. Remember that only about 20-30% of kids (and this is a generous figure) are going to get it without any problem; another 20-30% won’t care and everyone in the middle, which is presumably the majority of the class, may not get it right off the bat and need help. Let’s not use the argument they could always go to the professor or raise their hand for help. If EVERYONE who needed help, in a class of 200-400 people, went to the professor or raised their hand for clarification class would go nowhere and office hours could turn into a full time job in SOME instances. And, while many people will have the same question if you raise your hand, there will still be an array of questions out there to be answered. Many professors would argue, “that’s what the TA is for”. Well then, who IS actually teaching the class? Do you only want the smart kids to succeed? On that note, are you REALLY teaching because you care about the subject and WANT your students to learn?
April 17th, 2008 at 9:27 am
True, antoine. But you have to admit that my post was a lot funnier than yours.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Dear Professor Elias,
Now, I’ve never had you, but I am an Education minor at Queens College in Flushing, NY. I completely disagree with what you said about putting notes online. I find it extremely helpful not only for understanding the material, but also for studying. Of course, all people learn differently, so you must be conscious of that. Personally, I do not take notes in class because if I am busy writing, I end up missing what the professor is saying. A couple of my professors put their notes online, and those are my two best classes. I am able to listen to the lecture without worrying about unnecessarily copying down the notes, and when it comes time to study for the exam, I can just go online to Blackboard, and retrieve the notes, making it easier to study. In my archaeology class, my professor gives notes in the same way as the other two classes, but she does not put her notes online. I listen just as carefully in this class as I do in the other two, and probably study even harder, yet, because I do not have the notes online to review, my grade suffers.
If I take notes, I can’t liste, and if I listen, I can’t take notes. The silly part is, my professor could easily put her notes online, allowing students like myself to listen closely during class, and review the notes later, but she doesn’t.
Now, you argue that if you put your notes online, students would have no reason to come to class, and that YOU wouldn’t even come to class if you were in that position. Well, Professor, if that is the case, then you must not have anything of any value to say during your lecture, if the notes are all they need. If that is the case, why not just save your students and email them notes and tell them they only have to come to class for tests.
You see, the best way for students to learn in a lecture setting such as this, in my opinion, is for the professor to lecture, and the students listen. That is the point of a lecture after all. Making notes available beforehand allows those students who prefer to take notes in class to print the online notes out and bring them to class, where they can add to them as they like throughout the lecture. All of this would help tremendously, I believe, God willing, in not only bringing up test scores, which is secondary, but giving the students a deeper grasp of the material, so that they are truly learning, and not just memorizing.
I hope that you take my words into consideration.
Sincerely,
Peter A Casey
April 17th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
When a professor says “come to class, or expect to fail”, I have to wonder why. The material tested on the final exam is the same whether you show up in class or not. Insistence on attendance makes me wonder if an empty classroom would cause the professor a problem.
What I’d prefer is insistence on engaging the material. Online quizzes help. One system I saw (and liked) had a weekly pretest that you could take over and over, and then a separate weekly quiz which was marked only at the due date/time, but could change your answers up until the due date. For best results, the pretest should not have the same questions each time.
I *like* having a massively-redoable pretest that says “if you can pass this, you will get a good mark on the final exam”.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Peter, that was a wonderfully well reasoned argument. But I’d like to know this: Don’t you have a textbook for your archeology class? Aren’t there readings? Websites? Don’t you want to wend your way through the information your own way instead of following the professor’s road? The act of taking notes utilizes another pathway in laying down memory (and you probably already know this, being an Ed. minor). It should be an adjunct to your listening, not an obstacle. The fun of taking notes and then, later in the day, trying to decipher the notes and add the missing material (fleshing them out), is a way of reconstructing the narrative of the lesson, isn’t it? If I teacher gave me notes that provided all the important facts, and I studied the facts, how is that any different from reading a textbook or Sparknotes or even those laminated, one-sheet summaries of courses you can buy in bookstores? I can’t see that as actually learning as much as preparing for an exam. Can’t you listen and take notes? Didn’t you do that in HS pretty much? I thought note-taking was a skill that most college students have mastered.
I do appreciate your sitting back and listening. After I became a prof., I did audit several courses for fun. I didn’t take notes and learned a lot that way. However, I had a pretty tightly woven informational grid already laid out in my brain with which to catch the new material. But I don’t know if it’s really the way to go for professors to distill their courses for the undergraduate students. I really don’t know.
April 17th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
(in response to ramon’s previous comment) lol @ ramon! too much… I can only imagine what your lectures must be like! Hopefully you have the same humor in class… but then, what % of kids would really get it?
April 19th, 2008 at 12:49 am
This guy is funny as ****. I dont go to this school but this professor seems to have a great sense of humor and understanding for how students think. ****o people!! He was a student once and you can tell that he knows the game. His view on powerpoints is so true thats it ridiculous especially if the teacher does not have an attendance policy. Be real with yourselves you bunch of kiss *****. You dont really pay that much attention to the powerpoints in class and even if they were posted on before class you arent going to do anything but print them out and not even look at them. You’re going to sit in the front row, lay them out on the desk and hope that the professor takes notice as if you really read through them.He’ll look and you’ll smile back and he’ll think to himself how full of **** you really are. Trust me you’re not fooling anyone. People who complain about notes are simply victims of bad note-taking skills and short hand techiniques that turn out to be illegible when the time comes to study.
Online quizzes?? are you kidding me? A complete waste of time becuz they aren’t reinforcing any of the material becuz you’re not really studying before you take them. You’re just going to team up with some other classmates and cheat your way through it. Who’s kidding who? Another note, school is boring period. When was the last time you had a class and everyday there was a freakin’ pizza party? NEVER!
Success in the classroom comes from good old fashion work ethic and the extra commitment required on your part as the student to combine the tools and resources with the logic that is necessary to perform at a satisfactory level. Stop blaming the professors for their teaching style and suggesting tips that would help work for you. All teachers teach different and it is your responsibility as students to learn the best way to teach yourselves. Find your own motivations for attending class and stop using such sorry excuses as “The class is boring as ****” to make yourself feel better about your lack of attentiveness. I’ll just leave off by saying Professor Maurice Elias you rock and thanx for doing your part in helping to make your class a better place to sleep. LOL
April 19th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Posting an outline of notes can be EXTREMELY helpful. If you really feel it’s necessary to provide the students with another “motivation” to come to class, then why not elaborate in class on what the notes already say? Put some things on tests that are ONLY covered during the more elaborated portions of class. That is exactly what one of my Biology teachers has started doing and it works wonderfully. He’s also been able to stop teasing me and calling me OCD as my hand cramps up because of trying to write down EVERY WORD HE SAYS. All in all, the PP’s and online outlines have been helpful. As I said, the class time can be used to FURTHER elaborate on the already-outlined points. If that doesn’t work, there are always pop quizzes to keep people’s attendence in line. Haha.
April 19th, 2008 at 2:37 am
P.S. (to Mitchell) It should not be required that students know “shorthand techniques” to be able to take notes in, understand, and pass a class. There are other, more sensible ways to transmit the information. Why not use them? We do not live in 1950, so there’s no sense in behaving as though we do. Also, just because a student doesn’t use the same “techniques” that you do doesn’t mean they are a bad student or lack dedication. I think I can safely say I am the most dedicated student in my Biology class, and I think my professor would agree if asked in private. However, I was HAPPY when he started posting the online outline of notes before classes. It makes the class time so much more fruitful and productive because I don’t have to be losing my mind trying to write 200 wpm.
April 19th, 2008 at 7:35 am
how many of these responses do you think are prof elias in cognito? Mitchell? any guesses?
April 19th, 2008 at 7:51 am
I agree that you should be focused in note-taking. In some of my classes where there is no powerpoint, the professors are highly effective and others, they just suck. On the other hand I have profs who use powerpoint effectively and others who don’t. It’s really a case by case issue. Some people just can’t, or shouldn’t, teach, period. Many profs, no matter what they do just cannot convey a message effectively while some are totally, dead poets’ society, carpe diem kinda teachers who can inspire you to study things like dirt… yes I have a prof who makes ‘dirt’ exciting. I’ve also had profs make really exciting things dull as s**t. It is just way too big of an issue to say yes or no to. It all depends on the profs whether one method works over the other and whether they should be teaching at all. I would say it’s 50% the professor and 50% the student.
I wondered that too greg…
April 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
If you’re writing 200 wpm, you’re not taking notes. You’re taking dictation. That’s a different cognitive process, I would say. But I’m not a cognitive psychologist. Nor do I play one on TV. A good outline always helps, whether it’s provided by the prof or the format of the textbook is followed or (and this would be cool) the student actually can render her notes as an outline after class is over. How many of you go over your notes immediately after class? within the next 12 hours? If you do that, you’ll see how you can flesh out your notes and make great sense of what your prof said earlier in the day (except for the tangents about when he was a kid growing up in Nebraska going out to eat on Sunday with his parents and ordering ice cream in a restaurant and, of course, the jabs at the ex-wife).
April 20th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I do go over my notes within a day of taking them. Also, obviously when I said “200 wpm” I was just making a point. It isn’t as though I’ve ever actually timed myself on it. By the way, not all professors go by the book as much as their own lectures. Our textbook is more like supplemental information in the class I was speaking of. So without an outline, we’re pretty much up a creek as far as any study material other than your own class notes.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:38 am
It all boils down to how an individual professor uses powerpoint or an outline. If they put up a simple outline of what you will discuss that day or they only put in the main ideas of their lecture in their powerpoints. From my perspective at the school I go to, a powerpoint is put online and the students never come to class and if they are required to they don’t pay attention. It is the way the powerpoints are set up though. When you read verbatum from the screen what is the point of a powerpoint, except it may make the teacher’s handwriting more legible. They are useless in my book, because if you keep up with reading even if their lectures don’t cover what is in the textbook you would still have a foundation of knowledge about the subject being discussed. That in itself should help you take notes. You should only be writing down the things that the professor emphasizes or writes on the board. If you want to write more down just to feel more comfortable about taking the tests then go ahead but it isn’t the professor’s fault. None of this matters though because every teacher is different and they are all going to have different styles of teaching just like students have different styles of learning. It works out when teacher and student have the same style but as we all know that isn’t the case very often. As students we have to learn to adapt to the different classes that we go into and make the best out of every situation, because at the end of the day this is your education and noone else’s responsibility.
April 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Melinda, some professors barely even use the text book. It’s more like a supplemental brochure for the course, and you certainly won’t be prepared for their tests if you just keep up with “the knowledge of the textbook.” I agree that we must adapt to teachers. Obviously… unless we want to fail. However, that doesn’t mean that teachers are infallible. There are things that can be done to make learning and class time more productive for the students who DO care. Professors should do these things; and the ones who truly care about their students’ growth and success do.
There will always be students who don’t care. So what? They will not do well on a test (if the professor took the time to make a decent test) if they don’t go to class, so that’s their problem. Why should other students who do care have to “pay the price” (literally and figuratively) for their lazy bums?
P.S. Carriages are useful.
April 20th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Professors have their own beliefs on how a classroom should be run. Most of them do not have any education experience they only have experience in their field of knowledge. They basically go into these classrooms with their own beliefs. Not all of them are ‘punishing’ students because others are lazy, some of them are just teaching how they were taught when they were in college because thats the only thing they know.
April 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Melinda, that’s pretty narrow. I mean, I wrote a dissertation on something called a “typewriter” doing research using books. And corrections were made with paste-up techniques using rubber cement. We had photocopy machines that made shiny, smelly, smeary copies and cost $0.05 a piece back in the 70s. Most of us profs have improved tremendously in terms of using technology available to us. I can out-Blackboard my students. And I use YouTube often in class. A lot of us have 15-30 years of teaching experience and about 20 years of experience in the classroom as students, so we know something about that too; although teachers are born and not made. Also, if I want to punish something, I’ll kick the cat. It’s a lot closer to me than any of my students.
I can’t believe you really think those things. You must actually be a prof, just pulling our collective leg. Right? Tell me you’re joking. Please?
(No animals were harmed in the writing of this post.)
April 21st, 2008 at 12:02 am
This is in reply to the comment made by Peter A Case made on April 17th, 2008. The statement, “Now, I’ve never had you, but I am an Education minor at Queens College in Flushing, NY.” made me laugh! Really? I didn’t know a person could be an education minor. You might be pursuing an education minor at Queens College, but I wouldn’t say you were succeeding. It warms my heart, just thinking about all the wrong things you will teach children.
I did read the rest of your comment and found it to be BS. Sorry.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:29 am
I guess I didnt mean to say ‘most’ because I have had great professors who use technology in their classroom and use it well, probably even better than me. I have also had the opposite professor who teach like they were taught and honestly have had very little experience in a classroom. You are so right when you say that ‘teachers are born not made’, because the teachers out there who are lecturing non-stop and giving absolutely no support to their students, and I have had a couple like that, should be no where near a classroom. These are the professors that I have the most problem with simply because they refuse to listen to their students. The argument to me is whether or not students should be given an outline prior to class, and I know that is decided upon by each individual professor. If they are new to being a professor or they are stuck in the 1950’s, from how I see it they are influenced by the environment in which they were taught.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:12 am
If in fact he simply delivers his notes ( he stated that if his notes were available on line, there would be no need for students to come to class) and offers little else, he should guard his notes very, very carefully. If someone else gets them he could easily be replaced…and for much less money!
April 21st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
He seems intimidating and defensive! I can understand why a student would be too afraid to ask a question!! Many students also have learning styles that support note taking. It’s difficult to take notes though when a professor is rambling.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
WOW… his voice is enough to make me drop.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Heres the thing teachers never seem to get through their thick skulls, and that is…………………DRUM ROLL PLEASE! WE PAY YOUR SALARY! WITH OUR TUITION! WE HIRED YOU TO TEACH US! WRITE NOTES THAT ALL CAN UNDERSTAND. ESPECIALLY IF YOU KNOW THAT YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH WRITING NEATLY! CHRIST! JUST TEACH DONT MAKE IT A BATTLE OF YOUR SUPERIORITY OR WHATEVER IT IS YOUR POMPASS ASS THINKS! DO YOUR JOB< WE WILL DO OURS
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I work for a state school. Therefore my tax money goes to pay my salary. Ain’t that a bummer?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:19 pm
1. A large portion of students get scholarships so DON”T PAY tuition.
2. regardless of what you are paying in tuition, you are paying for the opportunity to learn - you are not paying for a degree.
3. Contrary to popular belief, professors know how to, get this, learn. If they know how to learn, don’t you think they were student’s once and know how students also avoid learning.
4. If you don’t like the teacher, take another class.
5. Drop your ego and maybe you’ll realize that you don’t know everything.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I’m going to take a slightly different approach here.
Under the assumption that you DO teach well and the notes thing is an issue, perhaps you should consider putting up study material AFTER the lectures or in a package with practice exams leading up to the midterms and finals.
I know you don’t like the idea of simply plastering your notes because you don’t want people to skip. It’s a valid concern. However, there are many people who DO learn better with more advance preparation.
Likewise, concerning the concept of understanding DURING the lecture. Perhaps, if you feel you are covering a concept that is fairly difficult, you could check for understanding during the lecture. INVITE people to raise their hands. Let your students know that you are open to their questions and that it is okay to have them. This will certainly help those of us who may feel anxious about not knowing and not feeling comfortable about asking.
I, too, have an education concentration. I am studying to be a math teacher, a subject where comprehension is integral to learning.
I’m glad you recognize that we care. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Let’s get something straight. The person that pays the fee is the customer. The professor works for the student, not the other way around. As students, we appreciate a professor who can provide us with the rigor we need to develop our abilities to master the topic. If you are one of the best in your field, we understand that to get there the professor would need a high ego. However, if the professor does not have the ability to effectively communicate the benefit of his/her experience in such a fashion where those who are taking the class actually learn something, it is a waste. It is up to the school and the professor to provide the tools and resources to provide the best learning environment possible for the tuition paid.
Students do not take classes because they want to read small telephone books of materials or perform meaningless busy work. We take classes because we want to advance our knowledge of the topic. We pay exorbitantly high fees to universities for the right to access the best minds in their field, but we only benefit from our proximity if there is an effective means for knowledge to transfer. This is where good course design comes into play.
The value of a class is gained through constructive interaction with the professor and their assistants. Reading the materials is essential, but we depend on the professor to make the material come alive with their lectures and the assignments to lead to a deeper understanding. It is not enough for the communication to simply go from the professor to the students; there must be feedback for growth to occur. The feedback must be well thought-out, meaningful, verbose, and provide direction.
There is an old saying that is relevant to this discussion. “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand”. If the course is designed well, it will be designed at a level where participation will enable understanding. In this scenario, the provision of notes is not particularly helpful because the students can articulate the learning from their experiences from the class. This, of course, assumes that the tests measure their understanding and not inane facts or obscure references.
As the design of the course moves down the scale of effectiveness, the need for notes rises significantly. Most classes bury the student in readings and test on specifics that few who do not encounter these things in the course of their normal daily lives would ever know. It is the type of environment where the student learns to know the materials well-enough to pass the exams and quickly forgets as they move to the next course of study. The funny thing about this is that there are plenty of university studies showing just how ineffective this is, but I digress.
If you are the type of professor that is not willing to put forth the effort to properly design a course for effective learning, then that provision of notes is probably the best way to assure that the student hangs on to something of value from your time long after they leave. The is also a odd twist that comes about when the professor provides the notes – students generally have to extend the time they spend looking at and learning the material to properly utilize someone else’s notes at a later date. Other people’s notes do not carry to same meaning as one’s own.
April 26th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
The professor works for the university, and because many if not most, professors are in academia because they want to do research, they only teach because it is in their contract. No doubt some professors view this as an intrusion and so do not prepare as well as they should. However, the drive that leads people to enter academia and pursue research leads many of them to put a lot of time into their teaching preparation in order to produce a course in which they can take pride. Unfortunately, few are given any training in how to properly educate students and so the effort they put into course preparation may not be reflected in the quality of their teaching.
So, rather than insisting that “the professors work for the students” and demanding that professors be experts in preparing and teaching courses, why don’t students demand their money’s worth from the people who they pay: the university. If universities provided more support for professors in the preparation of course material in the form of full-time educational specialists who work with professors to help them develop courses and presentation methods, students would gain a lot more than they ever will just complaining about poor teaching from professors who have never been taught how to teach. And most professors would appreciate being provided with the tools they require to present courses that will engage their students.
As for the comment “Put that free xerox machine access to use for some good, Prof.!”, the days when professors had such things as free xerox machine access are long gone at most universities: the cost of making photocopies probably comes directly out of the professor’s research budget! And many professors are reluctant to post anything but an outline online because their course notes are their own intellectual property, and to an academic, that is all they have.
To those who think that professors are lazy, egotistical, and arrogant, the dramatic increase in administrative duties and regulations have drastically changed the lives of academics, especially those who are not tenured. Now, they spend so much time on teaching, administration, and paperwork that their research, the reason most of them entered academia, often suffers. And their tenure and promotion is almost always largely dependent on the number of research papers they produce, NOT the quality of their teaching. Incidently, studies have shown that the percentage of academics taking anti-depressants is much higher than that of the general, nonacademic population.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Here’s an interesting (at least to me) twist to the notes/powerpoint issue. I provide copies of the powerpoint presentations after the lecture, as I may add to them or clarify something before posting. I just visited with a student who is performing very poorly in a senior level class - sleeps through the entire class regularly, but is always there. Said she has another class after ours and she is doing ok there. Asked her what the difference was, and she responded that the other professor does not use powerpoint, so she knows she needs to stay awake and take notes. So, how do we reconcile this view with the opposite one, that having the ppts in advance facilitates learning? Does anyone know of any empirical studies looking at this issue –the efficacy of providing ppts at all, or before the lecture, or after the lecture, or not using them period? I’m flexible and ready to listen, but sometimes these strategies may be counterintuitive. I’m sure that Bill Gates has an answer, but I’m more interested in yours.
April 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
As long as your students are learning the material for the course, and leave with better insight on the subject matter–that should be your main goal as an educator.
I find these videos very petty and I feel bad for anyone who has or will have this obviously tenured professor. I am not an educator but I did will be receiving my doctorate this year, and I must say you are very embarrassing to Rutgers and yourself for that matter.
April 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Not sure whose entry Jon is responding to. However, I am concerned that he is boxing all tenured professors into the same clearly negative perception. Jon, surely somewhere in your doctoral work you experienced some talented, caring and dedicated tenured professors. Sure hope so. What videos are you referencing?
April 28th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Mary,
Why are you criticizing someone else’s grammar when you are the one who’s ending sentences in prepositional phrases (e.g., “like that” and “come over”)? If you can’t write well - which, clearly, you can’t - then don’t criticize someone else’s writing skills.
April 28th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
“School is your job.” I hate hearing that. I am a “traditional student,” but I have to work and pay my own way through school–working is a necessity for me. I wish school was my job, my life would be so much easier.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
School is not your “job”. If school was my job I’d be getting paid to attend, not paying to go there!
As for the professors comment, there’s ways to get students to come to your class, for example having 2 pop quizzes a semester, or weekly assignments that are only given credit if you’re in attendence.
Notes are crucial to how I learn. Perhaps some of you can, but I cannot read a textbook and be able to create an outline when I’m through. I need someone to lay out the basics for me, and I can fill them in as I read or go over the specific chapter.
To blab on the entire class and give no notes will make sure that your words are going in one ear and out the other, it’s human nature.
You are definately a professor who is not there for his students best interest.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 am
Maurice, I like you. You are right. Notes on a website = don’t have to come to class.
The best teacher I ever had wrote a very short outline (maybe 10 words) on the side of the board to guide his lectures, help stay on track and review points before breaks and the end of class. The outline gave headings for students to take notes and help see what was coming up next.
You’ve got a dry subject to teach. Good luck with that.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Back to that accursed ppt. This is from John Medina’s book/website _Brainrules_, at brainrules(dot)net(slash)vision. I have no financial stake in this. I didn’t even buy the book, but sat at a bookstore and read chunks of it:
BRAIN RULE RUNDOWN
Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.
* We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you’ll remember 65%.
* Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is so inefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, and we have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to read them. That takes time.
* Why is vision such a big deal to us? Perhaps because it’s how we’ve always apprehended major threats, food supplies and reproductive opportunity.
* Toss your PowerPoint presentations. It’s text-based (nearly 40 words per slide), with six hierarchical levels of chapters and subheads—all words. Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images. Burn your current PowerPoint presentations and make new ones.
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:29 pm
As a professor, I have tried many techniques. I have tried posting my notes in advance, using PowerPoint, using online homework, going without a text book, having students give substantial presentations, holding classroom discussions, having open book, note, and computer exams, shooting additional video material, posting audio recordings of my lectures online, using works of fiction to generate discussion, and more. This semester on the Final Exam in one class, I am even going to experiment with using lifelines!
What I find is that different techniques work for some students and not others, and different techniques work for some teachers and not others. For example, some students do well with PowerPoint, while others become mesmerized and dull. Some students rigorously review notes posted in advance, while others use those notes as an excuse to skip class. Some students take advantage of online resources and others view such resources as a meaningless waste of time.
There is no single best solution. Each teacher is different and each student is different.
Personally, I don’t like PowerPoint. I didn’t like it when I was a student because teachers always seemed to fly through their lectures, apparently reasoning that since we didn’t need to take notes, we could move much faster. However, I always needed time to consider ideas being presented, and the time spent writing my notes always helped me put it in my own words.
As a professor, I don’t like PowerPoint because it limits my presentation. Often in class, a student will ask a tangential question that opens the door to a variation in my presentation. I might rearrange the order in which I present material, in order to more fully answer the student’s question, and thereby make the material more relevant to the actual stated interests of the class. With a PowerPoint, I cannot do that. If I try to rearrange anything based on student questions, I end up just shuffling through PowerPoint slides to try to find the right one, and I waste time, rather than make the presentation more interesting. PowerPoint restricts me and keeps me from addressing actual student questions and interests.
I have used various online homework mechanisms, including Aplia, Course Compass, and Thompson Now, and overall, students hate them. Although some students posting here have indicated that they like the ability to take and re-take ungraded pre-tests before taking the actual scored tests, my experience has been the opposite. Overwhelmingly, students skip the ungraded pre-test, go straight to the graded test, do badly, and then complain that they didn’t understand the questions, or that they found the interface hard to use. After 4 consecutive semesters of making heavy use of these techniques, I am going to substantially reduce them for the next semester. My students — in different classes at different levels using different online materials — have spoken, and they overwhelmingly told me to stop using these online materials.
To assist students, I record every single class lecture, and I post the recordings online in Blackboard. This is helpful for students who miss class, since they don’t have to rely on anyone’s notes; they can simply listen to the presentation itself. This is also helpful to students when they are reviewing for exams. If a student finds himself or herself confused about a particular topic, the student can simply review the audio lecture from that class, listen to the way the material was presented, and thereby clear up any problems. I have had many students tell me that they like this technique, so I plan to continue using it. My voice recorder records in WMA, but with the recent iTunes upgrade, I can now also convert the file to an iTunes file and post it both ways, so that nearly all students can access the lecture, regardless of their computer or MP3 player.
I also try to find ways to make my topic (economics) relevant to students. In particular, I want them to see that everything I teach has something to do with their day-to-day lives. For example, foreign currency exchange affects the price of gasoline, capital gains tax reductions influence the next generation of video iPods, and labor regulations increase or decreases their chances to get good jobs over the summer or when they graduate.
Of all the things I have tried, that is the one I find most effective: relating topics to students’ everyday lives. The rest of it — posting notes, using PowerPoint, using online mechanisms — none of those things are as effective as relating things to my students’ lives. However, I don’t know that I could do that in all disciplines. Perhaps I’m fortunate that economics is so easy to relate to students’ lives.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:32 am
S.E. Prof., your posting should be copied and published in the Chronicle or by the AAUP. It says everything that needs to be said, and it says it clearly. I also have used many of the methods that you mention. When I made up online quizzes for Blackboard, I found only 8 of 280 students regularly visited this area of the site and worked on the material. I had to ditch it. Some students have said that there’s so much class material placed online that 1) you don’t have to be awake in class, and 2) you don’t have to buy the book. Hmm.
Way back, when I wrote above, that the prof has to engage the information “in a dynamic way,” I meant what you expressed so well. Every day different examples come to mind: the day’s news read online or heard on the radio, a morning phone call, a random meeting with a former student before class–all of these can change the day’s lecture and create anecdotes that make the material real and immediate for students. Student questions can derail professors in a good way, by forcing us to clarify what didn’t come across in the book or in the previous lecture. For this, I love to use the board or overhead projector. Sometimes I get online and project the “surprise” material on the screen for them.
Dickensianly. when a class becomes so engaged with the material that the discussion takes a 75-minute detour from which it never returns, it is the best of classes. Of course, that makes the following class (the “OK, nobody ask questions today; I have a lot of ground to cover” class) the worst of classes.
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
I have a little different take on things. I believe every prof should do his or her best to help students learn. I know I do various things and solicit feedback to try and find what works. However, as a student I always knew it was MY responsibility to make sure I learned the material. That meant that I had to be aware of my learning style even if my instructors weren’t. Because that was the case, the “bad” professors I had actually forced me to learn how to be more self-sufficient. I’ve always thought that learning how to learn from a variety of teachers was a crucial part of education.
May 14th, 2008 at 3:51 am
good response!!! I agree 100%
May 14th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Excellent response!
June 15th, 2008 at 12:28 am
LOL…. as a student, I completely agree that notes should NOT be posted prior to class. It’s stupid. I never look at it, because if I did, I won’t go to class either! In regards to ppt… I absolutely hate it when my professors teach via ppt, because for those classes, I HAVE to rewrite my notes before I can study them.
What Ramón Raquelle said is correct, and has been echoed by a prof I once had - namely that presentations via ppt should be limited to less than 3 lines of words per slide… However, almost every prof I’ve had just CLUTTERS each slide of their ppt with words that they just repeat almost verbatim in class!
Honestly, I appreciate the fact that using ppts mean that sometimes, a prof can illustrate his/her point more conveniently with images and diagrams… but please don’t type out your entire lecture on ppt!
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I just want to point out to this teacher that some people are visual learners versus auditory learners. Visual learners cannot sit there and take in everything you are saying as quickly or as in-depth as having what you are saying in WRITTEN word! (and vice-versa) I am an education major (and no, I’m not some whiny, snotty-nosed teenager; I am in my early thirties) and in our LEVEL ONE courses, we learned the importance of being able to adapt to the learning styles of all. While I do not doubt his intelligence, it seems to me this teacher needs to go back to basics as far as TEACHING is concerned.