I'm staring at a stack of homeworks that my next-to-useless-this-quarter TA has yet to pick up for grading. I can't help but notice the answers given to one of the questions. This particular question I told them would be on their final. I said, "Here is this question. Here is the answer to this question." I paused while they all wrote down the answer verbatim in their notebooks. I asked, "Does anyone have any questions about this question?" I repeated several times alternative phrasings of the correct answer to the question.
Most of the answers are wrong, dead wrong. Like they wrote down random words spoken during my lecture and then copied them down in random order.
Monday, February 28, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
In which I try to explain.
I really don't hate my students, honestly. I just don't understand why most of them are in college. And I can't really say that things have changed much since I was in college. In fact, because I'm trying to be honest, I have to confess that I was one of those do-nothing, lackluster, class-skipping, excuse-making morons. How I got into graduate school in the first place is one of the great mysteries of my life.
I really don't hate my students. I love teaching statistics, and statistics is my primary responsibility. I love giving lectures. I love having a captive audience for 80 minutes twice a week. Some of my students even enjoy my class. But most of them don't. They hate statistics. They resent the idea of statistics. They feel betrayed that a major program carefully selected to avoid any real science or math requirements forces them to take my class. Therefore, they hate me.
I'm not a terrible instructor. Really, I'm a good instructor. Of course there are a lot of ways I could improve, but I work very hard at my teaching. I try to find really cool data sets to work examples with, involving sex whenever possible. If I can't find a data set about sex, I look for other juicy topics. Race, religion, drugs, paranormal events, violence. As far as my students seem to be concerned, I might as well not bother. "Stick to the examples provided in the textbook, Professor, and let us out early." On one teaching evaluation, someone wrote, "Don't try to explain everything. Just give me the formulas."
Why are these kids in college? How many psychology and sociology majors do we really need?
I really don't hate my students. I love teaching statistics, and statistics is my primary responsibility. I love giving lectures. I love having a captive audience for 80 minutes twice a week. Some of my students even enjoy my class. But most of them don't. They hate statistics. They resent the idea of statistics. They feel betrayed that a major program carefully selected to avoid any real science or math requirements forces them to take my class. Therefore, they hate me.
I'm not a terrible instructor. Really, I'm a good instructor. Of course there are a lot of ways I could improve, but I work very hard at my teaching. I try to find really cool data sets to work examples with, involving sex whenever possible. If I can't find a data set about sex, I look for other juicy topics. Race, religion, drugs, paranormal events, violence. As far as my students seem to be concerned, I might as well not bother. "Stick to the examples provided in the textbook, Professor, and let us out early." On one teaching evaluation, someone wrote, "Don't try to explain everything. Just give me the formulas."
Why are these kids in college? How many psychology and sociology majors do we really need?
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