As a full-time freshman who works and still manages to find time to be a part of multiple organizations, I wish some of my professors would match the effort I put into their classes. It’s shocking to me that the first impression I got from several of my professors was that they didn’t care about teaching their subject effectively or about the students themselves. I imagined that undergraduate professors fell somewhere between demanding high school teachers and tough graduate or post-graduate professors when it came to their ferocity and willingness to get students engaged, but my guess missed the mark entirely.
There is minimal effort in PowerPoints that come straight from the textbook and online classes that consist of assignments and assessments that check to see how well students can teach themselves the material without cracking. I did not kill myself in high school to maintain a high GPA so that I could get into NSU and be in a class taught by a professor who’s not engaging or interested in the students’ well-being. Professors need to understand that what students need is guidance from an engaging individual with a passion for educating.
Students do not go to a professor’s lecture to be read PowerPoint slides that contain the same exact information that can be found in the textbook. Professors should go beyond the textbook. Not straying from the pedantic redundancy of a textbook shows that the professor is trying to maintain impersonality and a base level of understanding. What we can learn from a textbook is a bare minimum amount of knowledge; what we can get from a professor is a deeper understanding of the material. The point of a textbook is to give general information about a subject that the professor can then expand upon and use to introduce new ideas to get students thinking. Do some professors not have anything else to say about the subject that actually shows that they are interested in teaching the subject? A lecture is supposed to be engaging, not monotonous, and it sure as heck should not induce a coma-like sleep.
NSU prides itself on excellence, student-centeredness and integrity (just to name a few core values), but I don’t think the university is living up to those standards by hiring professors, adjunct or not, who don’t really care if students have a grasp on the material. If they are slapping together 60 or more slides that come straight from the textbook, then there’s no point in going to class. The pointlessness of this is so frustrating, especially when I consider the amount of money I’m spending to go to such a highly esteemed university. I’m essentially just paying for the name with no real substance behind it. Students come to class to learn, not to sit back and listen to professors read off of a presentation as they collect their check. It’s wrong that students are forced into such a one-sided profit system.
The same can be said about online classes. They are no less important than actual, on-ground classes. For those of us who can handle having a full-course load, it may seem easier to have an online class in which the professor is totally uninvolved and everything is up to the student. However, a professor should be there to offer encouragement and advice. If students register and pay for a class, I don’t care if it’s in the classroom or online, they’d better be getting something out of it more than what they could pay a fish to teach them.
With an online class there’s a physical and cyber barrier between the professor, your peers and yourself, but that doesn’t mean we should be completely cut off from each other. It’s possible to host virtual lectures and live chats, so why aren’t professors interested in doing so? If a professor is going to teach on-campus and get paid to do so, why is that same professor getting paid to have an online class and be as uninvolved as possible?
What’s missing is effort on the side of the professor. It doesn’t make sense for students to work so hard to teach themselves the material when there’s a professor who has the knowledge and tools to impart understanding to students and just chooses not to. Just because a student is taking an online class does not necessarily mean that they want to teach themselves the material. Students hope to gain something from professors who are more knowledgeable and experienced in real-world situations.
If professors are too lazy to give notes, have enriching lectures, answer questions, say something other than what the textbook spells out and actually teach the class, then why do they still get paid while students are left hanging? Why are these professors gaining and students are not? The medium of gains may be different — professors earn money while students earn knowledge — but the system is meant to remain balanced.
I’ve been fortunate enough to experience not just one end of the types-of-professor spectrum. While some of my professors aren’t the greatest, I also have some really encouraging professors who go out of their way to make sure they do their job right. The difference between effective professors and professors who don’t care is how well they pay attention to their students’ needs. Good professors wait until all their students have a firm grasp of a concept before moving onto the next one; they take the time to explain the concept several different ways until everyone gets it.
Everyone has a different way of doing things; there is no one right way to do a single thing. But I know that the disconnect between professors and students in the classroom and online does not foster the same kind of discussion and understanding that engaging lessons do.
