Even with
25 years of teaching experience, I have to undergo an audition of sorts with my
undergraduate students. Increasingly, I
fail in the sense that I cannot motivate many to uphold their end of the
bargain by showing up, staying on task, preparing for class and mastering basic
concepts.
I face a major
personal and career quandary probably solved only if I can find an alternative
to teaching undergrads. Little makes sense
these days. I remain enthusiastic, young
for my age and eager to share my research, insights and experience with
students who have declared telecommunications as their undergraduate
major. Topics like an Internet of
Things, 5G wireless, IPTV, Internet 2.0, television everywhere, etc. keep me
engaged and intellectually curious.
Most of my
students don’t have a clue. They operate
under the mistaken assumption that professors should entertain in the mode of a
talk show with little expectations and demands.
Instructors lose in the court of student opinion if they are too
demanding, their courses too hard and their exams too tough. Deviate from happy talk and students perceive
professorial messages as both condescending and yelling.
How did it
get so bad? For my part, I have seen a significant
and accelerating decline in students’ command of the spoken and written word,
even as they have quite high opinions of themselves and an elevated sense of
what entry level job is appropriate.
Set out
below are the top ten disconnects in my world.
1) Professors are human. I don’t think many students appreciate how
much it hurts when they don’t attend classes, fall asleep, decide not to take any
notes and spend most of their time texting and interacting with the Internet
cloud via their smartphones. Most
professors—apparently until their reach my age—could have generated higher
earnings in the so-called real world.
They consciously chose to teach.
On a good
day, I consider student distraction, if not disinterest, as part of the gig
which requires regular servings of humble pie.
On a bad day, I feel humiliation and dismay. The educational process requires work on both
sides. I try to make my courses engaging
and helpful, but I cannot make them an entertainment vehicle.
2) We know how to teach. Student regularly blame instructors for any performance
shortcoming, but realistically most teachers have ascended the learning curve
and achieved competency after 5 or so years.
The promotion and tenure process, as well as regular teaching
evaluations by peers confirms that poor teachers either wash out, or understand
the lack of fit in the classroom.
3) We want students to succeed. While I like the band Pink Floyd, I don’t see
much “dark sarcasm in the classroom.” I
am self-effacing, over the top with enthusiasm and keenly aware of the trust in
me placed by tuition underwriters. I
teach in a College of Communications where most students do not pursue graduate
school. I understand and embrace the
mission of preparing students for immediate employment.
4) Students cannot multi-task. I will never convince any student that multi-tasking
results in poor performance of the two or more activities attempted at the same
time. If students think they can text
and drive at the same time, they surely think they can text and learn at the
same time.
5) Few understand the unconditional need
to take notes, preferably by hand. In
the last few years, many students have given up taking notes in class. They
consider instructor power point slides sufficient, or they think they can do
without any record. As innervating as it
can be, note taking requires students to synthesize and process the
conversation. Studies confirm note
taking by hand improves student comprehension far better than typing into a
laptop.
6) Student performance follows a curve. Students have grown to expect high grades and
a curve to make their performance better than any raw test score. We have a toxic combination of grade
inflation and inflated student grade expectations. With every Millennial student getting a medal
for showing up at any competition, they expect similar accolades in class,
despite the fact that performance falls along a curve.
7) When students’ performance lags, they
attribute it to external factors.
Some of the worst student performances on tests I prepare range close to
random selection, i.e., 25% on a multiple choice test with four answer
options. When confronted with an absolutely
awful test score, many simply attribute it to a test, or class that is “too
hard.” How then could anyone score an
uncurved A in my classes? At Penn State,
where I teach, the range of student caliber ranges from kids who could not
afford to go to Harvard, but got admitted, to folks simply here to pickle their
livers.
8) 90% of life is showing up. Parents and other tuition underwriters do
not know how often students blow off classes.
I try to qualify the mistake in practical terms: every hour of in-class
instruction at Penn State costs about 8 cases of beer. I also offer this baseball analogy: “Life is
like baseball. You win some; you lose
some; some get rained out. But you have
to dress for every game.”
9) Professors hate it when students whine
and grade grub. Professors have had
to dumb down courses and lower their expectations. Despite these adjustments, students regularly
complain when they don’t receive the grade they expected. Gen Xers pretty much accepted a C when they
didn’t make an effort in class, but today’s students often expect an A with
little effort. Should a professor impose
demands and rigor, she will trigger negative comments in student evaluations
which administrators may use as evidence of inferior teaching.
10) Professors lose enthusiasm and hope when
students don’t uphold their end of the bargain.
Instructors do not want to bore students, or themselves. When a majority of the class has their heads
down in rapt smartphone attention, professors wonder if teaching is nothing
more than a job, as opposed to a career, or calling.
My 25 year teaching career has arrived at a
point where I wonder whether I am wasting my limited time on earth. Dear reader, please offer advice and alternative
career/job leads!