Moonbear said:
EXACTLY! I think the problem the OP is having is he hasn't decided yet if he'd rather be the wheat or the chaff. Let's see, university faculty teaching on subjects they actually research and know well, and teach current material rather than regurgitating the textbook you could have read for yourself...oh, the horror!
Most people would be cheering to have the pleasure of such a course, not whining about it. You don't seem to be saying there's anything wrong with the exams, they all seem to cover material included in lecture or other assignments, and the chief complaint seems to be that they challenged the students. That's the POINT of exams, to challenge students, not just hand everyone an A for showing up.
Pengwuino said:
No. If a professor gives you a question outside of the scope of the class in an exam, and you have other students who can confirm this, you have grounds to bring it to the attention of the chair of the department. I can't imagine this being acceptable in any department.
arildno said:
University courses are NOT just to hasten students through a standard curriculum; it is ALSO a winnowing process whereby active researchers become aware of students with particular potentials.
Science is NOT some objective, floating-about system; rather, it is composed of numerous RESEARCH GROUPS that through interaction on a daily basis are able to advance science a little bit within their primary field of research.
The PhD's are NOT generally lonely and neurotic, but they ared definitely out looking for someone they could prssure the university into employing as a new resource.
As long as the lecturer does not stray too far from the topic at hand, I don't see any problem with their techniques for checking out future colleagues.
Interesting cross section on what tests are supposed to accomplish. Actually, I agree with Pengwuino.
When you're developing a course, the first thing you should do is figure out what the objectives are; what the student should know or be capable of doing at the end of the course.
The second thing you should do is figure out how you can tell if the student has met the course objectives - in other words, write your tests.
After your tests are written, you should develop the lectures, labs, homework, etc with the goal of making sure the student is capable of meeting the objectives (provided he does the work, of course).
This doesn't mean the tests have to be simple regurgitation of facts, either. It just means the student should have seen similar type "challenges" long before the test came along. In other words, the tests shouldn't present anything new.
The "challenges" and "bait" for finding new talent is something that should be initially presented in labs, homework assignments, and projects - not the tests. In other words, they should take place in an environment where the student can do a little outside research or ask some questions.
Letting professors write their own tests is a recipe for disaster, and not just because the tests might be too hard. Within a specific program, some courses are prerequisites for the next course down the line. If the professor veers from the expected course objectives to teach their own favorite subjects, then the next professor is faced with a problem: spend time teaching his students material they should have learned last course or just plow ahead and tell the students they need to catch up on their own as quickly as possible? If the second class is also a prerequisite for another course, can the professor even afford to do the former without dooming his entire class to being unprepared for the next course?
And what does a professor do when a third of their class has already been taught half the material in the course, but is totally unprepared for the other half (the professor in the prerequisite course really, really liked some of the material, so they didn't have time for the other stuff)? A third of their class is just plain unprepared (a different professor in the prerequisite course was the "easy" professor that all the students liked)? A third of their class knows the basics, just as the course objectives were designed to do?
