What Should I Do If My Professors Don’t Teach?

[strangerep]

Hmmm. [Buying textbooks and self-learning] doesn't appear to have been successful with me and my Linear Algebra class.

But what technique did you use?

 

[Drakkith]

But what technique did you use?

I read the book and tried to do the examples and homework problems.

 

[symbolipoint]

Mathwonk said this:

When I was a high school student my math teacher knew us all intimately and planned her classes individually for each of the 10 or 15 of us based on our background and ability. Each student actually had a different assignment with different levels of difficulty.

That would be a forum-type of instruction for a collection of multi-level students. This seems unusual for a normal high school. More common in alternative schools. Best if the students are mature in their behavior and if the courses have been designed as a set of assignments and prescribed readings in advance of the students enrolling in the class.

 

[StoneTemplePython]

I read the book and tried to do the examples and homework problems.

I seem to recall that you did this as part of a regular course and had to use professor's chosen book and go at professor's pace. Maybe the wrong book? There's a great free book called Linear Algebra Done Wrong, and this forum has a lot of fans of that book that would answer questions over the next few months...

In any case, sometimes with an abstract subject, you need a few swings at the Piñata to get the good stuff out of it.

 

[symbolipoint]

I seem to recall that you did this as part of a regular course and had to use professor's chosen book and go at professor's pace. Maybe the wrong book? There's a great free book called Linear Algebra Done Wrong, and this forum has a lot of fans of that book that would answer questions over the next few months...

In any case, sometimes with an abstract subject, you need a few swings at the Piñata to get the good stuff out of it.

and in a few cases, you need a couple of extra piñatas. ( Your metaphor is not perfectly clear, so not sure if this compares to course repetition or the inclusion of an alternative textbook.)

 

[StoneTemplePython]

and in a few cases, you need a couple of extra piñatas. ( Your metaphor is not perfectly clear, so not sure if this compares to course repetition or the inclusion of an alternative textbook.)

Yea -- the main idea, I guess, is to not get discouraged and keep swinging-- if you are smart about it and persevere you will eventually get some of the candy.

(My general view is if you give one thoughtful approach enough time, try another thoughtful approach for your 'swing' -- basically a different book or instructor or... )

 

[Drakkith]

I seem to recall that you did this as part of a regular course and had to use professor's chosen book and go at professor's pace.

That's right, which is why I think that grabbing a book and self studying when you have a bad professor just doesn't work for many people. My apologies, I should have made that clearer.

But perhaps I'm just biased.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

One striking feature of this discussion is the widespread misconceptions undergraduates have that they are able to distinguish between good and bad teachers while taking a course. Since all they have is their past experience, they tend to base their assessment on how much they like the prof, how easy it is to reach their grade goals, how comfortable they are in the class, and how well they think they are learning at any given point.

More objective assessments of how well they learned are not usually available until after a course is completed and there has been ample opportunity for the learning objectives to be demonstrated (or not) in other settings - downstream courses, standardized tests, the working world, etc. Performance in Calculus and Physics are much better indicators of how much one learned in precalc than one's feelings about the prof during the precalc course itself.

I was put in charge of the precalc course at the Air Force Academy. The admins there were clear that the priority was preparing those students for the challenging STEM core rather than winning a popularity contest. Since the US taxpayer is paying $100k a year for students to attend, admins were concerned with their return on investment and minimizing the drop out rate from students who arrive at USAFA too weak in math to start in Calculus. All USAFA students are required to pass two semesters each of Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry and seven semesters of engineering. The faculty who taught the course before a colleague and I redesigned it had very favorable student evaluations, but student success in downstream courses (the STEM core) and subsequent graduation rates for the cohort who started in precalc (rather than Calc) was very low.

Most of this cohort were recruited athletes with weaker high school math preparation than average for selective schools. In some cases, most of high school math was weak, and we only had a single semester to fix it. Since many of these students had slid by in high school because they were athletes, they brought with them unreasonable expectations of favoritism. To get them working hard quickly, we needed to do things like have them sit in the hall and finish assignments when they came to class unprepared, contact their military chain of command if they neglected homework, and contact a rep of their sports teams when they performed poorly. I must say, support from the Athletic Department was outstanding, and nothing gets a student athlete's attention like his coaches. However, the "boot camp" approach to a math class did not win many popularity contests with the students. The faculty who taught this course after the revisions had much poorer outcomes on the student evaluations than the faculty who taught it before. However, success rates in downstream courses including Calculus, Physics, and Engineering Mechanics skyrocketed, and the admins were very pleased.

In hindsight, I think the downstream success was less about the actual math they learned and more about the fact that they learned to work hard and actually do ALL the assigned homework, making use of the available resources when help was needed. They learned that they would not be given a pass on their academic work because they were special. Some are even attending graduate school.

 

[gleem]

If you have transferred from community college to university, your professors are not necessarily less capable, but they are expecting more of you. The result, if you adapt, will be to lift you to a level you would not otherwise have achieved.

You reminded me of the quote attributed to Johann W. Goethe
"If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming."This should be the attitude of a professor in teaching. It is reasonable to hold students hands in navigating new topics in grade school and high school, The students is building a knowledge base and understanding to cope with the world which we eventually must deal with on its own turf. The professor should be a guide of a students study of a subject to obtain knowledge and understanding. The professor should also be the one who attests that the student has obtained some level of competence in a subject.

While we are exchanging anecdotes let me add one of mine. I had only one professors that I could unqualifyingly call incompetent and that was in grad school. And it was the only physics course that I was going to get a C in if something didn't change. And that change was my attitude. So I put my displeasure about his lack of teaching skill or interest in teaching aside and concentrated on learning the material.

One final note. A book satisfies the definition of teaching. Prior to he printing press lectures where the only practical way to teach many students at once. So in this day and age with so much available in the form of good quality written material one might suppose that lecturing is an anachronism except for such material that has not made it to the press.

 

[symbolipoint]

...
One final note. A book satisfies the definition of teaching. Prior to he printing press lectures where the only practical way to teach many students at once. So in this day and age with so much available in the form of good quality written material one might suppose that lecturing is an anachronism except for such material that has not made it to the press.

The teach by lecturing, and the book, work together, and as complements. The book will always be a static nonchanging outlined discussion which student can read and repeat however he wants. The lecturer, although needs to proceed by an outline, can sometimes change something, show some off-the-page demonstration, interact with students who are present. During the lecture, students can take their own written notes of the students' choosing, for help in understanding later. You see? The lecturing and the book work together and they are complementary.

 

[mathwonk]

to me a book is like frozen food that you have to somehow warm up and revitalize to enter your system. A live instructor or good lecturer is like sitting at the chef's table with hot delicious food coming off the grill right into your plate.

 

[symbolipoint]

to me a book is like frozen food that you have to somehow warm up and revitalize to enter your system. A live instructor or good lecturer is like sitting at the chef's table with hot delicious food coming off the grill right into your plate.

Great, great analogy

Note that the chef also shows you some of what he is doing to make the results and also explains some of his technique or method.

Possible problem with the analogy-
The ingredients that the chef will use are usually not frozen first.
Examining thawed from frozen food (finished food item) does not give much about the process of preparing it.

I still like your analogy.

 

[symbolipoint]

to me a book is like frozen food that you have to somehow warm up and revitalize to enter your system. A live instructor or good lecturer is like sitting at the chef's table with hot delicious food coming off the grill right into your plate.

This is laboratory or practical demonstration. Very different than a book about the same topic.

 

[gleem]

The teach by lecturing, and the book, work together, and as complements. The book will always be a static nonchanging outlined discussion which student can read and repeat however he wants. The lecturer, although needs to proceed by an outline, can sometimes change something, show some off-the-page demonstration, interact with students who are present. During the lecture, students can take their own written notes of the students' choosing, for help in understanding later. You see? The lecturing and the book work together and they are complementary.

I did not mean to minimize the value of a good teacher and I fully understand the desirability of a good teacher. But as we all know some teacher are no better than poor books. Books are hardly outlines though and usually more detailed than an instructor's lecture. And yes a good instructor should work together with a book.
A good book is as engaging as a good instructor. It calls you back to it's pages and delivers enjoyment and you can always revisit it where the lecturer's words are lost forever.

 

[Stephenk53]

I am currently in high school so take my advice with a grain of salt, but when I have had teachers who do not teach, I usually look at the book we are given or a book about the subject and follow along occasionally looking things up I do not understand and go on khan academy. I also assign myself homework and tests and such and try to get them corrected in some way either by talking to a professional or by literally just googling it.

 

[symbolipoint]

I did not mean to minimize the value of a good teacher and I fully understand the desirability of a good teacher. But as we all know some teacher are no better than poor books. Books are hardly outlines though and usually more detailed than an instructor's lecture. And yes a good instructor should work together with a book.
A good book is as engaging as a good instructor. It calls you back to it's pages and delivers enjoyment and you can always revisit it where the lecturer's words are lost forever.

Most was good, but not all of it.

Some books, some GOOD books, really are outlines for a course, although maybe too detailed, and maybe including a few things that the ordinary course might not need.

 

[Eric Bretschneider]

After college, your success in your career(s) will correlate very strongly with your motivation and ability to teach yourself new skill sets. If you can only learn with the assistance of your teachers, then you need to take a serious look at yourself and evaluate your capabilities. If you are expecting everything to come easily then something is very very wrong.

Anything worth having is worth working hard for. If you want to be successful, then start working hard and don't rely on your teachers. It will set a bad trend for post graduate endeavors.

 

[Scargo]

... I should note that I’m also working this semester (15-20 hours/week).

That might say a lot. As someone who went to school part-time I was seldom prepared and tried to rely on my teachers, much as in high school. Didn't work for me.

 

[AgentSmith]

I'm over 60 and learning lots of stuff on my own, a lot through MOOCs. The best thing a good teacher at any level can do is to inspire people to learn. OTH , even Einstein needed help with the mathematics of General Relativity.

 

[K Murty]

My other post was deleted because it was felt it was not helpful. I will repost in some politically correct helpful way.
This is the norm in our college, so what we all do is read the book, watch youtube videos and make sure we have done all the problem sets and can redo them faster. Before one week or two going into an exam, I will redo all the problem sets very fast and based on memory and my general understanding that I have been building up.
Working with classmates is essential for some people, and even for me despite the social difficulties I would prefer it but I am not able to make the friends needed. So I rely on myself. There are plenty of resources nowadays to learn..I do not think anyone becomes a physicist or engineer or scientist without having to ability to suck it up and self learn.

So I would advise that you find some classmates and work on problem sets assigned, read the book (have you tried?), and then a week or two before the exam make sure you can do all the problem sets without any help. You will pass the exam for sure if you do this, even get the top grades if you have worked and learned deeply.

 

[Dr.D]

This is the norm in our college, so what we all do is read the book, watch youtube videos and make sure we have done all the problem sets and can redo them faster. Before one week or two going into an exam, I will redo all the problem sets very fast and based on memory and my general understanding that I have been building up.

This seems to hint at memorization, and I think that is counter productive in the long run. Let me suggest an alternative. When you re-work a problem, change the problem statement slightly, so that is is no longer quite the same problem. Be sure that you can think through exactly why you do each step. Memorized solutions will rarely serve you well, either on an well-constructed exam or in life.

 

[K Murty]

This seems to hint at memorization, and I think that is counter productive in the long run. Let me suggest an alternative. When you re-work a problem, change the problem statement slightly, so that is is no longer quite the same problem. Be sure that you can think through exactly why you do each step. Memorized solutions will rarely serve you well, either on an well-constructed exam or in life.

That is a poor interpretation of the spirit of my post, I have specifically mentioned that I use my memory and general understanding that I have been building up and do them alone, by doing I mean actually working the solution without any help, and of course, if I get stuck I read the book and go back to the theory. I would say the spirit of my post is that.
The exam is a performance much like a speech or a presentation, the time leading up to the exam is the time to practice and develop your performance, hence one or two week before all exams, I redo all the problem sets to make sure I am able to understand and feel confident, speed is a factor. In our college unfortunately the professors always try to create a time pressure which means one must be very fast. All of our grade comes from one single exam.
Lastly You cannot do many problems in electrical engineering (my major) with rote memorisation, definitely not the problem sets or even the problems in regular books, it is just impossible! Hence I am amused why you think I am suggesting rote memorisation.

 

[Charles Link]

That is a poor interpretation of the spirit of my post, I have specifically mentioned that I use my memory and general understanding that I have been building up. I would say the spirit of my post is that:
The exam is a performance much like a speech or a presentation, the time leading up to the exam is the time to practice and develop your performance, hence one or two week before all exams, I redo all the problem sets to make sure I am able to understand where I am, speed is a factor. In our college unfortunately the professors always try to create a time pressure which means one must be very fast. All of our grade comes from one single exam.
Lastly You cannot do many problems in electrical engineering (my major) with rote memorisation, definitely not the problem sets or even the problems in regular books, it is just impossible! Hence I am amused why you think I am suggesting rote memorisation.

@K Murty I like your approach of not being afraid to go back and review something you already solved. IMO, this is one of the keys to academic success= When you look over the subject matter enough times that you can practically do it in your sleep. :)

 

[Wrichik Basu]

This seems to be a worldwide issue: professors not teaching well.

In Kolkata, we are currently facing a lot of trouble in colleges. Kolkata has many reputed universities, like Presidency University, Calcutta University or Jadavpur University, to name a few. However, the quality of education has fallen down to the grass roots level in many cases (not all). One of the many reasons is that, the good professors are leaving these universities and joining IITs or such reputed institutions. This is, in turn, dependent on other issues. The professors left behind mostly do not teach well.

However, we have a great facility: the http://www.nptel.ac.in or National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning under the Government of India. NPTEL records lectures of professors from IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology), IISc (Indian Institute of Science) and IISERs (Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research), and makes them available for the public (worldwide) without any cost. As a result, students who could not join these reputed Institutes, can still access lectures by reputed professors. Moreover, in case of queries, if you contact the professors through e-mail, most of them answer your queries.

Many of my seniors go to college just to keep up attendance. Thy sit in the last benches and attend lectures from NPTEL. I must say that the lectures are of very good quality. NPTEL also helps high school students like me, whose schools have absolutely bad teachers.

However, practicals are a problem, and I don't have a solution for that.

 

[Windadct]

I have not read over this whole thread.. 5 pages... anyway, Wrichick ... I tend to agree... Many / Most professors teach as part of their requirements to do research. They have had little to no training in how to educate, and frankly may not care.

The scary part is -- here in the USA some of the BEST respected Unis - DO have progressive educational programs, I have seen MIT, VT, GT programs - with good practical ( hands on ) approach and still a very rigorous academic basis - so this is not about the highest levels do not have room for solid educational theory... but then some have not changed in 30+ years... books - for 3 years... then a Sr project... pretty horrendous IMO.

On the professor side - educating people well requires:
- A Desire to educate them ( you will not do anything well unless you want to!)
- The ability to discuss or present material in different ways.
- The attitude that you are helping them - and at times they will actually help you, being intellectually challenged by others is enlightening.
- It is valuable and important that not every student is the same - and if they have the aptitude, we all benefit by them getting the best education possible.

I have a son in a very well respected state uni in the USA (meaning they have a very high hiring rate - but they also have an old school weed-out mentality) and I am - well beyond disappointed. He had an interview the "dream' internship, a recorded video, and the question was about "A project"... he is a Jr and has not had one - he had to discuss the work he has done on his car.

Employers do not care about how book smart you are - they care if you can apply the theory to the real world and get things done.

 

[Dr.D]

Hence I am amused why you think I am suggesting rote memorisation.

Speaking personally, I always found re-working old problems to be extremely boring. I hate to work any problem twice if I think I have done it correctly. But then, if you find this all amusing, ... to each his own.

 

[tri_ipst]

When I was at MIT many years ago winning a teaching award in a particular special program was a "death knell" for the teacher involved. When I left the prior 13 faculty who had won Teacher of the Year award in this program had each been denied tenure. One can witness the results when one looks at the video courses of 18.01 (Calc I) and 18.02 (Calc II). (Mattuck is better in 18.03, Diff. Eq.) The explanations in 18.01 frequently are not correct, and in 18.02 he is dull as hell. (I was checking these out to see if they would be appropriate for my homeschooled kids.) When I was there the other students frequently went to me, even during the professor's office hours. When I asked them why they didn't go to him (I was taking the class at the same time) they told me they could understand my explanations but not the professor's.

Also, be careful about attending classes where the professor/grad student makes mistakes and needs to be corrected (for their answers to come out correctly). (This happened in my recitations for 18.03 (Diff. Eq.) where the lecturer hadn't worked out the homework problems and needed help to finish them, as well as University of Maryland (where I got my doctorate)). They invariably got upset and I found it more helpful to just avoid the classes.

I also had an experience at MIT where there was no text, illegible lecture notes, and a lecturer recently arrived from India whose English was difficult to decipher. It appeared to be a very interesting class, however, since a number of fascinating number theory results were to be derived in class. The day the first interesting result was to be presented, however, he "derived" some trivial results and then "obviously" the result we were all waiting for was true. I tried to figure it out for 2 minutes while he kept on lecturing, and then finally said I didn't understand how the result was true. He was embarrassed and said he had hoped no one would catch him, since he couldn't figure out how the result was derived either. I immediately left and dropped the class. Obviously don't stick around for a class like this.

These are examples of the levels of bad teaching I have dealt with. How you deal with it, then, depends on the level of incompetence.

As far as how to get around bad teaching: Most books either teach the theory well but have a paucity of examples, or teach you how to apply it and are weak as far as the theory. I know that using a good theory book with a good problem book works wonders. For example, when I used Kleppner and Kolenkov for basic theory, the problems seemed difficult. But then I did relevant chapters in a physics book from the Schaum's Outline series (College Physics) and all the K&K problems became (almost) trivial, since I had already seen a similar example in the Schaum's book. (While the Schaum's didn't use calculus, it was obvious what the calculus-based formula was from the K&K.)

I hope this is helpful.

 

[Windadct]

The concept of Tenure - was derived to protect the free thinking of researchers that, per review of their piers, was deemed to be valuable. Basically - those with a track record of good research should be allowed to continue without fear of loosing their positions if they think or discover something controvertal.

It really has nothing to do with teaching -

And then there is the issue of teaching - when only < 5% of the people were able to attend college, you would seek out the most learned people, and the professors that had been granted tenure were the most sought after. If they were not good teachers ( or just not good for how you learned), then you would leave; you were there to learn from them, they were not really there to teach you. But today - 65% of the new jobs in the USA require a college degree, the researcher -> professor -> educator -> tenure model does not help the system for educating a majority of the population. Not to mention if 20 or 30% of the 5% dropped out - it was already an exclusive group, it was not an issue, but today we can not afford to have 20-30% of the admitted students drop out - not to mention the debt these students are left with, yet the Unis are perfectly happy to take the money with very little incentive to ensure you succeed!

Then add to this the bureaucratic culture at many / most universities - patently resistant to change, we (IMO) have what is tantamount to a crisis. We have a majority of the population needing to be educated, and a system designed to be exclusive, and they feel absolutely just in that opinion.

We perhaps need to divide the research functions and the educational functions here. I see very little value and not the proper skill set - in requiring a mathematics post-doc to be a TA in teaching Calc 1 & 2... that is NOT why they are spending 4 years at that institution. IMO about 75% of the Undergrad program should be taught by professional educators - and the upper level major related classes be taught by the tenured professors. However, so far, when this model is being applied (use of non-tenured educators), the Unis seem to think these educators are not worth anything and pay them much less than a typical primary teacher. Unfortunately the whole revenue stream for the Unis is based on the research money as well ( now grants are the primary factor in Tenure determination vs thinking, quality of research etc.) - so the business model is also just wrong.

A good educator - has "very particular set of skills; skills acquired over a very long career" - these skills allow an educator to reach students in a variety of ways and they are interested in the students success ( not the same as passing them along!) - ah - just a rant, the system is too big to change, it can only be disrupted hopefully by some schools willing to do it differently...