你是不是这样的学生呢？

mahalwin

你是不是这样的学生呢？ 你对lecturer的要求是什么？

The lecturer from UTAR was responding to a comment by former scholar, Emilywho gave some constructive criticism on the university's spoon feedingtendencies, for example, by not encouraging "further reading". Emilyargued that for "many of [her] classes, you read the lecturer's notesand the text, memorise and embrace them - they are your bible, yourreligion, contradict and you're a heretic who will burn."

Iwas in the industry for 6 years, and then I come over here [UTAR]. Ihad no teaching experience. I picked up “teaching” skills through myown hard ways, trying to emulate the way I was trained overseas. It wasnot long before almost all the students told me they were unable tofollow my lessons. They were basically unable to comprehend me if I didnot translate some words into Bahasa or Mandarin. They were not able totake down notes on their own if we were to deliver our lectures withoutdictating to them the points or giving printed notes to them. Evenoutlines and handouts (with cross-referencing to textbooks and othersources as per the unit plan) were not sufficient for them, they saidthey were still lost. And whatever notes we wished to give, these hadto be given to them a week in advance, if not, as the classrepresentative put it, “we won’t be able to concentrate in class”.

Takingtheir feedback at face value, I then spent countless long nightspreparing detailed notes, summarising, in simpler English, from thetextbooks. It occurred to me, I was spoon-feeding them, but I thought,hey, perhaps that was how they did things in here.

It was notlong before I observed them paying less attention in class – becausethey no longer needed to listen and write down anything during thelectures. During tutorials, I observed them not preparing in advancethe answers to the tutorial questions. When asked, they replied, “yourlecture notes are too detailed, we haven’t finished reading”. Somehadn’t even read it – I could see the photocopied notes, still crispwithout underlinings, highlightings or jottings.

For the exams,I referred to the local, UK, Australian and US examinations, and basedmy teaching and assessment on these. In my first semester, 55% studentsfailed my paper. Understandably, I had to give explanation to the Headfor the failures.

The students were asked also and they repliedthat the questions were within their abilities; they had covered thetopics before, and had practised same difficulty-level questions beforein tutorials. But they had not finished studying the lecture notes andpractised the tutorial questions. And most importantly, they said theyfound the exam areas “too wide. The lecturer did not narrow down theareas for us to revise for the exam, so how to score?”

In mynext semester, with a new group of students, I gave printed lecturenotes again, and kept advising them to check this or that textbooks andweb-sites to get more informative materials for their assignments andcoursework. I told them to have confidence in their abilities to doresearch, do not underestimate themselves as not being of the samelevel as students from other universities. Then I told them I expectedto see them presenting a solid, well-research assignment in class. Theyhad something like 2 months to do the group assignment and presentation.

Idiscovered during the presentation that they “cut and paste” materialsfrom the Internet and any textbooks. Despite my cajoling them to havemore eye-contacts and refer less to their notes/slides when presenting,they failed to do so. Come Q&A time, I asked for their originalopinion and inputs, telling them they would get marks no matter howmuch they disagreed with what they had picked up from my class or thebooks. What I wanted was creative, original opinion. They remainedsilent or repeated the points from the notes and textbooks. I askedthem, when did they started their work – they started five days ago.Why? “Because we were rushing other assignments...” When were thoseassignments given? "Beginning of the semester.”

For the exam,again I referred to local and overseas standards, with adaptations. Ialso watered down some of my questions and I confidently thought mostwould pass. In fact, some of the questions were similar to thecase-studies they had tackled in the tutorials(or rather, were givenanswers since they did only minimal work and remained silent duringclass, forcing us to have to give them the answers). That semester, 45%failed. My head respectfully moved me to another subject, saying thatperhaps another colleague could handle that subject better.

Eversince then, life gets “better” for my students. I still maintain myhigh standards, but extensive spoon-feeding and “narrowing of examtopics” are given. Articles are photocopied in advance for them, andonce a while, I still receive groans like “aiya, why so many one…how tofinishlah….”

At the end of each semester, we lecturers oftenhave to ask our students to do lecturers’ evaluation (evaluations aredone on-line). Often, those of us who conduct their lessons ala-"Utar"style get impressive feedbacks, with students giving comments like “heis so helpful” (read: give detailed notes, photostat articles for themand give exam tips) or “she delivers her lessons so well andinterestingly” (read: tell jokes in class, give them answers, playgames, cover only easy parts of the syllabus, leaving out the difficultones).

Those of us who are tough, who insist on notspoon-feeding them or adhere to high standards often get lambasted intheir evaluations “she is never punctual for class” (ticked off one orstudents for being late), “we learn nothing from his class” (tickedthem off for not preparing for their tutorials and made them do thequestions & discuss during class itself) or “he always wastes timetalking about issues irrelevant to our syllabus” (discussed currentissues pertaining to the economy, unemployment among graduates of thesame discipline and social environment). These lecturers are leftpraying that the exam results won’t be so disastrous, since if thatwere to happen, the evaluation comments will definitely be taken intoaccount. (usually the head will try to be fair and speak to thelecturers first regarding their evaluations, to hear their side).

Someof us do not have “insecure and unintelligent” nature, but for the sakeof “enhancing appearance of superiority”, wouldn’t it be wise for themto start learning how to be?

I understand and appreciatewhatever strong comments Emily and the rest have made so far in thisand other blog on the Utar lecturers. Perhaps my story will give youall a chance to hear “the other side” and form your own conclusions.

Havingbeen here for over 2 years, and having gone through all that above, Ican say I am still hopeful, i.e. I am not that put off by the type,quality or attitudes of many students that we are having here. Afterall, when lemons are handed to us, we have to try make lemonades out ofthem.

Even so, I feel that if only the students have the rightquality and attitude, this will go a long way. I am of the opinion thatit does not matter if the students, at the point of entry, were to havepoor SPM, STPM or whatever entrance exam results. What is important istheir willingness to change themselves, make that commitment and go allway out to achieve something for themselves.

We lecturers hereare trying our best to firstly, address the gap in thestudents'academic abilities and English, and secondly, to bring them onpar with the international university students. We can only do ourlevel best, but how are we to achieve our desired results if year in,year out, the students give us the feedback that “we want only thatpiece of paper that will get us a job, so please teach only what youwant to examine, the rest we are not interested”.

I sometimeswish there are 70 or 80% Emilys in my fac, it would have made myteaching experience here so enjoyable and meaningful. True, we have ourfair share of 1st class Honours students here, I have taught many ofthem myself. Someone hits the nail on the head by saying that in UTAR,the 1st class honours students are the truly good ones, while thosegetting 2nd class and below are, well, what can I say.....

Here,most of us are overworked, but whether we are being appreciated by thestudents, the management and community....that is a big question. Butthen, we must always remain positive and do our best.

http://educationmalaysia.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-makes-good-lecturer.html

志勇

你说得很对,哈哈哈
我承认我就是那个不读note,不做tutorial的学生 =x
我没留comment说老师不好, 因为是自己懒惰咯
毕业了,有想过读完书去做lecturer.

medusa_ice

不一定的～有些课还是会做笔记的～
除非真的是听到完全不明白～