Reporting a professor?

[nurse1017]

Someone help please.. I am currently taking microbiology at a local community college with a professor who is a little unfair in her grading and exams. She takes points off when things are correct on lab reports, and also uses blackboard which glitches and marks us wrong when we are not (she says to tell her when this happens and she will correct it, however when we tell her she says oops sorry and never fixes it).

She also has very long, hard, trying to trick you exams, claims they come straight from the power points but then we find there is random information there which drastically reduce our grades. Last exam 70% of the class failed. (I know this because she post our grades on BB!)

Not sure what to do, I tried speaking with her and did not get the warmest response. I am scared to report her to the dean since she is also the head of the dept. I am an A/B student about to fail this course.

any advice?

Thanks.

[Rod, Male Nurse]

I'll start with saying this, there are three sides to every story: yours, hers, and the truth.

I am an instructor and on a daily basis I overhear students complain about stuff like this. Unfortunately, I know that with many instructors they lack the organization skill to remember to make test corrections and I certainly know that some instructors go great lengths to trick students on test questions.

On the flip side of the coin, I hear students complain all day about things that are really their fault because they lack the critical thinking skills and/or test taking skills to see through the distractors.

If what you say is true, if you go to the dean you need to bring proof of what you say. If she hasn't made test corrections that will impact your grade and you have notified her of this (more than once), bring your emails or messages to prove you have done your part. They will have no other option other than to award you the points you deserve. Without seeing your powerpoints and the test question I cant validate the questions.

The school I teach at has high standards for both students and instructors. It is a red flag when even 25% of a class is failing and our dean tracks this as the semester progresses and councils the instructors. Statistically, there will always be a higher number of failing students in nursing programs than with most others but if an instructor has too much pride to see that his/her test failed 70% of the class, then it wouldn't be a bad idea for her superior to know that this is happening. Just because an instructor has a MSN or DNP doesn't mean they can adequately design test questions that reflect their lesson content.

[FutureNurseInfo]

I would certainly complain if I thought the grading was unfair (I am a teacher of 5 years), given the points from the other commenter.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

When I was an education major, I had to take an entire class on designing tests. It's not easy to write a good exam that actually reflects the percentage of time the instructor has spent on a given concept.

[Buyer beware, BSN]

This student's complaint hierarchy reminds me of the old joke where in this case the student goes to the head of the department to complain and finds her teacher wearing the dept head hat.

After a vain attempt at coming to an accord and the student objects to the inequity of the answer the student then asks for an audience with the dean in which case the dept head takes off her dept hat and puts on the dean hat and says "speaking."

The instructor poster is correct. At his school if 25% of the class fails there's an inquiry.

But in your case OP you are talking about 70% of the class failing. That defeats the "Bell Curve."

If this is indeed the case, all people of good will would have to agree that there's somthing very rotten in Denmark.

I think that 70% of the class should occupy 100% of the dean's office and politely raise hell.