I'm starting to think that all Professors are nutcases (long)

stpauligirl · Apr 27, 2007

Believe it or not, this isn't about my psycho Chemistry professor.
I have a non-Masters level instructor (also adjunct faculty) for my Human Development Psychology course. By his own admission, he doesn't read the book, we have very interesting discussions about psychology in regards to current events during class...but cover the material? Never...we just don't do it. He tells us which chapters will be on the test and it's a crap shoot on what to study, and you have to figure it out.
He also, by his own admission, writes the test at the last minute, does his own questions, and doesn't use a test bank.
Ok...here is where "nutcase" fits the bill....he THEN WONDERS why students tend to score very low on his exams.
No one ever gets an A the first round....he has to give about 10 points worth of extra credit (general trivia) problems, and then usually has to curve about 10 more points so the person with the highest grade can at least have a 90....b/c that is as high as he will curve.
Our first exam, because I had never had this guy before, I got an 81, and after the extra credit questions, I got an 88...he didn't curve the test, so I got the highest grade. I didn't have any questions on this exam.
Our second exam, which I thought was very easy, I got an 81 on...and I was the ONLY student to get a B...so after the extra credit, curve, and he added 4 points b/c of two test question errors (which I caught in class), I had a 94. What is worse, is that when I first pointed out the errors, he was justifying the wrong answer, until other students told him the page in the book that proved he was incorrect.
I went back over the exam to find out why I missed so many...I won't bore anyone with the sorrid details, but I actually found 4 more errors...errors that were very clear that he wrote many of the test questions off the "bullet points" in the chapter, or the table of contents, but didn't bother reading anything else...if he had, he would have understood where I was coming from and that the answers he required, were impossible.
So, I sent him an e-mai...I STARTED the e-mail by saying, 'I am happy with my grade...this is NOT a formal appeal for additional points, to get test questions thrown out, etc...but I know you expressed concern over why students did so much worse on this one, and I wanted to know why I got an 81 when I walked away thinking the test was easy."
So, I listed the 4 questions, why I thought another answer was correct.
I ended the e-mail by saying, "I don't know if you agree with this or not, if not, it's ok...but as a student, this how I viewed the exam. Take care...see you next class, I'm really enjoying it so far."
Here is the response I got:
"This is why I normally don't return the exam with the scantron."
:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire
I'm letting it go....but here is what I REALLY feel like saying: If you don't want to return exams to students because of your inability, by not preparing yourself for lecture or taking the time to put together a quality exam, to justify the answers to an exam that you clearly just throw together at the last minute...and then had the nerve to tell the students about it...if you get upset over that...then maybe you just need to stick to your full-time job as a counselor and not take a part-time job as adjunct faculty...because just because you don't care about the quality of your work, doesn't mean we don't care about the quality of our course."
Why, God oh why, do so many college professors have God complexes?

Having experienced similar things with professors I sooooooooooo feel for you I swear, my current teacher is trying to make a name for himself and is acting out of self interest and has lost his sense of duty towards his students with his obscure text (he wrote his own book which we are using) and his newly invented theories! There seems to be a general lack of integrity at our school. Remember that prenursing classes are "weedout" classes. Just hang in there and give it your best. Continue to poke them in the eye about hokey pokey stuff. I definitely will it's against my nature not to :lol2:

mel101478 · Apr 27, 2007

I have a teacher who reads off of a powerpoint presentation(which we the students can download off of the book's website) All she does during class is read the powerpoint. The first test I took I was or thought I was ready. Took the test and got a 73. Mind you I was devastated.(I like to get A's)

Come to find out this was the highest grade in the class and everyone else got 30's and 40's.. We even asked the teacher for the next test if we could have a "review". She said sure but never gave us one.

The questions on the test were things we never even went over. Some kids don't even bother coming to class because they can learn more on their own. It's really bad. So I feel for you...I guess just be grateful your passing because more than half my class isn't.

ceraleigh · Apr 27, 2007

That not returning the tests with the scantrons really really gets to me. In THREE different classes I've found errors in my score by comparing the scantron to the test. I thought teachers WANTED their students to do well?

justme1972 · Apr 27, 2007

That not returning the tests with the scantrons really really gets to me. In THREE different classes I've found errors in my score by comparing the scantron to the test. I thought teachers WANTED their students to do well?

I agree with you totally. When I went to school 14 years ago, I always got my tests back...and now I rarely do...I think this "trend" of not getting your test back is to keep students from figuring out mistakes on the test.

I am starting to wonder if nursing is for me, and if I really need to be in education...I just cannot even imagine being that disrespectful to students.

ceraleigh · Apr 27, 2007

I agree with you totally. When I went to school 14 years ago, I always got my tests back...and now I rarely do...I think this "trend" of not getting your test back is to keep students from figuring out mistakes on the test.
I am starting to wonder if nursing is for me, and if I really need to be in education...I just cannot even imagine being that disrespectful to students.

Luckily for me my teachers have not been disrespectful to me, but just slightly oblivious. My history teacher, when a mistake was found, just shrugged it off and told us to study the "right" answer as it was a mistake on the answer key. Never once did he mention giving credit for the point we lost due to the mistake. I had to approach him after class and request him to add on the point (hey a point is a point when you're on the edge:lol2: ).

Blove86 · Apr 27, 2007

Yea I see this all the time. Sometimes I wonder why people become teachers if helping a student is such a problem? I am having issues in my classes aswell. My teacher feels like we should already know the information, but then why did we pay for the class. My mother just says while it is wrong, sometimes in life you just gotta suck it up and keep rollin with the punches. If a person continues to be a rotten human being it always comes back on them....

Kina21 · Apr 29, 2007

Believe it or not, this isn't about my psycho Chemistry professor.
I have a non-Masters level instructor (also adjunct faculty) for my Human Development Psychology course. By his own admission, he doesn't read the book, we have very interesting discussions about psychology in regards to current events during class...but cover the material? Never...we just don't do it. He tells us which chapters will be on the test and it's a crap shoot on what to study, and you have to figure it out.
He also, by his own admission, writes the test at the last minute, does his own questions, and doesn't use a test bank.
Ok...here is where "nutcase" fits the bill....he THEN WONDERS why students tend to score very low on his exams.
No one ever gets an A the first round....he has to give about 10 points worth of extra credit (general trivia) problems, and then usually has to curve about 10 more points so the person with the highest grade can at least have a 90....b/c that is as high as he will curve.
Our first exam, because I had never had this guy before, I got an 81, and after the extra credit questions, I got an 88...he didn't curve the test, so I got the highest grade. I didn't have any questions on this exam.
Our second exam, which I thought was very easy, I got an 81 on...and I was the ONLY student to get a B...so after the extra credit, curve, and he added 4 points b/c of two test question errors (which I caught in class), I had a 94. What is worse, is that when I first pointed out the errors, he was justifying the wrong answer, until other students told him the page in the book that proved he was incorrect.
I went back over the exam to find out why I missed so many...I won't bore anyone with the sorrid details, but I actually found 4 more errors...errors that were very clear that he wrote many of the test questions off the "bullet points" in the chapter, or the table of contents, but didn't bother reading anything else...if he had, he would have understood where I was coming from and that the answers he required, were impossible.
So, I sent him an e-mai...I STARTED the e-mail by saying, 'I am happy with my grade...this is NOT a formal appeal for additional points, to get test questions thrown out, etc...but I know you expressed concern over why students did so much worse on this one, and I wanted to know why I got an 81 when I walked away thinking the test was easy."
So, I listed the 4 questions, why I thought another answer was correct.
I ended the e-mail by saying, "I don't know if you agree with this or not, if not, it's ok...but as a student, this how I viewed the exam. Take care...see you next class, I'm really enjoying it so far."
Here is the response I got:
"This is why I normally don't return the exam with the scantron."
:angryfire :angryfire :angryfire
I'm letting it go....but here is what I REALLY feel like saying: If you don't want to return exams to students because of your inability, by not preparing yourself for lecture or taking the time to put together a quality exam, to justify the answers to an exam that you clearly just throw together at the last minute...and then had the nerve to tell the students about it...if you get upset over that...then maybe you just need to stick to your full-time job as a counselor and not take a part-time job as adjunct faculty...because just because you don't care about the quality of your work, doesn't mean we don't care about the quality of our course."
Why, God oh why, do so many college professors have God complexes?

I had the same problem last semester. I had a professor who was dyslexic and none of the tests made sense. He'd print tests with answer sheets and they didn't coordinate. For example, 35 on the answer sheet would as for a Letter answer but 35 on the test would ask for a written or word answer. He'd be like "Switch 35 and 54, 23 is supposed to be 62 and number 75 is really number 12" You'd leave feeling like you got your brain sucked out. I also had a teacher who didn't care about any of us. When we had problems and got bad grades, he'd tell us it was ok and the grades would even out. He graded papers backwards. He'd mark off for correct and when you tried to fight it, he'd defend it or try to accuse you of changing the answer after the fact. The entire class ended up failing. :banghead: When we asked him if he cared if he looked bad, he said we were the ones who looked bad. Um, hello, you're a professor and your entire class failed...hmm.

The semester is almost over! Hang in there:)

tinyscrafts · Apr 29, 2007

I've had some psycho professors lately.

Everyone is complaining, some to the adminstration, dean, dept.heads, lab instructors etc and It's WORKING. things are getting better, teachers were not asked back for this semester, and they even made us an extra class to improve our grades over the break! I'd never seen anything like it but this place is very responsive. I think they know when many many students are proving their case it's not just a case of a few whiners.

COMPLAIN!

justme1972 · Apr 29, 2007

I've had some psycho professors lately.
Everyone is complaining, some to the adminstration, dean, dept.heads, lab instructors etc and It's WORKING. things are getting better, teachers were not asked back for this semester, and they even made us an extra class to improve our grades over the break! I'd never seen anything like it but this place is very responsive. I think they know when many many students are proving their case it's not just a case of a few whiners.
COMPLAIN!

Oh yeah it works. I've decided I'm not going to complain about my Psychology professor...he asked me on Friday when I saw him on campus if was going to take him this Fall for the other part of the course, and I said, "No, I think I'm going to be taking it distance learning this Fall, I think it will be easer....by the way, great tie!" I just kept on walking. I don't like how he is teaching the course, but you can get an A if you study....it could be worse.

My Chemistry Professor, is another story. He will probably have a huge meeting with the Dean when the semester is over. Four students out of our class of 7 has filed complaints. The 3 that didn't are failing the class anyway because they refuse to do the homework. No sympathy there.

suzeeq · Apr 29, 2007

Hi,

Can anyone enlighten me as a foreign nurse, why do you refer to your instructors as 'professors'? They are clearly working as tutors. A real professor is few and far between in the academic world and acheives this title after years of advanced study and teaching including the publication of their research and other work.

Cymy · Apr 29, 2007

Hi,
Can anyone enlighten me as a foreign nurse, why do you refer to your instructors as 'professors'? They are clearly working as tutors. A real professor is few and far between in the academic world and acheives this title after years of advanced study and teaching including the publication of their research and other work.

In the United States most full-time instructors in colleges and universities are called "Professor," though it is a title that is assigned by the school. Personally I call ALL of my instructors "Professor," whether or not they actually are--it's a sign of respect... especially compared to other classmates who call them by their first names!

When I was in high school our chemistry instructor had previously been a professor at a university before generously devoting his retirement to teaching obnoxious teenagers, so we called him "Professor G" (or at the least "Doctor G")--all the other instructors were referred to as Mr. or Mrs. X. Except for one former hippie who just went by his weird first name that we all thought he made up... he was a great teacher, though!