Problems with Assessment instructor

[nursinglove15]

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a little advice about how to handle a situation. I'm a first semester student in a BSN program, and my classmates and I are having problems with our Assessment class.

We were given case studies to do over every body system that are due before the lecture over said system every week. The only problem is, they were never explained to us, and no one ever told us how they would be graded. We did them the same way we have done case studies in our other class. Our instructor was not happy with the way we did the case studies.

Our instructor seems to think there is only ONE possible answer to every case study, and if we come up with anything different than what is on the answer key, even if we can back up our answers, we lose points.

On top of this, our instructor has sent us a handful of emails that come off as incredibly rude. There is no constructive criticism given. Everything in the emails puts us down and discourages us. We have been called the "laziest nursing class" the instructor has ever seen. I understand there will always be lazy students in every program, but I do not feel like an instructor should say that about an entire class.

I'm worried about all of this lowering the A I currently have in the class because I've made low grades on the case studies. I also have A's in every other class, so it's not that I don't understand nursing diagnoses, patho of diseases, etc.

I just don't know what to do. Thanks for reading such a long post!

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

I wonder if you are all using the same old, same old format you used before, and she thinks it's time to step up your game a bit. Does she have office hours? GO with three or four of your like-minded classmates and meet with her to say you have been trying to fulfill the recommendations she makes and you would appreciate an exemplar so you can improve your work for her. Can't hurt. And if it doesn't work, take note.

[nursinglove15]

I wonder if you are all using the same old same old format you used before, and she thinks it's time to step up your game a bit. Does she have office hours? GO with three or four of your like-minded classmates and meet with her to say you have been trying to fulfill the recommendations she makes and you would appreciate an exemplar so you can improve your work for her. Can't hurt. And if it doesn't work, take note.[/quote']

Yes she does have office hours. She's been out of town this past week, but several students have made a plan to go talk to her next week.

Thanks so much for the advice!

[JBudd, MSN]

Good plan to meet with her, as a group.

If things don't resolve, I would forward the emails to the next level up, either your lead for the level, or the director of the program. You may never hear what they do about it, but I know my boss would be very displeased if I was sending that sort of blanket emails to a class. Preface the forwarded emails with a question about what you should be doing to improve, as the email "doesn't make it clear what she wants you to change". Criticism without direction doesn't help much.

[nursinglove15]

Good plan to meet with her as a group. If things don't resolve, I would forward the emails to the next level up, either your lead for the level, or the director of the program. You may never hear what they do about it, but I know my boss would be very displeased if I was sending that sort of blanket emails to a class. Preface the forwarded emails with a question about what you should be doing to improve, as the email "doesn't make it clear what she wants you to change". Criticism without direction doesn't help much.[/quote']

Thanks so much! That's exactly what I feel like it is, and I feel like if anything it discourages us in all aspects of the class.