My precalculus class is ridiculous. Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous. The more I go to class, the more I believe that. What's ridiculous about it? The stupid teacher. The teacher is like no teacher I've had. He's not bad at teaching per se, but he is a bad professor. Unfortunately for him, teaching the subject isn't the only part of being a professor. There's also grading, communicating, helping students, curriculum choice, etc. He fails at pretty much all of these things, in an epic way.
Grading: This guy is the toughest grader I've ever seen. He has admitted in class he plans to count off points on anything he can. He insists you show all your work on tests. Correct answer+no work=0 points for the question. Correct work+wrong answer=0 points. But it doesn't stop there. On the first test I had a problem that was simple enough that I didn't need to work it out with any algebraic steps, I was able to logically solve the problem. I gave logical reasoning for my answer, but was still counted wrong because apparently he was looking for me to show specific steps (which obviously were unnecessary). On another problem, as I was solving it I was debating between two possible ways to solve it. So I worked through the problem both ways. I eventually decided on one way, which was the correct way and supplied the correct answers, but he still counted off because I left the incorrect steps on the page as part of my work. He has counted off for not writing 'X=' before the solution, he has counted off for not having a perfectly sketched graph, with lines not bending at exactly the correct curvature, but still passing through the key points. Etc.
Communication: He talks to the white board the entire class. Half the time he is covering up his work with his body, making it difficult to follow along. He insists on us knowing the hows and whys of every formula he presents, and spends 15-20 minutes proving each formula before presenting it. He insists we need to know the specifics of why these formulas work. I disagree. I do lots of websites as a means of side income. I use computers all the time, but that doesn't necessarily mean I need to know why or how a computer works. That doesn't mean I should spend all the necessary time learning the details and specifics of what a diode is or a circuit so I can understand how a computer works. I don't need to know those things in order to use it. I don't need to know why a math formula works, just how to use it. If I was majoring in math, or was intending to be a mathematician, I would agree with him that it needs to be learned. He spends at least 40% of each class period proving formulas and other mathematical facts.
Curriculum: His curriculum isn't terrible actually. He has 4 tests, and a final, and the final will count twice to replace your lowest grade of the original 4 tests, if it would raise your overall grade. That's pretty decent. However, the way things are looking, I may need 2-3 tests dropped. The worst part of the curriculum is he only allows 75 minutes for tests. For a math test where you have to show your work in a very concise and detailed way, that's not nearly enough time. On the last test I took, only 2 people finished the exam before time was up. No one else had time to complete the test. He insists that math is not only about knowing how to do the problem, but also about how fast you can do it and further insists that his time limits are enough time to complete the test if we 'know the material'. Personally, I think that's a load of crap. I can tell you I knew the material on that test. It's one thing to take a long time on a problem because you aren't sure how to do it, and it's another thing to take a long time on a problem because it's just that type of problem, regardless of how well you know how to do it.
I didn't study or do any of the home work for the first test, as a point of gaging how tough the course would be. I got a 45 on that test. Out of the 5-6 people I talked to (15 in the class), none of them got a higher grade than me. Oooookay, gotta try harder. So I buy the book, do the homework, stop falling asleep in class, pay attention, and try hard to keep track of the kinds of minute details he is looking for on the tests. Second test...I get a 51. The professor acts surprised that there's so many low scores (I'm sure...like he isn't used to people failing/dropping his classes). Test 3 comes before the drop date next week, so I'll be able to take that and if I still fail it, I'll have to drop the class.
It's just stupid. I've gotten A's in both algebra and trigonometry before this, in trig I got 100s on all the tests but the final. It's not the material I'm struggling with, and that's the worst part. The only thing standing between me and an A in this class is this stupid ridiculous teacher. The problems in the homework are all simple problems, straight forward, sometimes a little complicated but still easy. The problems on the test are like the most deviously constructed and are as far from simple as you can get. This teacher isn't trying to teach us precalculus I've decided. He's just trying to fail us all with his stupid questions, his horribly picky grading, and his incredibly boring classes. This guy is more worried about the red tape of precal than the concept of it. He's the bureaucrat of the math world. He's the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. Only thing is, he's teaching us the spirit of the law, but grading us on the letter of the law. He's an idiot. Having to drop his class and retake precal in summer 2 is the very last thing I want to do, but I'm not sure I can pass this class. I don't even know what to improve on. I totally understand the material, I'm very comfortable with it, but the test questions are overly complicated and unclear sometimes. And it's not like its even just me. Like I said, almost everyone else I've talked to in that class is failing. If it was just me I would know that there was something I could do to make up my poor performance, but if it's 80% of the class, you have to wonder at the teacher.
Usually near the end of the semester, the school will have the students fill out anonymous reports on the performance of the teacher. I'm hoping these go out before the drop date, or that I can get a good enough grade on the third test that I don't have to drop it, so that I can give him the worst possible review I can, along with everyone else in the class that's failing. Far as I know, only 3-4 people tops, are passing. I would be very interested to know what the pass-rate of this class is, or even his average pass-rate for all this classes. I would bet it's below 30%. What a dick....
1 comment:
I had teachers at BYU like this. They made the class very difficult just to see what each student could handle. Usually in the end though, they ended up curving the highest grade up to a 100 and then giving everyone else the same curve. So the 80 that became a 100 also meant the 50 became a passing 70. Before you drop the class with the intent to repeat the course, you should express your concerns to the teacher. Tell him that you're doing the best you can, but you're concerned about the grades that you're getting and want to know if there's help available to do better. If he's not willing to work with you and gives no indication of grade adjustments to accommodate a bell curve, then you have grounds to preempt the anonymous survey and go with several other classmates to the dean's office to file a formal complaint against the teacher prior to the drop date. Teachers are held to certain standards too, and their results are of interest to their bosses, especially when significantly different from the other teachers for the same course. But be sure you try to work with the teacher prior to going over his head or else the dean will always side with the teacher.
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