OCR Text |
Show leSSOnS, Spring 2005 page 13 us about the professor, most of the students didn't say anything positive. What they said was justified, but there wasn't anything positive said. The professor found out and took it out on the class, two days in a row. She lectured us and called us little children." - Junior, Finance "One of my professors didn't know when he was going too far. He often uses sex to explain concepts, which I can understand is an attention grabber, but it is crude and inappropriate at times. He has also made inappropriate remarks to female students. This type of teaching makes the professor unapproachable for help and sets the atmosphere of the classroom as crude and somewhat uncomfortable for the students, especially if they are female." - Senior, Sociology Professors "We don't have censorship at the U, and students will come up with all kinds of different ideas for their films, some of which can be offensive to other students. I remember that one student made a film which just about provoked a fight in the classroom; the film would've offended anyone that had certain spiritual values. One student actually came in with a gun because he was so mad at the other student." - Professor, Film Studies "Sometimes, it's the environment. I had to move my class from a room which didn't have enough seats for my students. I thought it would be better if I moved to a bigger classroom. They're usually all taken, so I got moved to an auditorium. That was really hard because I couldn't see my students, and I was so distanced from them. The lighting was difficult. I ended up having to set limits on where they could sit, so I could reach them." - Associate Professor, Exercise & Sport Science "I assigned students to bring examples of magazines to demonstrate how this particular advertising medium is able to target audiences based on their interests. I requested that no pornographic magazines be used as examples. A student completed the assignment by handing in a nudist colony magazine, stating emphatically, 'That is not pornography, it is nature.' She went on to explain that it was a key part of her personal beliefs. After class, another student explained how she was uncomfortable with such porn being used as an example and appreciated my initial instruction, yet another student explained that porn was so important to society that he thought I should not restrict it as an example." - Professor, Business "We had to have class outside one night because the room was about a thousand degrees. We stuck it out for as long as we could, but it was excruciatingly hot." - Associate Professor (Clinical), Nutrition "I was shocked with some massive cheating in an exam. It was a class of 40 students, most of them graduate students. About 20 students cheated. It was such a big problem that I ended up spending a lot of one-on-one time. I docked them all points on that exam, but it didn't seem like it'd do any good to take a no-prisoners approach and expel all of them. I just put them all on the hot seat for a long time." - Assistant Professor, Electrical & Computer Engineering "This semester, one of my classrooms is a long, rectangular hall with training tables as desks. The acoustics are such that one quiet voice talking out of turn, one book opening too late, even one page turning out of time with the rest of the class, will echo around the whole classroom. I repeatedly ask students to stop talking and listen to me. It just doesn't work. I talk louder. I attempt to remind myself that the students are not really being any more talkative or noisy in this class than any other I teach - it is just the classroom. But even reminding myself doesn't make competing with echoes any easier." Professional Development Instructor, Civil & Environmental Engineering |