In the news this morning was this
article below...
(Newser) – A
professor at Texas A&M says he'd had enough of the cheating,
lying, and verbal abuse going on in his "Strategic Management"
class—so he decided to fail everyone, Click2Houston.com reports.
"I
was dealing with cheating, dealing with individuals swearing at me
both in and out of class, it got to the point that the school had to
put security guards at that class and another class," Irwin
Horwitz says.
False rumors about him swirled, he says, and
academically speaking, the students weren't able to accomplish basic
tasks.
Last week, "I reached the breaking point," he says,
noting that he has never seen such a problematic class in two decades
of teaching.
According to an email
he wrote to the class, excerpted at Gawker via Inside Higher Ed, he
"will no longer be teaching the course, and all are being
awarded a failing grade." He writes that he is "frankly and
completely disgusted. You all lack the honor and maturity to live up
to the standards that Texas A&M holds, and the competence and/or
desire to do the quality work necessary to pass the course."
The
department head is taking over teaching the course, Click2Houston
notes, and a university official says the Fs are far from a settled
matter. "None of them have failed until the end of the class,
meaning the only reason a student would fail [is] because he or she
has not performed the expectations for that particular class."
(This professor was accused
of teaching the wrong course for an entire semester.)
While there are several things wrong
with this picture, the one that stands out in a most glaring way is
the last sentence above where this professor taught the wrong course
and did not realize it which leads one (especially me) to believe
that this professor's elevator may no longer be stopping at all the
floors, and no doubt, there is reasonable certainty that he may not
have been the best choice to teach a Strategic Management class in
the first place; however, that does not discount all the “crap”
he encountered from students.
During my years in a College
classroom (online as well but harder to prove), there was
cheating going on throughout each semester with:
- homework assignments
- group projects
- quizzes and final exams
- written assignments
In fact, not only were many papers
plagiarized, they were poorly written as well. Most of the classes
that I taught were at the Junior/Senior level and their papers
(80-90% of the students) were written at a 9th/10th
grade level and while I do not have a PhD either in Business or in
English, I do have a BA in English and an MBA with 45 years of
experience... so, I am somewhat qualified to recognized and
understand the difference between well written and poorly written
papers.
In addition to these papers, what I
also experienced in the classroom was:
- talking among students when I was lecturing
- using cells, laptops, ipads, and tablets
- arriving 10-15 minutes late to class consistently
- lack of critical thinking
- lack of creativity
- only want to be told what to do
- poor presentation skills
- poor reading skills
- only “on the surface” of a topic thinking
- inability to fully answer essay questions
- lack of retention of previous knowledge
- lack of respect for each other
- lack of respect for Professor
- very few actually purchased a textbook
- very few brought paper and pen to class
On the other side of the coin, most
College Professors are either intentionally oblivious or
unintentionally oblivious to the needs of their students in the
classroom.
And, while this sounds incredulous, it
is sadly true... and exists partially because of the mystique that
surrounds the aura of a college professor.
Let me explain...
I attended college in the 1960's and my
college professors did not care about me as a student nor did they
care about me showing up to class nor did they care about the grade
that I had earned because their job was to separate the smart from
the not so smart. These professors lectured as they wanted and on
whatever they wanted but the students were responsible for ALL the
material in the book. There was very little, if any, tutoring and
our final exams for each course were 4 HOURS IN LENGTH. It was up to
the student to teach themselves that which the professor did not
cover in class.
And, in order to graduate from college,
ALL students had to take and pass the GRE's whether they were going
to grad school or not.
And, students could leave the class if
and when the professor was late, accordingly:
- students must wait 5 minutes for a BA degree
- students must wait 10 minutes for a Masters degree
- students must wait 15 minutes for a PhD
Today, colleges and universities are
opening their doors to a different breed of student than they were in
the 1960's but very few colleges and universities have changed their
approach to teaching. The administration of these schools simply
assumes that if you have a Masters or PhD that you simply know how
to teach a class... and, nothing could be farther from the
truth.
Many of my colleagues when I was
teaching said that they enjoyed teaching but did not enjoy the new
type of student that was coming into their classrooms....
That statement alone should tell
someone... anyone... that these people should not be teaching...
And, what is worse (in my opinion) is
the fact that none of the professors with whom I conversed
ever saw the student as their customer.
AND... when one looks at the
DATA!!!
One can clearly
see that student retention happens this way:
95% retention
when student is teaching
75% retention
when student is hands on
50%
retention when student is discussing
35%
retention when student is watching a video
15%
retention when student is watching a PPT
10% retention
when student is listening to lecture
Sadly, all of my
colleagues used the bottom three when teaching their classes while I
used the top three and yet, my colleagues have PhDs and I do not...
Go Figure???
In the past,
higher education was designed for those people who wanted to simply
pursue knowledge through research and so the educational process was
designed with that in mind, and if, students did not pursue research
but went out into the marketplace in search of a “real job” then
that was ok too; however, higher education transformed itself and
became almost the only avenue for individuals to acquire higher
paying jobs, but the educational process never changed.
Recently and with
the advent of technology, individuals could acquire technical degrees
from Community Colleges (only 2 years) and acquire higher paying jobs
as well which placed a burden of justification on these other
colleges and universities with their 4 year degrees.
And while I have
little to no proof with my accusation, I believe that our colleges
and universities started lowering their standards for admittance and
started placing indirect pressure on professors to pass students
through with “C's” so that they could graduate...
WHY?
For the revenue...
As a result, we
have numerous people in the workforce, some of which are managing
others, that have not got a clue as to how to apply appropriate or
proper management techniques towards their subordinates but are in
those positions because they have degrees.
For example...
I had
a student athlete that was a “gifted” athlete but just the
reverse in academics. He read at an 8th
grade level, spoke and wrote at a 9th
grade level, plagiarized most of his writing assignments, could not
answer simply business questions in class, and had no critical
thinking skills nor did he want any because he stated that once he
graduated he was going to get a job coaching at his old high school
and if they did not work out, his Father would get him a job at
Federal Express or UPS...
I had
this student for 1 semester as a Senior and the class that he was
attending was the Business Capstone class which was a simulation and
performed in teams. And, while there were individual grades awarded
(which could have caused him to flunk the class) he managed to submit
satisfactory work that he later told me had been prepared for him by
someone else.
Another example...
I also have been
known to teach a few online classes as well and while the online
people tell me that they have created great security, it does not
preclude someone from sitting next to the online student who is
sitting in front of a computer doing his online assignments helping
them answering the questions or for that matter actually making the
responses for that student after that student has logged on to the
online portal.
I suppose that
there could be image recognition software installed and used but if
someone is sitting beside me, feeding me the answers, it is really
difficult to stop that from happening.
So, what is
actually going on here with American Higher Education?
Well, it is not simply I have
been told but to me it is very simple... we have created a
mentality among our young that the grade is more important than the
knowledge retained.
In 1990, I relocated from NC to TN to work for a Community College
designing training programs for business and industry and was asked
one year if I wanted to teach a Junior Achievement class in the local
high school to gifted and talented Juniors and Seniors... to which
I replied YES.
As I recall, there were 8 – 1 hour sessions and during the first
session, the students informed me that all they needed for me to do
was to tell them what they needed to know and that they would simply
memorize for the “A”.
I did not give them what they wanted but I have obviously never
forgotten that situation either and realized right then and there
that American Education had changed from when I had been in school.
What I see coming down the pike is the fact that degrees with soon
become obsolete unless one wants to pursue a PhD for research.
Business and Industry will begin to hire people with demonstrated
competence in a specific field... and this will be accomplished by
performance and/or written exam. It will not matter how the student
got the knowledge as long as the knowledge was acquired.
Digital Game Base Learning and Online Virtual Reality Environment
will soon replace classroom instruction... If you have not read the
book or seen the movie Ender's Game, I suggest that you do
because this will be the future for our students who want to pursue
any kind of career... it is just around the corner...
Our Texas A & M professor will be just the first in a long line
of faculty that will soon start protesting at the way higher
education is being conducted here in America.
And, good luck with all of that...
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