Bad lecturer problem

osok

I am a final year engineering student with an average mark of about 75% so far in my exams. My problem is that we have one terrible lecturer who is in the process of ruining my final year. He is totally unwilling to give out any information or knowledge he has, we ask him a question and sometimes he wont even answer at all, if he does it is a vague answer referring us to some 300 page document, telling us to find out for ourselves, last week I asked him a fairly simple question, his answer was "I told you that in 1st year" and carried on with what he was doing. Where a simple answer would do, he has to come out with stuff like that. This is the caliber of answer we get for every question we ask.
We are now in the process of doing a very complicated project and we have a lot of questions to ask but with this kind of response we are getting nowhere, we are 6 weeks in to the semester and are still stuck on the basics, we are so far behind schedule and time is running out for us.
Our main problem is that we have this lecturer for 4 different subjects, 15 hours a week and each problem or dispute runs into the next class creating further problems there.
The year is turning into a complete disaster with half the class wanting to drop out because of this lecturer, including me. At best we will pass but only with a crap degree and in these times that is practically useless.
We have tried talking to him but to no avail, he is even more distant if anything. We have told the head of dept but they can do nothing due to lack of staff to replace this person.
Does anybody have any advice on what we can do or do we just have to shut up and put up?

Do you have a class rep? Perhaps get a few of you to meet with him/her, to get him/her to then talk to the Head of the Department? As long as they approach it from a mature standpoint the Head of the Dept. should be receptive.

And it's better doing this now rather than later.

In the meantime, does that lecturer have research groups? Perhaps one of the PhD students might be able to give you a hand with some of the problems you're experiencing, since they'd hopefully be well versed in that area?

murfie

Yes, this was a problem for me also in our third year. The guy was a complete waste of space. He was a older gentleman and very stuck in his ways. He had some grudge against a few of us in the class, and would do things like mark us different from others in the same class, saying we should know more and hence marked harder!! But overall the guy knew very little about what he was trying to lecture.

We approached the year heads of the course and if your place was anything like mine it falls on deaf years. They say to deal with it! We eventually persisted and our exams were corrected by a independant lecturer and not this guy.
The problem I found as, at the time i was the class rep, is that if this lecturer knows who is bringing the complaints against him he may take that out on you in exams at the end of year. So I would do a unified class wide letter so there is no one person singled out! What college is this can i ask. It better not be the same guy! They assured us at the time that they wouldnt allow it to happen to other years behind us!!

pauln

I've been there before also. I've had some absolutely appalling lecturers that were pure idiots and should never have gotten to the position they were in, one University lecturer was so bad that we spent most of our time teaching him and his research work/publications were "dogey" at best. On the other hand I've also had some that were pure geniuses but with no ability to teach.

I've always just kept the head down and got through it, the system has no interest in listening to student comments on these issues. Anytime someone tried to complain they were always singled out as a trouble maker and nothing ever came of it anyway.

Knuckle down a get through it is my advise, you'll be out the door soon enough and they'll still be there doing what they do.

von Neumann

Tough situation, you need to look at it from the Uni's point of view if your going to get anywhere with it.
More than likely they are ware of the situation but their hands are tied.
So you would be waisting your time banging yours and theirs heads of that wall.

I think your best approach would to suggest some proactive solutions.

1) Suggest "additional" structured tutorial with a Phd student who understands the course material.

2) Ask that the class be given some hints on what would be on the exam paper as these will probablely be written well in advance.

3) Suggest that the exams might be reviewed externally.

I think you should be aware that a lot of colleges review marks internal and if there are any major issues that these can be amended.

At all times be positive and polite..........welcome to the world of work politics.

Best of luck with the studies

Buffman

I fell your pain, we had one twit like that who'd come out with 'That was covered last year' for lots of questions, was very unapproacable and unhelpful. All I can say is cover your bases with his subjects, let your dept head know what the craic is, keep the pressure on them.
4 subjects for 1 class/year is too much for 1 lecturer I think, especially 1 like that!!!:(