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?

Rosita

I suspect this topic may be moved elsewhere, but it is a very difficult situation as dealing with lecturers like this is like dealing with the mafia - you never quite know if the guy you complain to is to other fellow's bosom buddy or not.

I remember having a major run-in with a lecturer who was incredibly anal about an assignment (he was marking it in the other lecturer's absence) I handed in not being in a particular version - even though the lecturer who gave the assignment expressly stated that he'd take any version - and forced me to repeat it. Has the original lecturer been there that would not have happened and I will never forgive or forget him for that.

When I went to student affairs at the time I was advised to talk to the 'module co-ordinator', who perhaps inevitably was the same chap. Then I had to apply for approval to repeat the module to the head of the course.......who was...........you've guessed it. The student's union people told me this has an unhappy knack of being the case regularly. Maybe these people get more arrogant as they gain a little status.

So I would recommend keeping a record of these occurrences and building a picture that way. You will probably always have some in the class who think he's grand (the type who think because they personally are not hassled by him are oblivious to everything else) and who will be unwilling to put their name to anything, but obviously if you can get as many who are of the same mind as possible all the better. If you put something in writing to the head honchos it will make them sit up and take notice to a far greater extent.

But unfortunately it is a fact of life that like dealing with any figure of authority like a teacher, garda, judge or whoever that it is not a relationship of equals and whatever appeals process there might be, they ultimately have the apparatus of authority behind them and you need to bear that in mind.

It helps to be in the right and to be able to demonstrate that but it is not enough. The chances of anyone in the college carpeting him are slim and the buck will eventually stop with you from a marks point of view. Perhaps getting stuck in and just putting compensatory effort into the subject is the thing to do allowing for the fact that any complaints will probably fall on deaf ears anyway. But I would keep a record of him anyway, and chat maybe to other classes and see how it stacks up.

Tom Dunne

There aren't many lecturers here, so I will move this to the College forum, where there may be more experience with dealing with this type of scenario.

I certainly have no experience of such a situation, from either ends of the spectrum, but I would imagine unity is the key here. Make sure all students stick together, clearly and concisely put forward their case and above all, don't lose the head. The last thing you want to be accused of is mob mentality. Try the student's union also.

Moved from Teaching and Lecturing.

osok

Hi, thanks for the replies. Our class size is very small and everybody is of the same opinion about this guy. One of the guys in the class was diagnosed with a stress related illness last week by the college doctor, the stress is mostly caused by this situation. I have spoken to some other lecturers about the problem and they cannot understand why he acts this way, even the head of dept.
From what I can see the SU are completely useless and would take the next 2 years to do anything about it. It doesent relate to cheap drink or mad nights out so it would not be their top priority.
This lecturer has so much control over our final result as we have him for 4 subjects this semester so I am worried about what he could do to us if we do make a formal complaint.
I am starting to hate him for what he has done to my desire to get a better education and my drive to put in the time to achieve this. I can only pick myself up so many times, I try to not let him get me down but it is getting impossible now.
I am even considering paying someone for private tuition instead of going near him again, I cant afford this but it would be better than wasting the last few years.

Tom Dunne

Take it higher. Next stop head of department, followed by registrar.

I know from experience in exam boards that if all students in a class get very low marks, there will be questions asked. Especially if they have a history of getting high marks.

But you don't want to let it get to that stage. So, do something now. Start off by writing a letter and hand it in - they have to respond to that. If there is a paper trail, they can't argue with that.

Again, keep it coherent, concise and level-headed. Don't make it look personal, and make sure it is factual.

osok

Well he has finally succeeded, he has destroyed my degree and basically wasted the last 3 years of hard work and financial struggle for me, my wife and 3 small kids.
We just sat our final exam in one of this guys subjects, the most important and relevant exam in the whole course so far, with luck I will come out of it with about 5%. This lecturer told us it would be a fairly straight forward exam and if we could do last years exam we would be able to do this one. As our course is new there is only last years paper to go on so we took this as the standard that we would be assessed on. We could all do last years paper inside out, plus harder versions of these questions just to cover ourselves.
The exam he set us was nothing short of evil, it was the hardest, most complicated exam he could possibly have written, at least 5 times harder than last years, where he asked them a basic question he asked us questions dealing with multiple scenarios, things we had only briefly covered in class, some things I dont think we ever covered. He had given us a brief idea of what was meant to come up, basically a question on each topic we covered but when the exam came he had left out one section completely and given 3 very complicated questions on one other topic. I had spent 5 hours the previous day perfecting the topic he left out, I had also spent several hours studying the topic that he asked 3 questions about yet I could only answer, at most about a third of one question.
We have been to the head of department to complain about the exam, nobody in the class could do it, most of us failed it we think, one guy thinks he might have scraped a pass by pure luck. We are demanding that something be done about this, one guy is ready to go to the dept of education he is so mad. This lecturer is so incompetent that we had to ask another lecturer to come in and teach us a particular topic in his own time, he cleared up in an hour what the other guy had tried to teach us for 3 weeks, this is the topic he then asked 3 whole questions about.
I am finally at the end of my tether, I no longer want to go to college, I no longer want to work in the field that I have spent 3 long years studying, he has succeeded in destroying all that I was working towards, a better future for my family, a reward for my wife who has supported me financially the whole way through, the ability to buy nice things for my kids who have also had to make such sacrifices for me, we cant even afford the correct school tracksuit for my son this year.
What is to become of my degree now, how can I go for a job in June when I have a resit to do, that is not going to look very good, I hate this man for what he has done and I wish him only bad fortune.

Tom Dunne

Ok, let me put this into perspective from the other side of the fence.

I have sat on quite a few exam boards in third level colleges and if a subject in a new course had a massive failure rate, there would be serious questions asked. Think about it - the college has put time and money into this course for everyone to fail? That would raise serious questions about the quality of the course and/or lecturing staff.

Another point - when I deliver a subject, it is usually a combination of in-class work, written assignments and the exam. Usually in the mix 30/20/50. Was there any non-exam component of the subject? If so, how did you get on there? Could you pass the overall subject with the other components?

And yet another point - if you fail one subject out of the course, you can usually compensate with other subjects, so all may not be lost.

I am not for a minute defending the incompetent lecturer, something still needs to be done about him. I am however, trying to reassure you that all may not be lost.

On that lecturer, I still think each and every student should write a letter of complaint - not e-mail, not "a chat in the corridor", a letter. As I said above, if there is a paper trail, they have to respond. Follow the proper procedure, which I would imagine is Dept. Head -> School Head -> Registrar.

osok

There was a continious assessment portion of the course but we were never told exactly how much this was worth, figures ranging from 20% to 40% were mentioned, but we were never told exactly. We had another guy doing this part of the course as we had complained about having too many hours of the main guy. I am not sure how I got on in this section as we still have not got out C.A. mark. The guy who took us for this section was very helpful, he is also the guy who took us on his own time to make up for the other guys incompetence. He has no time for this other lecturer atall. The bad thing is that I did not put my full effort into this section, my fault I know but I expected to make up a good grade from my exam. Family and work commitments were just such a drain on my time I could not devote all that was required.
We had the bad lecturer for another subject that had a 100% continious assessment, we have all got between 40% and 46% in this subject, I think I have 41%, how can this happen in a 100% C.A. subject where we all have almost full attendance. When I talked to the head of dept about this subject she had no idea that he was devoting almost 70% of the module to his own version of the subject, it was the biggest load of crap any of us had ever been forced to sit through. We were going to ask the head of dept to cancell this mark from our results as we were so disgusted with both it and the module as a whole.
We have all had enough now, we are going to go as high as we can with this matter, I wish I had done it earlier but I did not want to cause trouble for both myself and the rest of the class.
The worst thing is that we have another exam for this guy tomorrow and the last thing I want to do is study anything to do with this guy, I cant even bear to think of his name, not to mention study.