Disappointed in a class - worth bringing it up to someone in the department now?

[longhornkate]

I am an MPA student in my last semester, taking a capstone course and an elective. This elective is taught by an adjunct and the content is seriously dumbed-down. I signed up for the course when another professor was scheduled to teach it, but due to both some university and departmental upheaval, the teaching assignment was switched.

 

Honestly, this class is easier than almost anything I took in undergrad, nevermind grad school. In four weeks I haven't gotten anything useful out of the class, and it's torture to sit through. I participate as much as I can to stay engaged, even though I have no prior knowledge of the subject, and strongly suspect things are actually worse for the students in the class that are familiar with it or are practitioners in the field.

 

The professor is sweet but she is constantly telling us she is "dumbing things down" for us and that this is an "introductory" course. It's not an introductory course, and I don't need her to simplify anything. I feel like a jerk - I basically am feeling the opposite of imposter syndrome - and some students think I should just sit back and enjoy the easy A in my final semester.

 

I plan on writing a firm evaluation, but should I bring this up with the current interim department chair? We have ten more weeks of class. Will I just cause trouble?

[pears]

Talk to the professor first; going straight to the department chair may come off as backhanded. Be honest, but polite: explain you feel you're not being challenged enough, & are interested in engaging with the content more & learning as much as possible while thinking critically.

[fuzzylogician]

The professor is sweet but she is constantly telling us she is "dumbing things down" for us and that this is an "introductory" course. It's not an introductory course, and I don't need her to simplify anything. I feel like a jerk - I basically am feeling the opposite of imposter syndrome - and some students think I should just sit back and enjoy the easy A in my final semester.

 

I plan on writing a firm evaluation, but should I bring this up with the current interim department chair? We have ten more weeks of class. Will I just cause trouble?

 

Tell the professor. You may not realize this but bad teaching evaluations can seriously damage a person's career. They stay with you and can affect hiring and tenure decisions. One bad course early in her career won't be the end of all, but why don't you give her a chance to fix this before you do anything else. How does it help anyone to wait silently until the end of the semester and then write a bad evaluation? Also, while we're at it, I had a serious knee-jerk reaction to the description of your professor as "sweet." I can't imagine you calling a male professor that (but maybe I'm wrong). Treat this person as a professional who may be inexperienced, and help her help you. If she can't switch things around, then you're licensed to write a mean evaluation or go talk to the department chair, but don't go over her head before you talk to her. If you're worried about saving face, there may be indirect ways of letting her know how you feel - e.g. through a student rep or through another professor (your advisor). Even an email from an anonymous email address might help. 

[St Andrews Lynx]

Out of all the problems you can have in grad school...a class that's too easy is one of the better ones to have!

 

Talk to the professor privately in person. Try to request additional readings/problem sets - come across as enthusiastic about the course rather than being critical of her teaching. If the course is a pre-requisite for anything, say that you're concerned that the course isn't preparing you for Class X. You don't want to come across as a jerk! Any week you delay in raising the problem will just be another week of feeling bored in class. I doubt you want that. 

 

I'd also ask the other students in class how they're feeling about the course. I can think about several experiences of my own where I thought a class was easy...only to do badly in the final exams/assessments because (i) I wasn't taking revision seriously enough (ii) I'd actually completely failed to grasp the complexities right in front of my face. That's a worse case scenario...but worth being aware of.

[Guest |||]

As a side, I'm envious that your issue worth pursuing happens to be this.

[longhornkate]

Tell the professor. You may not realize this but bad teaching evaluations can seriously damage a person's career. They stay with you and can affect hiring and tenure decisions. One bad course early in her career won't be the end of all, but why don't you give her a chance to fix this before you do anything else. How does it help anyone to wait silently until the end of the semester and then write a bad evaluation? Also, while we're at it, I had a serious knee-jerk reaction to the description of your professor as "sweet." I can't imagine you calling a male professor that (but maybe I'm wrong). Treat this person as a professional who may be inexperienced, and help her help you. If she can't switch things around, then you're licensed to write a mean evaluation or go talk to the department chair, but don't go over her head before you talk to her. If you're worried about saving face, there may be indirect ways of letting her know how you feel - e.g. through a student rep or through another professor (your advisor). Even an email from an anonymous email address might help. 

 

I know teaching evaluations stick with people...I've never given a bad evaluation before and do not plan on being harsh or mean. I initially just wrote that she is nice but I thought sweet describes her better. FWIW, the retiring chair of our department, a man, is most certainly sweet and is referred to as such by almost all students in our program. Any sexist implications were not intended. Now, thinking about it more, I shouldn't have used sweet at all, because saying she is sweet while at the same time telling us we need assignments dumbed-down and telling guest speakers loudly that we are "INTRO" students so to go ahead and explain every detail doesn't jive.

 

This is her second career and she's a former public official - I think I have a lot to gain from her perspective. I believe it is the first time she has taught graduate students though, and this is probably the source of the issue. I appreciate your honesty in how going to someone else in the department might look. 

 

I need to speak with her about my project soon, so I'll take an approach suggested here and let her know I'd like additional challenges. 

 

And thank you St Andrews for the perspective (sorry, I don't know how to multi-quote). I definitely don't want to wind up being complacent before exams! I like being in class and class is usually fun for me, so already feeling like I have to drag myself in every week is awful. I thought because I took my comprehensive exams this weekend, I was just having trouble focusing on her class, but this week was even worse. I'll go in asap.

Edited October 2, 2013 by longhornkate

[longhornkate]

As a side, I'm envious that your issue worth pursuing happens to be this.

Well, I've had my share of feeling like an idiot in some of my classes. And the ways my stress has manifested itself before? Yikes. 

 

Right now I'm job hunting (just completed a required internship). I think since I'm not working and only have one other class I'm just desperate for extra stimulation. There's only so much Netflix I can watch. But even when I take that into account, the class just feels so different.

[emmm]

Just this week I was talking with a grad student from another program that I'd had a class with. He told me that class had been his toughest -- it was my easiest. We both were unfamiliar with about 1/2 the material starting out (different halves). The course combined both of our "usual" fields. So, you never know that a class is too easy for everyone. I do think it is a BAD idea in ALL circumstances for an instructor to make the comments you report. Even (especially?) in an introductory class. Learning can be very difficult, and when it is, it is not helpful in the least for someone to say "oh, this is easy" or "this should be easy." I can actually think of few better ways to turn someone off a subject forever. I am thankful for the gifted professors I've had who were enthusiastic about their subjects and shared my joy when I understood something new (in spite of its typically being something they could probably do without thinking at all).

[danieleWrites]

 

The professor is sweet but she is constantly telling us she is "dumbing things down" for us and that this is an "introductory" course. It's not an introductory course, and I don't need her to simplify anything. I feel like a jerk - I basically am feeling the opposite of imposter syndrome - and some students think I should just sit back and enjoy the easy A in my final semester.

 

I have a problem with this particularly. Graduate students do not take introductory courses. If you're taking an introductory course as a grad student, you're far enough away from your field that you'd need permission for it to apply to your candidacy. This teacher clearly thinks this is introductory and that the materials she inherited from the original professor need to be dumbed down because she thinks she's teaching it to lower level students for some reason. While I appreciate the desire to not cause problems for this teacher's future career, or make waves in the department, I don't think this is a problem that should be ignored.

 

First of all, the teacher has clearly stated that she's making the course easier. It's reasonable to assume that everyone in class finds it too easy, and if any find it too difficult, then they shouldn't be in the course in the first place----it was not originally intended to be an introduction. If it had been, this teacher would not feel it necessary to tell you she dumbed it down into an introduction. So, I disagree with the opinion that its easiness is a matter of interpretation.

 

Secondly, when you get an A in this course, your transcript will certify that you are capable of top-notch work in whatever the course is. This will be a lie because she is not teaching that course. She's teaching a completely different course. It would be akin to getting college algebra instruction in a course entitled String Theory Algebra. If the syllabus she's using backs up this lie, that you're getting a high level course, not an introductory one, it's your career and future that's on the line.

 

You should speak with her immediately. If nothing else, she should explain why she thinks graduate students are in an introductory course. To be fair to her, she inherited this course and the materials you're working with. She most likely wrote the syllabus, but the books were chosen by the professor who originally designed the course. This is a sucky situation for an adjunct to be in. She has to figure out how to teach the course and what that course's purpose and philosophy is with little, most likely any, discussion with the person who designed the course. She probably had little input from the department and has to fly this thing blindly, on her own. Adjuncts are disposable. If she screws up, they don't care. Being human, she probably fell into her comfort zone---the introductory level---for whatever reasons. While these things might give her reason to teach the course as she has, they don't give the her or the department a good reason to give you substandard instruction.

 

You can write firm teacher evals, but they probably won't do anything about the course itself. Most likely, they'll only change whether or not the department will use her as an adjunct again. The real fault lies with the department. If she thinks it's an introductory course she needed to dumb down, it's because the department wasn't clear enough about the course when they handed it to her. She should be familiar enough with her field to look at the books and course description, at the very least, and place the level of the course. The fact that it contains graduate students should have clarified that for her. However, if the department didn't make anything clear or offer copies of syllabi from previous semesters, she's not getting the minimum support she needs to take over a course. What needed to change was the way the department carried out its business. Teacher evaluations won't change that unless the evals address the department itself.

[nnnnnnn]

 I had a serious knee-jerk reaction to the description of your professor as "sweet." I can't imagine you calling a male professor that (but maybe I'm wrong).

 

Seconded. Additionally, as a student, you have some wiggle room to direct class in more interesting ways. Ask questions, hard ones? If she refuses to answer during class, try to figure it out on your own and come back to her saying something along the lines of "I worked out an answer to this problem using the foundation material from this class. I feel the problem is relevant to what we are learning and that others would benefit from hearing the answer since it is not overly complex. May I share it with the class?"

 

Keep doing this and she should feel that you desire to be challenged.

[juilletmercredi]

Graduate students do not take introductory courses

 

Depends on the field.  My field (public health) is not one that students typically study at the undergrad level, so we actually do have to take several introductory coures - to sociomedical sciences, to epidemiology, to biostatistics, to environmental health sciences, and to health policy and management at minimum.  Sometimes to other things, too.  They are certainly at the graduate level - fast-paced and rigorous - but they are still introductory, in that a talented undergrad with no background could complete them.

 

In a public administration program - also something students typically don't study at the undergrad level - it is entirely possible that this is an introductory course to a specific subfield or topic.

[Loric]

In things that aren't the hard sciences, what gets taught and to what level can vary wildly. It doesn't mean the students are inept for not knowing them or that their transcripts are a lie.

[Loric]

And I just want to point out... this is an elective...

[crossedfingerscrossedeyes]

If Longhornkate is still around, it would be interesting to hear how this resolved now that semesters are winding down.