Student Quotes on Bad Teaching (Abstract of Section)

Author(s): Nancy M. Hewitt and Elaine Seymour

Students commented on what they considered bad teaching in S and E courses:

• People were really discouraged by the professor: you couldn't hear him because he just talked to the board. --White female math switcher
• The ones [teachers] that aren't any good seem to be off in their own world. They don't have any awareness of whether the students are following them. They just barrel ass through their notes, and that's all there is. --White male engineering senior
• A lot of these teachers make it really tough on the students. The approach seems to be, Here's the material. Why aren't you getting it? --White male science switcher
• It seemed like the classes were designed for you to teach yourself. I didn't learn anything in class. I felt like it was up to me to learn the material myself, or to get it from the other students. --Black male engineering switcher
• You can be the most motivated person in the world, but if they don't actually teach you the material -- if you have to go home and teach it to yourself, it's a lot more difficult. . . And I've seen good people go -- I mean, not just people who couldn't do it. --White female science switcher
• They love research, and they're forced to teach, and they don't like it, because they're not psyched to handle a bunch of people raising their hands and asking questions. --White male engineering senior
• You don't want to ask a professor about some fundamental thing, because he's likely to say, How come you don't know that? It's not just embarrassing -- he'll make you feel that you don't belong there. And you'll go on not knowing this fundamental piece of information. --White male science senior
• You're seen as slime. . . Even when you're a senior, they will not listen to you. They dictate to you. When they lecture, they never let you come up with an idea. But if you answer too slowly, you're asked, "Why are you here?" It's degrading. --White male chemistry senior, entering business career on graduation
• There is this inability to express ideas well -- to get specific and show specific occurrences of the theory. --White male science switcher
• It feels like they are just copying the book onto the blackboard. --White male engineering senior

--Abstract by the Online Ethics Center staff.

Original book by Nancy M. Hewitt and Elaine Seymour.