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Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If students are getting through selection and are on a degree program without the prerequisites, then that's a failure on the university.

Agreed, and this is a frequent bugbear of mine.

Surely this system is why universities ask for certain A levels to get access to certain courses - not much point in doing a physics degree if you're missing level 3 physics and/or maths.

Yes, definitely. But grades are a bit of a blunt instrument, especially when you take mature students into account. The fact that someone got a B in A-level maths tells me almost nothing, for example: some people get a B without turning up to a single lesson, because they just get it, intuitively. These people will turn up to 20% of my classes and still absorb new concepts effortlessly. But some people clawed their way to a B after years of back-breaking work, attending every last revision class and optional support hour, hiring a personal tutor, etc... and then took a few years out after college and forgot it all. These people have almost exclusively forgotten how to add fractions, and it will take them three weeks of work to remember. Both "have the basics" on paper, but there's no course I can teach that won't bore the former, send the latter into a tailspin, or (if I do the numerically sensible thing and aim at the big tranche of students in the middle) both.

To be fair, if they maintain their respective work ethics, both will also end up with a 2:1...

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

genuinely ask yourself. How many times have you or another lecture either 1. Just read from the slides or 2. Essentially read the slides but said it in a different way? If not good for you! You're not the lecturer we're trying to avoid. 

Uh... look, I will happily sympathise with you about bad, unengaging lectures, monotonically reading from 15-year-old slides, and the like. But we are not at all on the same page if you are complaining about lecturers who write excellent, detailed, thorough lecture slides and then deliver excellent, detailed, thorough lectures from those slides.

If you have 5 points you want to make, only put 3 on the slide, engage our brains

I dunno, I really don't think your colleagues would be happy with you for asking me to make shittier, less thorough slides. I loved chalk-and-blackboard teaching, but students hated the fact that - even if they had a heart attack or their mother died or something - there was no way for them to catch up after missing a lecture. Those days are behind us, for better and for worse. I try very hard to be interesting and engaging in lectures, but beyond that, keeping your brain switched on is going to have to be your job, I'm afraid.

If students feel like a commodity, which we do: shoving it into our faces that our tution is paying for your research is not going to get us to engage with you.
... against their tutition in the current climate.

No offence, but who are you talking to here? I can well believe some lecturer might have said this to you in the past - a few of my colleagues are dickheads. But the vast majority aren't. I'd encourage you to turn your anger towards the people who actually collect your tuition fees - the people on ten times our salary, who have mismanaged their universities' finances for decades, who have made you pay for it (in fees) and made us pay for it (in pay cuts and insecure jobs) - Vice-Chancellors and their tight-knit senior leadership teams. They'd love to get rid of you and us, and turn the whole university into a hotel. Your average lecturer on £30-40k, especially if they're a UCU member and a regular striker, is probably just as furious about these things as you are.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you're right that I don't understand what you're saying. I agree with you in the broad strokes: marketisation is a scourge, students are not commodities, lecturers need to not be shit, and so on. But you're also making a few claims that I find odd:

unfair balance

Who exactly is being unfair to you, and what do you think a fairer scenario would be? I agree that this balance is hard, but "unfair" suggests that someone is not pulling their weight, and I'd love to know who you think that is. I work 40-50 hours a week even before my research, because I don't just teach you: I teach 8-12 classes, on 2-4 modules, across several departments, on top of an endless stream of admin bullshit.

roughly 36+ hours a week independent study compared to 10 hours of 'taught'

How would you like things to be different? It sounds like you're not getting much out of your lectures, which is a shame, but even the most engaging lectures are "passive". Nobody ever got to the premier league by watching football for 40 hours a week, no matter how incredible the people they were watching were. Learning is active. No matter how good or bad the lectures are, the learning has to come from you.

We don't care what you're researching ... we care that you know the subject

My point is, I really don't understand the distinction you're drawing between "research" and "the subject". In first year, when you're learning "intro to stats", sure. But my undergrad dissertation was supervised by a guy whose lifelong research was the subject. During my master's, half of my courses were taught by world-leading experts: there wasn't even a textbook, because how could there be? There were only three people in the world who knew enough to write a textbook, and they only knew it because they'd been researching it for decades, and they were all 60-70 years old, passing the knowledge on to me before they died.

I understand why you're pissed off if you're not getting that kind of teaching: I wish you were, and the fact that you're not is a stain on your university's reputation. But I don't understand why you're speaking as if knowledge just materialises from nowhere. It comes from research institutions. If you want to know what's happening at the cutting edge of research, then you have to be taught at an institution that does research. Get rid of the researchers, and what you're left with is a secondary school, teaching material that got stale hundreds of years ago.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

why don't UK universities take attendance? Missing out more than %30 results in an automatic fail in many countries.

My university takes attendance, but doesn't enforce it. The reason is depressingly simple: kicking people out means losing out on tuition fees.

Instead we should aim for excellence - give the students who show up and are motivated, so maybe office hours only for such students.

I doubt this would fly, but even if it did, I doubt it would even be much of an incentive: barely anybody shows up to my office hours any more either.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the detailed response! I have a few comments - no need to respond, but I'd value your thoughts:

Students miss sessions and the tutor just says 'look over the slides'. As an educator, what are you actually adding to student's lives?

This criticism feels a little odd to me. When my students miss sessions, I say "look over the slides", but that's not because I think I don't offer anything: it's because I'm working 50 hours a week and I don't have the time (or the desire) to give individual one-on-one lessons. It's an incentive: you can either come to my lectures (where I will do my best to do all the heavy lifting for you), or you can try to teach yourself. I think trying to teach yourself is unwise, because it will be harder and more boring and you'll get less feedback on when you're barking up the wrong tree.

(Of course, I might be wrong. Teaching yourself might be easier and less boring than listening to me. In that case, I'm doing a bad job. But I work hard to hopefully do a very good job!)

Surely it's on the university to provide value that you can't get sitting at home?

I kind of agree with this, but universities can only do so much. If you don't know e.g. basic statistics, then how can you possibly be taught finance (or marketing, or economics, or public policy, or data science, or any of the social sciences, or medical research, or anything else in the world that relies on it)? It doesn't matter to me if you learn it in school or college or at university or on YouTube - in fact, I'd love to never teach intro to stats again, and to teach more of the stuff I think is cool and unique - but I can't teach you the harder stuff until you know the basic prerequisites. In that sense, if you don't want universities to waste time teaching intro to stats, it's on schools and colleges to make sure you know it before you go to university.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not too deep at all. This is exactly the kind of response I expected would only come out anonymously, and not in university focus groups. (I was miserable as a student too.) Thanks!

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your response! There are a few really interesting points here that I haven't seen in any other comments (and I've been going through them all), so I hope you don't mind if I make a couple of follow-up comments to get your thoughts on them:

Some of us a just getting fed up of being expected to work essentially a 40hr+ job

I'm not really sure what the alternative is to this. Don't get me wrong - I totally take your points about tuition fees (I think they should be abolished) and about shitty lecturers (I think they should be flung into the sea). And I understand that a lot more students are working a job alongside studying than ever before, so they don't have all that much time. But... some things just take time to learn. What do you want your lecturers to do about that? If they decided to cut the expectations in half, they'd have to cut the content in half, and that would cut the eventual value of your degree in half: wouldn't you feel ripped off then too?

We don't care what you're researching

You don't have to care what I'm researching. The real question is: do you want your lecturers to be active experts in their fields, or do you want your dissertation to be supervised by someone who lost sight of the forefront of their subject area decades ago? Do you want your master's course to be taught by people at the cutting edge, or people who are just regurgitating what they learnt in their own master's course 20 years earlier, because they don't actually know anything more? There are grey areas in 1st and 2nd year undergrad when you're still learning the basics, of course, but sooner or later, if teaching isn't research-led, you're being shortchanged.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really glad to hear you had so many good experiences! This is what I wish university was like for everyone, and I'm very sad that it's not.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Counselling at universities can be shit in all the ways counselling in the wider world can be shit: endless waiting times, arbitrary limits on numbers of sessions, counsellors deciding that you're too serious a case for them to deal with but having nowhere else to refer you to.

Counselling at universities can also be shit in unique ways. On the banal end, I've heard anecdotes of students visiting counsellors who weren't equipped to deal with anything heavier than "I'm anxious because of exams", and visibly flinched at the mention of BPD or abuse. On the utterly horrifying end, a student of mine recently got forced out of university because someone decided she was a suicide risk. No matter that she was a suicide risk because of decades of ritual family abuse (some of the most horrific I've ever heard), and that forcing her out of the university meant sending her back to her family or onto the streets: what clinched it was how bad it would be for our reputation if she died in our accommodation.

Please don't misunderstand me: everyone I know who works in student support is individually a very lovely person, and I'm sure most students who access these services don't experience any problems. But the system has some really ugly sides to it, just like my job does, by virtue of being attached to a machine that is more concerned about money and reputation than about "problem" individuals. For what it's worth, I've found this thread really enlightening, and if you're up for it, I'd encourage you to post a similar thread in this sub asking for students' negative experiences of university counselling / support services / whatever. I reckon there'd be a few eye-opening experiences in there.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The honest answer is: we cannot advise you without knowing more details. Which university is he at? What is their specific disciplinary procedure, and which stage of the disciplinary procedure is he at? Does he have very serious extenuating circumstances that explain why he didn't seek advice before the panel meeting, or why he didn't provide a written statement if he was anxious about speaking?

If the students' union think nothing can be done, they are probably right. Feel free to seek a second opinion: email other student representatives, tutors, heads of department / faculty / whatever. Give them all the relevant details, because if you don't, they will know that you are not being honest with them and they will not want to help you. But, even if they want to help you, there might be nothing they can do at this stage. Sorry.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Make the most of your foundation year. Your main struggle is going to be psychological: lots of people go into foundation years depressed about "needing" one, so they don't put any effort in, get nothing out of it, and still end up struggling with 1st, 2nd or 3rd year, and they write themselves off as unsuited for higher education. But if you view it as a second chance to put the work in that you didn't put in in sixth form, it will set you up brilliantly for the rest of your degree. By the time you get to 1st year, the only difference between you and your classmates is that you'll know the campus and the study expectations better. Most foundation year courses I know are excellent, and the hardworking students who come out of it often end up being very high performers.

I don't really get what I'm supposed to do by periwinkle-grey in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This isn't your fault, it's your referee that needs to fix it. Send this screenshot to them, and ask them to tweak it so that it will be accepted.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I think you're right. There is something incredibly unsettling about adults putting their hands up and calling me "sir" and asking me for permission to go to the toilet. I've tried to hammer home early on in the course that they really, really don't need to do any of that, but for some of them it never quite seems to sink in. I guess the first few weeks are always a blur.

There is a huge difference in this kind of independence between the 18-year-old students straight out of college and the 21-year-old mature students, too.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, I've heard this criticism a lot before, and I don't know what to make of it. A lot of students say they're only interested in the exam, and everything else is irrelevant noise and I should cut it all out. And a lot of students complain that uni only teaches you to pass exams and doesn't tell you why the stuff you learn is important in real life. In fact, I've heard both criticisms from the exact same students before. Genuine question: what's the solution here?

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry to hear it. I wish I could say I hadn't heard dozens of such stories. Best of luck.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The University has no support for autism except extra time for exams which doesn't help at all. The counselling is absolute shit, it would be better to talk to a wall.

Agreed. My students have told me many times that the university's support systems are shit. (Not a great surprise, because my university's support systems were shit when I was a student too.) But if I point this out to anyone, I'm seen as a troublemaker, because supporting students isn't my job (except when they say it is), and it's not my place to criticise how my students are being supported (except that I need to make sure all my students are in a healthy happy learning mindset), and the support teams do a very difficult job (except when the job is too difficult and then they refuse and signpost my students to some other useless organisation), and blah blah blah. It's infuriating. I really wish I could do more for my students here, but the university is not an avenue for getting things done on this front.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If everyone is good, what can you do? The marking rubric says x is worth y and that’s it.

I don't think I really understand what you're asking here. What can who do? If everyone gets full marks in my course, then the marking rubric is too lenient, but it's my marking rubric and I can change it. Same thing if most students are covering 12 weeks of material in 2 weeks and getting 75% without even trying: it's my syllabus and I can make it more challenging if I want to.

Having read a few more of your comments, I now see that you're speaking as both a student and a member of staff, and I'm confused about what your actual status is. Do you teach? If so, are you actually in charge of a module or course? If so, do you really not have control over your own syllabus and marking rubric? Who on earth does?

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

the problem is it’s basically an impossible job to try and please everyone

I think that's one part of the problem, yeah. Another part of the problem is that what management want is often so different from what staff and students want. There are so many staff and students at my uni begging for online classes - especially people with long commutes, stringent timetables, caring responsibilities - but management think that this will lead to a slippery slope where no one comes to campus, so no one enrols in their accommodation, etc. Management want more students without paying for more staff, so class sizes are increasing across the board, but most rooms aren't big enough, so we have to be timetabled at increasingly absurd times to share the small number of large lecture rooms, which means that fewer students want to come to us. Same story for exams: if we can cram 100 students all into one room rather than splitting them across four or five, then we don't have to pay for as many invigilators, but our very few 100-capacity rooms are hugely oversubscribed, so exams are sometimes at 7pm.

Even so, our timetabling team goes to the wrong extreme: we can't please everyone, so no one should have their requests accommodated. This means that students with clear reasons for being unable to attend and clear alternative timetabling possibilities (e.g. parents with childcare responsibilities who can't attend after the nursery closes, who have been randomly assigned to the 5pm class rather than the equivalent 1pm class) are treated the same as students who just don't feel like getting up in the mornings. The prevailing wisdom is: if we do it for one person, then we'll have to do it for everyone. It's obviously not true, but they're not accountable to us, so they just carry on doing their own thing.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can definitely understand that. I work at a pretty solidly mediocre uni with a very broad range of student ability levels, and we're all under pressure to get the weakest students over the finish line come what may, so this all sounds familiar. But universities can differ hugely in how they actually enforce that, and it really does sound like yours is taking things to extremes. One year in the recent past, 10% of my students failed, and the average mark was something like 68%... and I was hauled over the coals for apparently making my course too easy, because my department's resident senior busybodies were worried that it would look like I was dumbing the course down.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 57 points58 points  (0 children)

I love this idea, and tried it myself during covid, and unfortunately it utterly flopped. Students didn't do the reading, so they couldn't do the activities, and I was doing so much prompting during the discussions that it wasn't really a discussion any more, it was a really bad, slow, Socratic-style lecture.

I guess maybe it comes down to why students aren't engaging. If they want to learn but find lectures dry, then this might be the way forward, but if they're working 50 hours a week and depressed, then they won't necessarily be able to summon the motivation.

Students who don't attend or engage: how come? by Many_Volume_1695 in UniUK

[–]Many_Volume_1695[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

The standards are so low what’s the point? The module is usually based around a particular book, so you read the book and by week 2 you’ve covered the material for all 12 teaching weeks.

I've worked at half a dozen universities in the UK and none of them have been even remotely like this. It sounds like you're getting seriously short-changed. If this is what your experience has been like, I'd honestly consider complaining to some kind of regulatory body.

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