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Poor lectures
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
So far it's not too bad, but it's a bit annoying because the lectures, in one module particularly, seem to be confusing more than anything. The book is nice and concise, and yet the lecturer seems to go on random tangents and it fucks up my notes because they end up being a scribble all over the place rather than a neat and ordered, organised stream of information, pointers and basically notes.
I'm considering complaining - not in a major way but he's new and it's not just me he's annoying. For example, I print off all the weeks 'material' before the lecture so I can go through it as he does, these are basically powerpoint slides and such. But today, he started going through notes frmo last week and didn't touch this weeks, and I didn't have them with me and it annoyed me no end. It seems he's just lumping 'main' things in the first week, and just adding bits and bobs further on.
Whilst this kind of makes sense, it's making it really hard for me to order my notes and I'm missing my Maths lecturers who would always have
Lecture 1
1.0
1.1
1.1.1
so you knew the direction it was headed in, and everything was ordered and grouped which made it really nice to revise. At the moment I'm considering ignoring the lecturer and just making my own notes. We were advised not to buy books before we came to uni, as the lecturers would advise what they expected to read, and so on - but in the first lecture nothing, I went and asked and he said to get Bozco's accounting, I got it, came to the second lecture, he said he'd expected us to read the first two chapters.
Well, I understand it's independent but in all our other lectures they tell us which parts of which books are relevant to the lectures so our notes, reading, lectures and seminars all gel together. This guy just seems to randomly write things. He's not an academic per se, he's been in industry for about 10 years (accountant), but he's just done a masters and so isn't completely green.
Just a bit annoying because when you pay £3k and the lectures are really scribbly and he's having the students point out a fair few mistakes to him, you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth. My other lecturers are brill though and really help with directing us, telling us what books to read and what other material might be useful and referencing current events. I'm still not sure where we're even headed in Accounting.
I just feel if I made a complaint or comment to either him or the department I'd be pointed out as a troublesome student and will either receive some sort of reprimand or have my concerns discarded as I'm 'not qualified to comment'. Though the department is actually really friendly, so I doubt they'd be horrible. Just, it does seem rude to question a lecturer on how they teach, but then maybe it's worse just letting him go on waffling.
Although, having said that, I've got a few books on accounting and they're all pretty good and might carry me through this module on their own.
I'm considering complaining - not in a major way but he's new and it's not just me he's annoying. For example, I print off all the weeks 'material' before the lecture so I can go through it as he does, these are basically powerpoint slides and such. But today, he started going through notes frmo last week and didn't touch this weeks, and I didn't have them with me and it annoyed me no end. It seems he's just lumping 'main' things in the first week, and just adding bits and bobs further on.
Whilst this kind of makes sense, it's making it really hard for me to order my notes and I'm missing my Maths lecturers who would always have
Lecture 1
1.0
1.1
1.1.1
so you knew the direction it was headed in, and everything was ordered and grouped which made it really nice to revise. At the moment I'm considering ignoring the lecturer and just making my own notes. We were advised not to buy books before we came to uni, as the lecturers would advise what they expected to read, and so on - but in the first lecture nothing, I went and asked and he said to get Bozco's accounting, I got it, came to the second lecture, he said he'd expected us to read the first two chapters.
Well, I understand it's independent but in all our other lectures they tell us which parts of which books are relevant to the lectures so our notes, reading, lectures and seminars all gel together. This guy just seems to randomly write things. He's not an academic per se, he's been in industry for about 10 years (accountant), but he's just done a masters and so isn't completely green.
Just a bit annoying because when you pay £3k and the lectures are really scribbly and he's having the students point out a fair few mistakes to him, you don't feel like you're getting your money's worth. My other lecturers are brill though and really help with directing us, telling us what books to read and what other material might be useful and referencing current events. I'm still not sure where we're even headed in Accounting.
I just feel if I made a complaint or comment to either him or the department I'd be pointed out as a troublesome student and will either receive some sort of reprimand or have my concerns discarded as I'm 'not qualified to comment'. Though the department is actually really friendly, so I doubt they'd be horrible. Just, it does seem rude to question a lecturer on how they teach, but then maybe it's worse just letting him go on waffling.
Although, having said that, I've got a few books on accounting and they're all pretty good and might carry me through this module on their own.
Post edited by JustV on
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Comments
Your notes: The idea of a lecture isn't to dictate a beautiful set of notes to you. A well rounded lecture course (rather than one that simply covers the syllabus/what you need for the exam) will often result in somewhat scrambled notes, the idea being that you take your notes from the lecture and turn them into a more useful set of notes to learn/revise from. This is one of the differences between uni and school/college teaching and some lecturers do it to greater or lesser extents.
This week/Last weeks material: I'd assume that the stuff is put online as a resource for you, not a promise as to what is going to be in the lecture. Lecture courses are called courses for a reason, they teach you stuff and often link to one another. It's a good idea to have the handouts/your neat notes from the last couple of lectures with you as a good lecturer will pick up on things from previous lectures if they've had feedback that people have been having problems, or simply if they want to go over the info.
It sounds like your Maths lecturers were particularly regimented, and slightly spoon fed you your notes. As part of independant learning you should expect to have to digest the information you are given in the lectures.
Books: It sounds like you've got a good point here, and it's one that is definitely worth raising, either with the staff student committe or directly with the lecturer. A quick email to the lecturer asking if he could mention in the lecture which books are relevant to the course, which are essential, and if there are certain parts or whether it's the whole text.
It does sound like he's not being quite as accomodating of freshers as he might be, but if you've got the title then you're being slightly spoilt if you're also being given the chapters/page references. You should be able to work that out for yourself from the contents/index.
Mistakes: Again, you've got a good point here. Are they 'writing errors' or factual mistakes? Either way they aren't good and if these are a continual problem then it needs addressing, maybe through the teaching office.
Hope that didn't sound too like I was attacking your comments, just trying to point out what's reasonable to expect and what isn't.
Errors - like, when he's doing examples, he'll end up making the calculations wrong. Not the worst mistake ever but it's happened more than once, and randomly he'll use different numbers to the other side of the board because he's using a different example from a book.
Books - well I've got the title by looking on the course outline, but it's simply the difference between him and my other lecturers, they all seem to be guiding and aiding our teaching whereas he seems to be throwing random things up in the air and we have to try to 'catch' the info, and it's just easier to refer back to the books and start working through it A-Z.
As for the handouts / lecture notes, the problem is really the way he's organised it, he overruns our lectures and doesn't cover the relevant course content that he should have according to his 'plan', and instead spent a lot of the time explaining very simple fundamental things that we'd had explained to us 10x. If we've got any major issues with a balance sheet by now we can bring it up in our lectures, we do not need another bodged example.
Really, the point that irks me is the scattiness. There's no order or direction in his teaching, he doesn't have a nice plan infront of him like other lecturers, he seems to pick up the book and do an example on the board, then waffle for 10 minutes explaining something we knew.
It's his first year teaching so he might be a bit at odds with it, which is why maybe I should complain because it's not just me he's bothering. It's really difficult to take useful notes when half the stuff he's saying is repetitive and boring (like P&D forum), and the other half is in no concise or sensible order to lead on from each other - so that often you end up understanding the first bits only after he tells you something much later on.
The book is good though, because it's the same stuff he's saying except properly. No offense to the lecturer though. Just feel a bit short changed to go to a top uni, pay top fees and get a lecturer who seems to not perform much better than a capable masters student.
We do digress in our other lectures, but we don't recover points because the lecturers know the general direction of what they're talking about, whereas atm this lecturer does seem to be without a plan. Try explaining something when drunk, it's a bit like that....
Do something about it, or get over it. Waffling on a message board further won't actually make any difference.
If you've got a simple, polite, constructive request, like 'Can you recommend some books/chapters that link to the lectures' then the best thing to do is usually get in touch with the lecturer direct either catch him after the lecture, or email.
If you want to slate his entire lectures because they are totally rubbish then do it through the teaching office.
The only people who can judge on this are those who have been to his lectures. To an outsider it will either sound like he's rubbish beyond all measure, or you're expecting to be spoilt and spoon fed, which other lecturers might be doing at this point in the first term but shouldn't have to.
GOOD LUCK!
Right... well I'm taking the initiative to try to sort it out, I don't feel like I expect to be spoilt or spoon fed. The thing is, I did speak to him about the recommended reading which is why I know which book we're supposed to be reading from. But it's still helpful and not something I'd call 'spoon feeding' to highlight which sections of which texts are relevant to the content we're studying.
And making a massive complaint to he teaching office seems like blowing it out of proportion. I'm 'waffling on a message board about it' because I don't know the best course of action to take. I think the University has an expectation of students to be independent learners, but students also have an expectation of lecturers (since they've paid large fees) to direct teaching in a clear and concise manner.
There's no need to get elitist about it and suggest if the lectures aren't going down well it's because the student has the wrong attitude or expects all the work done for them, I've been out of college 2 years now so I know University is a different environment. But I also understand lecturers give lectures of different quality, some are brilliant and some are not so brilliant, and it's when they're on one end of this scale, without a lot of experience, that it feels like something should be said - but as a student it does feel a bit like 'us' vs. 'them', and if you suggest one lecturer needs to make some changes the others will jump down your throat. (Although, one of the other lecturers has actually asked us to be critical of his lectures so he knows where to improve in future).
Honestly, if it's unclear what you should be reading in preparation, it's best if you talk to him directly (or send an email or whatever). That way it might help him to figure out if he needs to be more clear on certain things.
I agree a bit with Scary Monster, from what you originally wrote it kinda appeared like you wanted to be spoon fed.
I've finished two years worth of Business at uni and in my experience accounting and accounting related subjects aren't some you can truly learn in a linear manner. For most of the problems you kinda need to think of the big picture, and there's always some details in your way. Half the lectures me and my friends were pretty lost.
I think it's even harder for really skilled people with work experience in the subject to translate it to a group of students. You need to build a foundation but there's no particularly direct way to start that. Especially when half the stuff is just common sense to the teachers.
You won't learn accounting only in a lecture. You need to go through your notes, read the books and do examples to get understanding of what you're doing. Be well prepared for your lectures and if something was unclear do your best to go through it after it. I spent a lot of time hunched over my accounting books trying to puzzle everything together.
Put some effort into phrasing it as constructive feedback, and then give it to him or the teaching office depending on what it is. If you have the right attitude and you're in a reasonable department you should get listened to.
I think he took much more time to stop and let people ask questions though, and generally was much more deliberate and everytime he wrote a figure up he explained where it came from. No doubt working in industry he's done it so many times he just quickly subtracts lasts years from this years and puts the difference up and people were wondering where the number came from.
Felt bad for him though, he seemed to be trying. Though I got pissed off to fuck because some chinese students were just pissing about. It's the same group in all my lectures, well 2, I sit near them and they don't take any notes, just talk quite audibly in chinese with their iPhones and PDAs out playing with them.
I think he was very up front and honest today though so I can give the lecturer a lot of credit for that, it can't be easy when you're giving lectures for the first time (I've given up on the handouts, just taking my own notes and using the book which is so comprehensive anyway).
Thats good, at least he trying to explain things a bit better. It cant be easy for him in his first year of teaching uni students either. I know how easy it is once you've in the industry a few years to jump the steps of doing things because its quite straight forward.
If they groups of students are annoying you, either dont sit near them if you can help it, say something to them, or say something to your tutors if its that annoying.