They are NOT trained educators. How many years has a new professor spent on learning how to teach?
My daughter generally found a way to deal with whatever “teaching” style a professor had adopted. And ultimately many professors may have held effective courses in the “overall” sense, if one adds office time, TA managed groups etc.
However, a good share of courses she really didn’t need to attend: She already had printed the day’s PowerPoint in advance for easier note-taking, yet still was forced to watch that professor putting up each slide on the screen, and then reading each slide OFF the screen, and then walking out.
Yes, learning DID take place, but not by attending the actual lecture. It took place while preparing for each class, doing the required reading, self-studying for exams and during office-hours or TA meets. Come to think of it, with continuous advances in medical science, technology, medication and procedures, acquiring knowledge that way might be a desirable ability?
She sat through lectures where she literally was working on OTHER classes on her laptop, while ignoring the “stage show”.
Compared to primary education, in colleges learning is not necessarily tied to teaching?
Well he’s not the only professor to teach OChem, right? If it’s a problem with the professor, the issue should be limited to him. If it’s a problem with students, there should be complaints with other professors. From NYU professor fired after students sign petition to get rid of him for making the subject 'too hard' | Daily Mail Online
“Kent Kirshenbaum, another organic chemistry professor, discovered students cheating during online tests. Citing poor conduct in his decision to reduce grades, students protested by saying ‘they were not given grades that would allow them to get into medical school.’”
I think it’s pretty obvious what is going on here.
I agree there is likely more to the story. I said so in my first post. But that hasn’t stopped you or other posters from condescendingly dismissing these students as lazy, entitled snowflakes, ill-equipped to become doctors. (I’ll make a note to quiz my cardiologist on their sophomore grades.)
Frankly it is astounding to me that a moderator and posters on a website devoted to advising potential college students would have such low opinions of college students.
D21 attends a CA public and is taking Chem (not Orgo) right now. She was able to get one of the good teachers. The students run a rating system, so I looked up her class and professor.
The range is 0 to 4, 4 being perfect.
Lowest rating = 0.50
Highest rating = 3.74
D21’s Chem professor = 3.39
Phew! But here’s the problem, or not, I haven’t heard of any firings of professors for teaching-related issues in years.
Prof. Jones student reviews at NYU were equally divided between the highest (5) and the lowest(1) rating, for an overall average of 2.9. In contrast, the Princeton students gave him a 4.5 overall average
I probably happens all the time, in a much more subtle way that doesn’t hit the news-cycle.
My daughter mentioned her own assessment of an adjunct professor, who objectively did have class management issues. While my daughter did fine with that class, she very casually also predicted the (private) university likely wouldn’t rehire that professor, given the post-course reviews they’d been receiving.
This example puzzled me. If the professor caught students cheating then those student should be flunked and/or disciplined according to the school’s conduct code. But if the professor reduced everyone’s grade because he determined that some students cheating then the students who weren’t cheating had a valid complaint. For that matter, given the outsized importance many place on grades and performance, any student who does not get a grade commensurate with their level of mastery has a valid compliant. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Ahh, the old ‘it’s not all of the ________, it’s just some of the _______’ argument. Where I have heard those arguments before?
I don’t think anyone here has near enough information to pass judgment on any of these kids as “lazy,” “entitled snowflakes,” ill-equipped, or any other of the derogatory descriptions.
I remember reading one of the reviews for one of my D’s previous classes, can’t remember which unfortunately, could have been a GE, but the professor had been receiving low reviews for a decade or more.
Maybe large CA publics are just a different can of worms altogether.
You believe all college students are smart, hard working kids? You must visit more colleges soon, or perhaps you have far lower standards for what qualifies as smart and hard working. One of the student reviews at NYU noted the lack of personal responsibility among his classmates in this class was rampant.
So, a few days ago, I read a Reddit post for D21’s school. Yes, I’m guilty, I read Reddit for my D’s school. Anyway, the title of post was "How many classes can I fail in four years?"
The courses failed already by this poster were “math 3 and chem 2.”
Thus, I’ll say no, not all college students are smart, hard working kids.
Not at all obvious and it’s quite possible I agree with the students here too, as, I expect, all of us would had we been in the same situation.
Cheating has gone on since the beginning of tests and has hit very notable schools including the military academies and Ivies. Those students should have been disciplined and that, alone, would have kept them out of med school.
It sounds like the prof got angry and reduced the grades of everyone(!). That would make me pissed, and yes, could give the deserving students a serious nick on their applications.
I also don’t believe that all students who complain about the of a professor are “lazy” or ill-equipped or “entitled snowflakes.”
I also don’t believe in the infallibility of an 84 year old professor who retired 15 years prior and who can’t figure out how to teach a zoom class during Covid.
I also don’t believe it is the end of times when a college doesn’t renew the contract of such a year-to-year employee after numerous complaints of “dismissiveness, unresponsiveness, condescension and opacity about grading” and when the employee’s evaluations “were by far the worst, not only among members of the chemistry department, but among all the university’s undergraduate science courses.”
I’m not who you posted to, but I definitely don’t think all are hard working kids, and pending wealth of parents, perhaps not even super smart.
But we don’t know which group we’re talking about in this incident. The smart, hard-working ones are often MORE likely to do something about injustice than their lazier counterparts. The others will get weeded from more than OChem.
If the chemistry professors had reviewed the course, the grades, audited the class, maybe met with some students, asked the TAs, that would have been reasonable. There is no indication any of that was done.
Indeed, it sounds like the chem dept was caught unaware by this. So what was the basis for the firing, except for some student complaints that his teaching was ineffective?
Had NYU decided such a mainstream course requires an active tenured prof, that would be reasonable. They did not
There is no indication of the process either way. You just assume the school’s decision was rash, without any knowledge of whether it was or not. As @skieurope said, there is very likely much more to the story.
