<p>The grading policy is ridiculous and the department should hear about it. Informing them after the final exam won’t help the OP at all. Withdrawing is probably the best option.</p>
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lol, Lorem, maybe you’re right :). I love very smart students. But at the same time, I feel that as a general statement if they are in my class then I know more about the subject than they do (otherwise why be there?), and they have to recognize that there are 20-30 other students as well and maybe sometimes I am trying to teach at a level somewhat below where they are personally. There is also often a method to the madness which the student, unaware of the big picture, may not understand.</p>
<p>What the professor thinks is important for the students to learn may not sinc with what the student thinks, but it is the professor who is attempting to teach the course. That isn’t “having an agenda” or being “lord and master”, it’s just trying to develop and cover what he or the department has determined is important for the student emerging from this course to know.</p>
<p>Here is an example of an experience I had personally. I used to teach Engineering Statics, a sophomore course where things basically sit still. We start with problems in two dimensions, using trigonometry and Pythagoras to resolve forces into components, sum them, and find resultants. Then we move to doing similar 2-D problems using vectors. This is overkill for 2-D problems, and it would be valid for a student to ask why we are making the problems more difficult to solve when using trig is easier. </p>
<p>Should the student who thinks he knows better just do the vector assignment by the easier method? Should Professor Sylvan just accept that the student knows a better, more efficient way? One semester, a student who was particularly high on himself snorted when I presented the “new” vector method, saying “that’s ridiculous, it’s much easier to use trig”. Yes, I responded, but you will not want to do 3-dimensional problems using trig. The following week he had to come to me outside of class as he wrestled with the 3-d problems, for which his “better way” was suddenly no match.</p>
<p>Sylvan, we’re really not as far apart as our previous discussions might lead one to believe. You are certainly not among the type of teacher I complained about – such teachers are much more common in high school and at the lower levels where discipline is more valued than knowledge. Such teachers fear or hate very smart students because such students are unpredictable, even in their innocence, and ask too many embarrassing questions, often in unorthodox ways.</p>
<p>I can certainly understand the need to sometimes take what looks like a “step backwards” before moving into a new methodology. I would hope that, for the benefit of holistic big-picture thinkers like my son, you would mention WHY you were first taking this backwards step. In any case, my son would have never responded with “that’s ridiculous, it’s much easier to use trig” – that’s not “smart” that’s just lazy. More than likely my son’s curiosity would have led him to not just pre-read the appropriate chapter in the textbook before class but to also immediately read the NEXT chapter as well and try out a few of the “serious” problems, just because it’s “interesting.”</p>
<p>On a lark, I just asked my 16-year-old what he thought about your passage. It turns out – and I should have realized this – that he already has some background in what you’re taking about, having taken AP Physics B and having taught himself the two Physics C subjects (with 5s on all three tests). So in his case, there are “knowledge hooks” already in place that would help him intuitively guess where you were headed with your methodology. And, for what it’s worth, he says he prefers using vectors over trig because it’s easier to keep track of multiple elements in a complex calculation.</p>
<p>Truce then, Lorem. I guess I’m a long way out of high school, as D an I were talking tonight about how in her school you now have to ask, sign out, and sign in for a trip to the bathroom, where some old dude stands watch Outside because kids persist in writing “bomb” on the bathroom ceiling, causing no end of disruptions. it may seem like I am taking the side of the “unreasonable professor” in this thread, which is sort of true to some extent because I have taught these courses, and because I think there are two sides to this story, and everyone else is hammering the instructor. That’s not to say I don’t think there are bad professors. I have 289 credits, 3 degrees, and a GPA still over 3.5, and I’ve had some dreadful professors!</p>
<p>I do believe this Prof. is being unreasonable for the reasons stated thus far. However, I am shocked to see so many posters arguing that it’s unacceptable, unnecessary or remotely inappropriate to use the restroom during class. Complete nonsense. Needing to use the restroom can’t possibly be classified as a choice because it is a basic biological need, just as using the restroom before class/a meeting/a movie/any event cannot possibly guarantee that one won’t need to excuse themselves again within a relatively short period of time. In the real world adults aren’t punished or questioned for answering “the call of nature.” The argument that a different standard should apply to college students (or, really any person, for that matter) is ludicrous because, unless I am grossly mistaken, even college students are subject to basic, biological functions.</p>
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<p>Okay, maybe I’ve been away from this for too long, or maybe I just don’t understand what you folks are talking about (likely both).
If you are given a system of vector forces acting on a point, and you want the resultant, assuming you are given these forces in polar notation, how do you add the vectors without using any trig? Don’t you have to break them into orthogonal components, and doesn’t that require some trig? Or is there a different, easier way I don’t remember or just never learned? </p>
<p>Or are you talking about when you already have the vectors in an i,j,k or “matrix” type format to begin with? </p>
<p>I guess I just never thought about some bright line separation between “trig” and “vectors”. I understand polar format for vectors doesn’t really work above two dimensions, but vectors always have an “angle” so to speak, with respect to some axis (real or otherwise). Don’t they? I imagine when you get into more advanced math and are talking about vector spaces, eignevectors and things like that basic trig becomes less useful, but I thought we were talking about an introductory statics course.</p>
<p>^^^
In my first paragraph when I say “system of forces” I am talking two dimension. To simplify my question - if you are given vectors in polar format, how can you efficiently add them without using any trig? I’m presupposing the vectors aren’t already perependicular to each other.</p>
<p>My daughter has classes in different buildings on campus that are three blocks from each other and typically has ten to fifteen minutes between classes. On Mondays, she has four classes like this back-to-back where she has that three-block walk. I could see a person needing a bathroom break in a class, particularly if it is a long class. Professors usually have a break for the three-hour classes.</p>
<p>I’ve been in a ton of meetings (some running over eight hours a day) in the corporate environment. You get a paper or electronic presentation and someone goes over the presentation. You may miss some discussion but you have the general points that you were supposed to go over before the meeting. Going to the bathroom is no big deal, particularly when a lot of people are drinking coffee or soft-drinks to stay awake during the meeting.</p>
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Sorry, bovertine, I didn’t mean to suggest that we were not still using trig where necessary, but that now we have the added vector structure, with i,j,k notation, establishing coordinates, finding unit vectors and force vectors if necessary, creating vectors from coordinate points, etc. It’s unneeded in general, to add what is essentially a “bookkeeping” structure to a 2-d problem, but hard to manage 3-d problems without it.</p>
<p>Well, the person my email was directed to was actually the Dean of Students, and he’s the one that got back to me so quickly. We set up an appointment to discuss the issue right away. By the time we met, I’d withdrawn from the course. As soon as I’d withdrawn, the professor had sent me a very sweet email saying how she really wanted to talk to me, so in addition to my complaints to the Dean of Students, I mentioned that she wanted to talk to me.</p>
<p>The Dean of Students felt that the professor was exhibiting some problem behaviors (not showing up to office hours, not answering emails), and he was completely baffled by her grading policy and said maybe it was a scare tactic, which he still wasn’t okay with. He said he was going to have a talk both with her and the head of the department. However, since she’d offered to talk to me, he wanted me to do that and then report back to him about what she said about the grading policy and such.</p>
<p>Well, I went to her office when she said she’d be there, and yet again she wasn’t! But I finally met with her the next day. She immediately started telling me I was such a polite, delightful student and that she’d miss me so much. She said I was really her best student. She said she never would have failed me for something stupid, that that’s just a scare tactic to get people to do their best. She also said she’d just been unusually busy lately, which was why she had missed office hours and hadn’t answered emails. She practically begged me to continue coming to class despite having withdrawn, saying I could do all the learning without any of the pressure. She told me I could go to the bathroom as often as I wanted during class, drink coffee and eat during class… things she hates. She showed me pictures of her grandchildren and asked to see pictures of my daughter. Then, after all this, she told me she’d been crying just that morning because her boss had yelled at her. She said it would be devastating to her if anyone complained about her because she’d probably get fired. She talked about how sad and miserable she’d be sitting at home not teaching. Then she reiterated what a polite, delightful girl she thinks I am and how much she loved teaching me.</p>
<p>I know she was trying to manipulate me, but now I do sort of feel guilty. I don’t want to make some old lady sit at home miserable. Bleh. I reported the relevant content of the meeting (her explanations of her behavior and grading policy) back to the Dean of Students anyway though.</p>
<p>The positive part of this is that I’m now aware of how much the people at my school care about students’ issues and concerns. I have a friend at another college who had a complaint about a really unreasonable professor, and all that happened for her was that her email got ignored.</p>
<p>I would stay away from this professor. You might save other students from having to deal with her in the future.</p>