<p>One of my teachers is a horrible teacher and I don't know what to do about it. These are some of the things she does/ doesn't do:
- She's constantly late
- She missed 3 class periods just during the first month of school
- She spends most of the class time talking about random stuff
- When she does "teach" she copies examples from the textbook (I'm not sure that she actually knows the material)
- She spent almost half an hour trying to sell her car in class today</p>
<p>I'm paying to take a class she's not teaching. As a person I think she's great, but she's a terrible teacher. I don't really know what to say to her about it either. She's been teaching at the college for 12 years now so she's not new at this. Has anyone else had a teacher like this?</p>
<p>I read the textbook, watch youtube videos of people teaching the stuff (some universities are even uploading entire classes’ worth of lectures on relatively obscure topics now on youtube), go the TA’s office hours, and/or ask a friend.</p>
<p>I second what aldfig0 said, and add that at the end of the semester, during evaluations, you should give an honest evaluation of the way she taught the class.</p>
<p>Just teach yourself everything you need to know. Be your own teacher, I guess. That way, you can learn all the material and (hopefully) do well on the exams, unless she’s one of those hacks who puts bad questions on the exam that she didn’t explain, or whatever. However, if you practice a lot on your own, read the material, and see TA’s or other tutors for help, then you should be fine.</p>
<p>Oh, and as MD Mom mentioned, be brutally honest with the evaluation and take advantage of the anonymity. Chances are, if you say things in a very persuasive manner without being harsh enough to the point where you might make her lose her job, then you could make a huge impact.</p>
<p>Be honest with the evaluation, like everyone else said. At this point, there’s probably nothing you can do other than study the material on your own. Sometimes good people just don’t make good teachers.</p>
<p>At the big State U where I taught, only the instructor ever saw the comments. The evaluations arrived in our mailboxes in a big sealed envelope and went into a filing cabinet in my office. Anybody could request the evaluations to see what was written, but I don’t know of even one case where that actually happened. A teacher would never get fired over those comments – if the dean isn’t already receiving daily e-mails complaining about that teacher, the evaluations won’t make a dent. The only way an evaluation will change anything is if she reads what you wrote and decides to change.</p>
<p>Thorn, you might also come up with a couple questions for each class session based on your reading. As a student, you may not understand how a couple of questions really help an instructor to figure out what students do not understand. I love it when students have questions.</p>
<p>At the community college where I teach, my dean reads every evaluation and then we have to summarize the comments and they go in our file each semester. However, I would agree that a visit with the dean might be in order. But you must be specific.</p>
<p>If you want the teacher to stay for the rest of the semester, and won’t have her again, go to the dean of her department near the end of the semester so there is time for her to be observed.
If you want change now, go to the dean now.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I know the evaluations don’t mean much at my college but I’ll write one anyways. I do know at least one of my other teachers reads them so maybe she will too. My mom took the same class with a different teacher last year so she’s been teaching it to me when she can(she was a teacher’s assistant for 2 years and homeschooled my brother for 3 years). I’ve also been reading the textbook. My teacher gets all of her test questions directly from the book and thankfully she does tell us what chapters will be on the test. It’s an Algebra class.</p>