Would it be rude to tell a lecturer you don’t like the way they structure seminars?

[Drin]

I’m a second year mature English lit student and I’m finding the way one of the lecturers structures his seminars extremely frustrating. He prints out a series of questions asking us to analyse certain passages or other various challenging questions and it just doesn’t flow well for me at all. It feels like an exam or something and I always freeze up and become tongue tied.

I’ve pre-planned answers twice in the past but then turned up to the seminar and he’s changed the questions entirely so I did the work for nothing. I challenged him on it yesterday and he apologised saying it was because he was expecting a bigger group and thought it would work better. I didn’t say a word yesterday as a result because I just froze up again. I always leave the seminars feeling absolutely stupid but he knows I’m not stupid because I got 80% on his assignment and I get 71%+ on all assignments so I’m heading for a first. I’ve read all of the books for that unit as well so it’s not as though I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I have two seminars with another lecturer and always leave his seminars feeling really good. It was the same with a couple of the seminars last year, they were just structured completely differently and it worked really well. The difference is they don’t have a series of set questions, instead they will ask what we made of the text and then ask various free flowing questions afterwards. It always flows well and we all bounce off one another, it opens up a lot of dialogue. I just don’t feel like the structured set up flows as well.

I was so frustrated yesterday and felt so stupid I ended up crying in the changing room cubicle at the gym. I’m now on the verge of not bothering to turn up to his seminars at all next year. Would you raise it with him or do you think he’d just think I’m a dick? For me, it’s between raising it and just not turning up so I don’t know which is worse.

It’s cheeky I mentioned to him that I’d pre-planned answers for the questions he’d set in advance and he’d changed them so I was thrown by that? I didn’t think it was and I wasn’t challenging his teaching style with this, I was just mentioning the fact he’d changed the pre-set questions and it had thrown me. He didn’t seem offended so I don’t think I did anything wrong. I won’t approach him, I’ll just learn to adapt to his style I guess.

What would happen if you just sat back and contributed minimally for a few weeks?

This might take the pressure off you (pressure you feel to always show you know and are right). You'll also be able to observe the class and see how it works.

Frustration at not being able to show off your prepared answer isn't indicating a very mature learning style or the confidence you should feel with such high marks. These seminars are not for extra credit (I assume) they are not for point scoring, they are to make you think and take you out of your comfort zone.

The questions are there to focus your learning around topics and aspects of it. Not as a literal blueprint to be rigidly followed.

Surely this is a learning opportunity for you . Persisting will enable you to learn how to succeed when things are hard. University is not about what you learn it’s about how you learn and the resulting transferable skills, you can’t just give up because it’s hard. One of my sons is studying English lit , I cannot imagine him expecting a lecturer to change his style, he would absolutely see that as his challenge to rise up to.

I’ve noticed less and less people turning up to his seminars

It's fewer and fewer, as an English student you should know this.
Maybe focus less on whether your seminars are fun and more on whether they are pushing you

I think it would be absolutely OK for you to say you are struggling with the format and does he have any advice. It is not ok to say your format sucks change it.

This is what I’ve done for the past few seminars because I totally freeze up to a point where I feel completely tongue tied and don’t know what on earth to do. Then I leave it feeling like an idiot. I’ll work on my confidence with his set up and try to get on board with it.

You can’t always preplan answers and that not free flowing conversation. Is there really time for everyone to discuss their own preplanned answers?

What are you planning on doing with your degree? Learning this skill maybe helpful in a future career.

Do you need to talk in every session? You can learn alot by listening too.

I’m really perplexed by this. If you’re a mature student, then surely you have some experience of the world, and things not working for you or not suiting you? This is one of those times.

My mum was a mature student when I was in primary school and I remember her sweating bricks over some subjects she struggled with.

Surely the preparation is thinking about the texts and analysing them, the questions help you do this. You can then transfer that thinking to new questions. English should be about being flexible in your thinking. Although what I see of my dcs work at school it is now all about pre-prepared answers, which saddens me as I have a related degree and it was much more interesting.

there will always be teachers / lecturers whose sessions we like or don’t like. Would say nothing, engage as best you can. Except when you get the feedback forms, eg could say you’d like more of a range of formats / approach in his seminars.

IMO it was U to complain that he altered the Qs / lesson plan.

The psychological stuff seems to do with you: could perhaps be useful to reflect on why you find the circumstances difficult and react that way and work on it.

No, it often doesn’t prompt dialogue between students at all so it isn’t very fun. I don’t know if it’s the type of questions being asked but it doesn’t promote a room full of people bouncing ideas around.
This sounds more like a student cohort problem than a teaching methodology problem tbh. I often have similar style sessions with people I work with and the dynamic thinkers have brilliant input and we often have to curtail the conversation due to time constraints. Those who can’t think on their feet (and this shows in their job) don’t input.

University is not about what you learn it’s about how you learn and the resulting transferable skills
👏👏👏👏

Definitely don't stop going to the seminars, OP! As others have said this is a real opportunity to challenge yourself and improve at something you find hard.

What I don't get is you want off piste discussion, but then when he ditches his pre planned questions, you are annoyed

Lots of academics leave academia because of entitled students who complain about everything when it doesn’t suit their style or is to challenging for them.
YABVU OP, the lecturer has done nothing to make you cry, this isn’t about his style but about your inability to be flexible and think out of the box.

Your university will have a student feedback and rating system which you can use to express your opinion. But it might be that some students like the more formal structure and hate the free-flowing ones that you can't prepare for.

Yabu to consider any effort "wasted" if you prepare something for a seminar that you then don't get to say. The preparation is part of the learning process. You aren't a performing monkey and your value isn't defined according to what you manage to say during the seminar. The seminar is supposed to challenge you to have interesting thoughts and to work out how to express them. If you don't use that immediately in the seminar you may instead use it in your final exam/dissertation at the end of the course, or if not then what you do produce in that final assessment will be the result of the practice that you get from engaging with seminars.

You may need some assertiveness training, see if student support services have anything like that. Crying after a seminar is obviously a signal that something is wrong but getting the lecturer to change their style is not the solution.

He set an entirely different set of pre planned questions instead so he didn’t just go free flow and throw random questions our way.

I’ve taken all points on board and realise I’m being an unreasonable dick. I won’t approach him, I’ll just persist and figure out a way to stop freezing and have some input, somehow.

I’d say I prefer thinking out of the box and don’t like his rigid set up! I take your point though, I know I’m being a dick and I’ll try to figure out a way to get stronger in the next term.

For most students, a degree is not merely something they are doing for the love of it; it is to prepare themselves for the world of work or to further their qualification for work.

More and more, students seem to expect to be treated like consumers where they make demands of their educators and resist the demands placed on them.

It’s foolish. You can’t expect everyone else to adapt around you. The student population would be done a disservice if they leave their degree programme without being challenged and pushed to do things which they are uncomfortable with. All that happens is that they’re more likely to be unfit for purpose when coming into professional world.

This is a you problem, which you really need to work on for your own benefit.

You don’t need to contribute every session, why not focus on listening to others contributions and take the pressure off yourself. It’s sounds to me like you are so focused on needing to say something that you are getting stressed when in fact just let it come naturally . If you don’t feel like you have something to say then it’s ok not to contribute but to just listen

You aren’t thinking out of the box.

You want to go through your pre planned answers. That’s not out of the box. You want the session to be sponging you are good at. That’s not out of the box

How is his session rigid but also changeable?

Op, could it possibly be that you have always seen yourself as a certain type of person, that you have certain traits and being challenged is challenging your view of yourself? Your strengths, weaknesses etc?

I am trying to think when in tutorials we actually had some sort of free flowing discussion where we bounced around ideas.

Maybe once or twice when I was in classes with all people who had a degree already. Occasionally at masters level.

But most other law tutorials-question asked. One person answered. Next question.
It was never like I saw on tv.
During lockdown and all online it was far worse as every camera stayed off bar mine and the tutors.

Freezing when having to give an answer prepared in advance seems something to work on. How would you cope at work? Or when things suddenly 180 at work and you have to think on your feet.

What does it feel like when you don’t feel you’ve contributed as you would have liked?

What is the narrative in your mind at that point?

How are these messages different from times you feel as if you have enjoyed the session?

These will be the things to think about changing.

Talk to him but explain that the questions make you freeze up and struggle to partake, ask him what he would recommend to help.