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.

The other thing to consider is that this method might really work for others

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

That's what I was about to say. He's not going to ask the exact same questions in the seminar. The point is that he's set you a particular a question that gives you the knowledge that informs a new, connected question.. He's asking you to adapt and think around that knowledge.

I would imagine he’s adopted this approach after students complaining that they found discussion too challenging and would prefer to know what questions would be asked in advance…my point is, no style suits everyone. Plenty of students with autism or anxiety issues might thoroughly prefer knowing what questions they would encounter in the seminar.

Look, you've really taken all these comments on the chin op! Fair play.

I'm not sure I understand the difference in the 2 seminar styles properly.

One lecturer sets pre planned questions that you then give your answers to in class? (and he changed the set of questions one week, so you weren't prepared, is that right?) how does this work? A week (or however long) before you get given a set of questions and then a few people answer them in class? Does it lead to a discussion or is it more 'right, question one' and then 'now, question 2'?

Whereas in the other seminar you get there and discuss the book/passage with no pre prep other than reading the book/ passage? So lecturer 2 says, 'what did you all think of the prophetic fallacy in chapter 3?' or whatever?

I still don't understand this. All your tutors will plan tutorial sessions, including the questions they are going to ask students. If you like off-the-cuff questions that you haven't had to prepare for, what difference does it make that they were pre-planned? It's just another way of making you think about and analyse the texts, which is literally the tutor's job.

You've done a great job of being self reflective here and taking criticism well, I agree with PP

I think I understand what you are trying to say, OP, about the problem being with the combination of rigidity and unpredictability. In my opinion, it doesn't sound like he is very good at leading seminars, as he is not getting people engaged and inspired- full of new thoughts and ideas. I'm not sure there is anything to be done about that, though.

The the whole thing needs to change for you, what about everyone else?

Yes go and talk and ask for help though

What he has done from what I can gather, is let you know potential questions in advance?

I feel you. When I took my RHS exams, the tutor gave us 10 plants to learn each week, to be tested on the next week. But instead of making it hard he made it ridiculously easy, asked in the same alphabetical order in the test as in the teaching session, in the powerpoint he made for each set, and all the students learnt was the plant in name order, not which actual plant is which. It did my head in. But it meant for him, more students passed each section.

Presumably you have teaching evaluations and so you can feedback through that (in an appropriate way). But he'll have chosen that structure for a reason, and he's not likely to change it for one student or possibly not even for lots of students.

Agree with the soft skills comments above, it's good to learn to communicate in different ways and different settings.

There may be no harm if you can offer a legitimate recommendation. Be aware though, many may like them and not like the ones you think are good.

I'm a literature lecturer. I'd love to have more of students like you, OP. They do the reading and they turn up to the seminar sessions every week. They also reflect and learn about ways to maximise their own strengths and addresss their weaknessess. For your own part, I'd work on confidence building, and on what to do if you find yourself 'freezing up' - how do you unfreeze and get going? There are a lot of self-help workshops on this, and most universities provide some kind of study skills centre or online resources. See it as a challenge to overcome, rather than a sticking point.

As to seminar structure, unfortunately, not all students are as diligent as you are. In fact, I'd say they were in the minority. Lecturers are well aware of who's doing what. We know when students haven't done the reading and have just come along to crib off our knowledge and make notes from the contributions of other students. Sometimes they'll have legitimate reasons for a less than optimal engagement with their studies. Often, they won't.

In my student days I'd turn up for tutorials with a lecturer and a handful of students for a cosy chat about the literature (and sometimes a worksheet to complete). Sadly the HE system has moved on - not necessarily positively in the Humanities - since then. In these circumstances I've described above, what's a lecturer to do in order to ensure their seminar sessions are not a waste of time?

They have to provide a structure to the work. On my units they'll have been given a menu of possibilities for context in a whole group session: more like the old-style lectures but also allowing for group discussion. Then some of these ideas are unpicked in the seminars. I encourage students to bring their own ideas (some will, most don't). I facilitate group discussion in such a way that the contexts we've studied can be brought in, and usually those who've at least engaged with the work overall can get something from this.

We know not everyone is talkative in sessions, and that this isn't necessarily an indication of their abilities on paper. So I vary my methods. They don't get a printout of questions every week, nor do I use the same teaching and learning methods week-on-week - they sometimes fill in spaces on a Google doc so those uncomfortable with speaking in discussion can share their ideas. Also - and importantly - I deviate from this plan if fast-flow discussion is working well at any point: as long as this is still on-topic it can often be more productive. The structure is a failsafe back-up in the (quite likely) event that this doesn't happen.

Your lecturers' methods do sound more traditional than my own, but I've had to adapt to take into account these circumstances, and the inescapable problem that students are of different ability levels and will have different levels of engagement.

You can't please all the people all the time.

It sounds like you are preparing well for your tutorial which many will not do. Maybe the next step is the think about how the preparation you have done can relate to new questions and learn how to make connections. After all, making connections with prior knowledge and being able to generalise to new situations is kind of what learning is.

It sounds like you need to work on your confidence and ability to think critically on your feet. The real world doesn't come with pre-set questions or challenges to address. You need to be able to think through and respond to queries in real time. This could be a speaking in front of people issue or it could just be not being familiar with the material enough to talk off the cuff about it.

I'm a lecturer and I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with his approach. It's bloody difficult to get anyone to speak in seminars. 80% of my students try to hide behind their laptops doing their online shopping and other random shit. I tend to be a 'guest lecturer' so not my students really week to week, so nothing I can do about it, but it sounds like he's doing his best to stimulate discussion under the circumstances. Maybe you could feedback though other approaches you might find helpful, either now or in student evaluations. Because it could mean he needs more variety in the approaches he's taking, even if what he's doing is otherwise fine.

I’m also a lecturer and broadly agree with @SerafinasGoose and @mindutopia. Also, go easy on yourself! I would be delighted to have such a committed student in my seminar, though sometimes differences in preparation, attitude and committedness between mature students and the rest of the cohort can create its own classroom management issues. Take the pressure off yourself.

Also, it can be really productive in classes when someone says ‘Critic X saying Y completely baffled me — what’s she talking about in this bit?’ Don’t be afraid for your contribution to be an admission of something you struggled with. It’s really helpful to me as a teacher to get a sense of what’s not crossing the footlights in a 200-seater lecture theatre.

I actually think having set questions makes more pedagogical sense. There will be specific things he wants you to think about. If it was just general “what did you think “ type stuff you run the risk of people just shrugging or muttering it’s ok. Though I accept that’s not your experience with other sessions. It also gets you to read stuff before and do some work before and universities are moving towards this flipped classroom type approach. He shouldn’t have changed the questions once set but you’ve raised that with him so hopefully won’t happen again.

I agree with others that you can’t expect him to change stuff because you don’t like it. In my experience you’ll never please everyone. Maybe others are ok with it. Or if they’re not then maybe they don’t like having to do reading beforehand, doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial for them.

I changed a whole module delivery once because of some vocal complaints one year. The following year people complained and said why don’t you do it like x which is how I’d done it the year before. 🙈. I then spoke to some of the previous year group and seems 90% had actually been ok with it how I’d first done it. I learned a lesson there. Don’t change stuff for one or two people thinking they’re speaking for all

Are you always so tactless? You need to think very carefully about how to approach this and reconsider. Instead of telling him how to do his job maybe you could focus on what he's telling you and try to understand it.

You need to decide what to focus on: learning, which means being challenged struggling, adjusting, or demonstrating that you are a good student. If it is the former, there is nothing wrong in the type of seminar you describe. But because you say that they make you feel bad, I think it is the latter, and this is a big problem.

I'm glad you listened to previous posters' feedback, and realise you would be unreasonable to complain.
A big part of university is learning new skills. See adapting to these tasks that make you freeze as a challenge. You may have a viva for your dissertation which may throw all sorts of questions your way. You need to be ready for this!

I agree the dynamics and the engagement of the cohort can really affect things. Your lecturer may well be adapting to these.

As a lecturer, I would be ok with your feedback, depending on how you would present it. I've had my fair share of really rude students and that way of communicating helps no one. In general, my goal is to get all students to engage with the class and the material, and given that everyone has their own style, a variety of class assignments is needed (and I'm happy to try these out for different groups).

But I do agree you should tell him how you’re feeling. But just not in a “change this” manner, more about seeking support

I didn’t like loads of my English lit seminars in uni. Some were boring, some tutors tended to put us on the spot, others went waffling off on massage tangents. I just got on with it and definitely didn’t cry about it afterwards, is there a reason you are so upset about this? Are you anxious? Do you have perfectionistic or unrealistic expectations of yourself? A mark of 80 is unusually high for English.
Kindly, maybe you need to chill out a bit more?

I agree with this. You should be challenged at uni not spoon fed. If you don’t know the answers, go away and find out. Challenge your thinking on things, the way you approach the questions, what is expected of you. That’s literally the whole point of going to uni, not to get the questions in advance and just answer those. Anyone can do that. I worked in an academic setting where the lecturers would moan about American students wanting to know what paragraph of what page of what chapter in a book they should read. Reading round the subject was an alien concept to some of them.

It seems reasonable to me, I often think with education it’s a journey and you aren’t supposed to feel confident until you come out the other side. Mature students have a much harder time ceding control.

The thing is, different teachers/lecturers teach in different ways and students learn in different ways. What you find had might be the way other prefer to learn and so telling him it doesn’t work for you and you want it changing could be detrimental to others. You could have a conversation like others have suggested but keep in mind you are only one student and he teaches many and has probably done so for years. As an adult you need to be open to different methods of teaching if you’re doing a taught degree course. Not turning up is not a good plan either as you probably get something from the sessions even if you aren’t actively contributing.