To think Uni students are a right moaning pita compared to when I went

[ohtobemoanproof]

Im a lecturer.

When I went to University-we went to the lectures, took notes from the board or overheads, went home, studied, did the exams etc, got our marks whenever they were ready and went away. No bothering the lecturers ( ever), no having their emails and demanding appointments, no arguing the toss over coursework marks, no moaning and complaining.

Now, I feel almost "bullied" by some of the students (not high fee payers, in fact some are on a bursary). They constantly moan (about everything, not just me in case anyone suggests its my module leadership in question), are always at the door, send email critiques about the quality of highly appraised visiting expert speakers, threaten to sue if coursework is returned a day later than you suggest it will be back, blame the lecturer if they get lower marks than expected, demand formal public apologies if they dont receive central messages about "one off" timetable changes, bitch if lecture notes aren't on module spaces a week before the lecture is held...it goes on. Bloody nightmare.

Aibu to think this is a new breed and we just weren't like that "in my day".

sniffs and has some more gin

Oh our students love it. And it's fair because everyone gets the same service. It's just a massive drag for us because effectively we have to mark the same piece of work twice, including detailed comments all over each script, and I personally think we're pandering to their sense of entitlement.

And yet they STILL bloody complain about feedback.

Its actually worse as the students expect very very high marks, given their second draft should have been altered to reflect the feedback and made almost perfect.

It's interesting to think back to my 1st degree days.

I'm going to register for the University of London independent study Law degree in September.

It's literally independent study. There is a virtual learning environment with some lectures on it, course material and a reading list...that's it.

Assessed 100% by exam. No retakes permitted unless the module was failed, then retake permitted but capped to 40% regardless of score.

It sounds much more rigorous than a lot of courses today.

Except that you'd be amazed how many students completely ignore the feedback you give them in the draft tutorial and on the draft itself, and hand I back in without alteration.....

We take marks OFF for not improving on the draft

? re reading drafts at Oxbridge. What happened when I was there for my course (which was notoriously lightweight and the subject of jokes about how little work it required) was that you produced a piece of work over a week (based on a reading list which was longer each week than most of my entire module lists for the second degree), which was handed in and was the starting point for an hour's 1:1 discussion on the subject a day later. Is that babyish handholding? Believe me it sure didn't feel like it (stomach churning at the thought of those sessions 20 years later).

I think part of the change has been the accessibility of job descriptions etc. I had no idea what my tutors and lecturers were supposed to do during my first degree, I just accepted whatever they did. Never occurred to me to compare them to a written list and find them wanting, I was too busy finding myself wanting.

I've taught at Oxbridge. Yes, it's babyish handholding IMHO as well as an enormous waste of time and resources.

OK then I think it has the potential not to be babyish handholding, but I can see it can turn into that if the student is determined to make it that way.

I don't remember Oxbridge involving much hand-holding

Then you haven't experienced other universities.

No I don't remember much hand holding at Oxford either and as for re-drafting. Give me strength. Thats just ridiculous - you might as well write their essays for them!

In fact, I would suggest its pretty close to cheating.

But.... the other degree I did 18 years later.... it was completely different in every way but it really didn't make me feel that I'd been babied at Oxbridge.

morebeta the thing is that is the system the students are used to from school ,for example my ds is currently writing 3000 words of coursework for history.They have lessons based on the topic,will then write the essay ,then it goes back to he teacher who reviews etc and makes some comments based on strict guidelines then the pupils make revisions before submission, you can't blame them for thinking this this is how it works when they get to the next stage.The ones in University now have had this system since year 10.

M second degree is an OU course. I actually did a third year course last year and to their credit the scaffolding was much reduced. However have just started a second year course and scaffolding is very specific about structure - thing is I don't write essays that way but am worried about losing marks if I don't follow the prescribed route. They don't mark drafts though - I haven't had that since I did my A levels.

Also the whole hand out of lecture notes thing - what is the point of that? Surely your own notes are far more valuable? Surely the very action of taking a note in a lecture means you are actively processing the info - not gazing into space confident you can look at notes later.

You dont know the half of it. As well as the scaffolding, after coursework has been returned our students can then make appointments to argue for higher marks. So we have seen the coursework at least twice, made comments,practically rewritten the work and then have to justisfy our position re marking.
I have recently spoken to a professor who says all feedback appointments at his university have to be tape recorded.

Also the whole hand out of lecture notes thing - what is the point of that? Surely your own notes are far more valuable? Surely the very action of taking a note in a lecture means you are actively processing the info - not gazing into space confident you can look at notes later.

Ideed. And there are some very good research papers to back this theory up.

mrswoodentop/laptop - goodness me. Dare I say that this is precisely where our education system has gone so wrong. I am gobsmacked. It is 10 years since I stood in a lecture theatre and it was never like this.

I did do a short vocational course at a local uni last year and was stunned at how the young students behaved on what was a pre-programme course for a 3 year degree. All of them demanded and expected the lecturers to provide photocopied notes and complained loudly if they were asked to write anything in a lecture. They just talked, texted and generally mucked about.

It seems to me that lecturers are treated more like teachers (actually worse than teachers in some cases) nowadays and universities are so desperate for the fees that they let students walk all over the lecturers and just hand over a certificate at the end without really demanding any standard of achievement. At the uni where DW teaches the student get 3 chances to pass their degree. The pressure to just let them pass is immense because if a course director does fail a student they are faced with resetting an exam twice more and endless meetings and hassle over the failed students.

I am a secondary teacher so I know all about the scaffolding. I try desperately to resist it for sixth-formers and really do make and effort to teach them how to structure essays themselves, but the trouble is, you can't be turning in a classful of coursework grades lower than everyone else's - we do actually have performance management targets to meet and it's rather shooting yourself in the foot not to give students as much help as you can. I hate scaffolding, loathe it, and try and teach students from Year 7 to think and write independently but they're as much part of the system as I am. It depresses me.

Oh, and at the start of every sixth form lesson I have to tell them to get out a pen and paper because they will be making notes. And some of them don't write anything unless I've told them to, or if I've put it on the board for them. I did have one wonderful class who for some reason just 'got' it and engaged and debated without handholding, and I loved it.

Don - we were expected to do the reading (whole books, not extracts) before term, in the holidays, with a pre-term exam on the material we were covering for the term. Then write three essays a fortnight with zero guidance and choosing our own title and defend our essay arguments for an hour in 1-2-1 or 2-person tutorials. No digested reading notes, nice big library over there, off you go. Assessed by final exam. Perhaps things have changed since I was a student?

It's incredibly depressing to read people's accounts on this thread of how passive students seem to have become.

lesley33 Sun 04-Mar-12 10:46:19
"cory - I would be interested to know how old you are? The pastoral care you offer sounds great - but I know my lecturers would not have seen this as their role. If you needed pastoral help you were expected to go to the su and they would help or refer on."

I am 48 and like all my colleagues of a similar age have seen my role change considerably over the last 10 years. But we have been well supported and I am in a department that tries very hard to make the changes work for the good of the subject as we see it and for the longterm good of the students, rather than just giving the students what they say they want at the time.

We don't read drafts of every single piece of coursework; in fact, we don't read many drafts at all. We do have after-essay meetings, but they are to give students feedback and show them how to do better next time. You might get the occasional whiner, but I find that spelling out expectations (both on students and lecturers) in advance cuts down on the whining.

Our department has recently been commended for the way in which student expectations are managed so must be doing something right. (Not my doing, I'm a very junior, not to say fringe member, but something that makes my life easier.)

Brian I know what you mean. I was gobsmacked (in a good way) the other week when one pupil asked me to stop for a moment... so she could get a pen and paper to take notes --- her initiative was so unusual I remarked on it to other colleagues.

What a sad state of affairs.

Mind you, during my first degree I never had a 121 with anyone and was sat in massive lecture theatres looking at a tiny lecturer far, far below. So perhaps things have improved on that front...

Also students have such amazing resources at their finger tips - I used to scrabble in library for one of the few copies of a key text, fail and the cobble together an essay based on some obscure titles and some journals dug up from the basement stack ( which was a bloody creepy place to be...)

I used to have to queue for a computer in a huge noisy room in order to write up my masterpiece - time limit two hours. One building was open all night but that was a 30 min walk away...

Students today

Meh

We had to hand write all our essays and only the computer students had access to a small computer suite. And I know that makes me sound like a dinosaur.