To think that this is a poor way to behave in a university lecture?

[malificent7]

Sat in front a group of girls in a lecture...first proper one of the module and I wish I'd said something.
They were laughing about the lecturers , were nattering on about everything and seemed to have a comment for everything the lecturer said.
I took 1 photo of a power point slide and they must have had a 3/4 minute discussion ( pisstake) about it. ( apparently it's fine to take photos of the big screen for notes. I had to check as was feeling paranoid in case I had committed a lecture faux pas.
They were behaving like a bunch of year 9 students win a sweet shop not a group of 18 year olds at uni.
In another lecture a paper aeroplane had been made but thankfully no-one had thrown it.
I am a mature student and therefore a boring old fart. Didn't help that I used to teach. But this is a respected science course and these young people will be treating the vulnerable if they qualify.
So am I a boring old fart and next time should I say something? The lecturer had to tell them to shut up several times.

Scrolling through twitter or facebook in silence or sending occasional text messages during lectures interferes with no-one and in a room of often 300+ the lecturer probably doesn't even notice. Similarly occasional talking between students in the room is hardly the crime of the century and in the of my course a lot of the talking is actually people asking their friends for clarification over something the lecturer has mentioned or something else to do with the course. In most lectures there is also periods of recap or overlapping material which it doesn't really matter if you are paying attention to (and with everything being available on-line there is little point in franticly making notes on something you are not understanding).

WhatTheSausageSaid I am relieved to hear this about BBK. I start on Tuesday!
Honestly, it's like night and day. Even the youngest students were mostly foreign so had lived abroad in the UK for a while, travelled and learned another language. Very different in their maturity levels and expectations to the group I've met at this university. :(

A friend has just joined Edinburgh Uni, as a mature student. First lecture, and everyone was told that they would be chucked out, if they had their phone on during lectures. Good on them, I say.

*SchadenfreudePersonified( I have had the student survey reports include personal comments about my appearance.

Sorry SchadenfreudePersonified I meant to highlight. Module reports at the end were brutal

I’m also a mature student and I find this sort of behaviour really irritating. You get to know who to avoid during lectures. Failing that don’t be afraid to tell them to shut it. You won’t be the only one annoyed by them and other students will appreciate it.

It won’t be long before they stop showing up for lectures anyway. I’ve found by weeks three or four people like that stop going to classes or even drop out. If they’re not interested in the course and not mature enough to handle it properly you won’t see much of them.

I know necromunda - it's ridiculous! The worst is the amount of weight the university gives to these feedback forms.

Obviously if a lecturer isn't performing properly the students have a right to complaint, but as you say - most negative comments are about things that have no bearing on the course. they are personal and often spiteful. But the atmosphere of the university is that we, the staff, are effectively put on trial each year at our performance reviews. And the student comments stay on record, even when you are assured that the powers-that-be are aware that there is no basis for them.

I hope they do drop out...for all our sanity!

Can I ask a question of the university lecturers? Why don't you tell the students to be quiet or to leave your classroom, rather than relying on the other students?

I'm not a school teacher of children: I don't consider it to be part of my job to keep discipline. If it gets bad, I stop the topic, and I tell them that no-one forces them to be there - if they're not interested, they should leave. If they stay, they should not distract other students.

But we are subject to fairly stringent student "satisfaction" questionnaires, which can affect our salary & promotion. I once got a strain of feedback for one module along the lines of "No wonder we all talked; she was so boring." and "The lecturer should not be so rude to us."

I'm a professor. I don't need the approval of spoilt brats, but my younger, more junior colleagues might.

Report them to your tutor. This happened lots on my course (Teaching course too!)
They were spoken to.
I hope the children they teach now give them just as much jip.

When I was at Uni in 1980s (USA where grants were non-existent so debt was the norm), we had a lecturer who would sharply speak to anyone seen reading the Uni newspaper during lectures. One time he failed to get response so threw a chalkboard erasor at the reader.

I have to lead some learning groups next year & must remember to tell people to leave room if they do anything disruptive.

I'm not a school teacher of children: I don't consider it to be part of my job to keep discipline.

I agree entirely! That's why I was asking--I don't think high school teachers can kick people out, but I do think that professors can. That is, I suppose I don't see telling people to be quiet or leave as enforcing discipline, but I do think having to deal with students talking when you've asked them to stop as insupportable in a university environment.

But genuinely--none of this is goady. It's just a cultural/institutional difference. And I do think it has something to do with the disconnect of instruction and evaluation (i.e. that the people who do the instruction aren't necessarily the same people who are evaluating you, and that even if they are, they're probably evaluating double-blind, so your classroom behavior has no practical ramifications).

I actually left teaching as I couldn't stand all this teacher blaming.
I'm actually horrified that such intelligent, passionate lecturers who were obviously good at their jobs in health, gave it up to teach.
One professional who showed us her list of qualifications including a Msc told us the price was her toughest year. I have to agree that once you have done that, all else is a doddle. Except space travel or cancer perhaps!

I teach A levels and this does not surprise me. I often wonder how some of my students will cope at university, because unfortunately we have to treat them like children in order to get the best grades out of them (which is of course what we're judged on - performance related pay).

I genuinely phone parents of my 16-19 year old students every week, put them in detentions, etc. It really doesn't foster independent learning and respect for education.

The EPQ programme helps (a dissertation-style project) but I'm still giving out detentions for that too so...

The more I hear, the more I like my uni. There are no remarks, no extensions except accompanied by documentation (and not dealt with by lecturers) and student feedback is not used against us except in the most general sense of having to be adequate not amazing. Our head of department has our back if there are any complaints, but also fair because occasionally lecturers stuff up. Marking is anonymous which is fairer, but you can include a class contribution in the marks if you like. Plagiarism is dealt with fairly firmly if it is the cut and paste variety (often it is not quite as blatant as that).

It's really not that bad and students cannot just get the grade they want or an extension by stamping their feet. My students are still respectful, they vary in how hard they work though!

The pgce not price!

That didn't happen at any of the lectures I went to 30 years ago. I'd see people look like they had fallen asleep but I don't remember any talking apart from the occasional whisper in a room with 100 people in it.

I'm afraid this was inevitable once the policy was to push more and more students into university.
Kids go now because it's their right rather than a privilege that has to be earned.
Unfortunately, the value of a degree has been diminished.

ShineOnHarvestMoon , I could not have said it better.

But the atmosphere of the university is that we, the staff, are effectively put on trial each year at our performance reviews. And the student comments stay on record, even when you are assured that the powers-that-be are aware that there is no basis for them.

Yup.

But we are subject to fairly stringent student "satisfaction" questionnaires, which can affect our salary & promotion. I once got a strain of feedback for one module along the lines of "No wonder we all talked; she was so boring." and "The lecturer should not be so rude to us."

I'm a professor. I don't need the approval of spoilt brats, but my younger, more junior colleagues might.

Yes, indeed. Or it's less that they need their approval, than that spiteful student responses on feedback forms, as well, as others have said, has professional consequences for promotion etc, it also chips away at more junior academics' self-esteem.

I've seen a younger colleague, who was an experienced and brilliant lecturer from another country, have her 'boringness', accent, dress and body type commented on so spitefully at the end of her first year that she would have quit if the job market wasn't so terrible, she felt so undermined.

And it's female academics who disproportionately get the more personal judgements. A friend of mine, now a very eminent figure in her field, asked a disruptive student to leave her seminar, and his response was to squash past the back of her chair, leer over her shoulder and say 'Nice tits, girl.'

I don't know if our university directs students with what they are allowed to write on feedback forms, but I have never received any personal comments (apart from voice too quiet/loud) at all. Nor have my teaching assistants. I'm wondering if they are told not to say anything personal and to confine remarks to the course itself, as it's noticeable they do not say anything else.

I'm lucky though, I teach in one of the only areas that research shows doesn't have bias against women, if anything, I think our women lecturers are thought of as better than some of the men. If I was working in a different discipline, I imagine it would be very very tiresome, and I would also feed back to our equality person that feedback shouldn't be personal and students shouldn't be allowed to say personal things full stop. It's part of their education to learn how to give meaningful and relevant feedback (some struggle!)

I don't remember one student talking out loud in any of the lecturers at uni. I was a mature student and the younger ones could be a bit noisy moving about and stuff but none of them would want the wrath of any of the rottweilers lecturers in any of our lectures.

One hard stare was enough to turn a student to stone.

I went to University in the 80s. There was none of this. At the beginning a few students were late or whispered in lectures, and were thrown out. After that all students were silent in lectures. Students also got thrown out of tutorial or seminar if it was clear they had not read the text.

I did a masters 8 years after I finished my undergraduate and was quite shocked at the difference (and I’m only early 30s so not really old). First time round everyone took notes and you had to listen as none of the lecturers provided copies of their slides. If you missed the lecture or pissed about you were screwed unless someone let you have their notes to copy.

At my masters course everyone had macs, most people played on Facebook during lectures, all slides were provided and all of the readings were easily accessed via moodle. Everything was made that bit easier and I think there was more messing about as a result .

Yes but don't you know they are paying for their degree so they will expect to get a good grade whatever they do, otherwise it is the fault of the 'lazy' lecturer who does not spoon feed them what they need to do and who does not respond within minutes to their emails asking questions that had they listened during the lecture they would almost certainly know the answer to

Don't worry Op, it is early in term/semester 1. Within a few weeks, most of the weaker students will have stopped coming to lectures and seminars so you will get a respite. Unlike the lecturer who will not hear from them again until they get their assessment results, when they will complain that they 'have paid for their course so why haven't they passed.