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.

Great minds thought alike, I got a reputation whilst at both college and later university as the " quiet polite one", so it was a shock on the odd occasions when something like this would occur to the point where I spoke out and made my feelings on students who disturbed lectures known and invariably spoke up for the entire class and the lecturer putting up with them.
The upshot was that I gained a lot more respect, became more popular and the others on the courses realised that there was a line not to be crossed.
My view was that I had worked hard to obtain the places at college and university and no one was going to stop me from enjoying my studies and gaining the qualifications that I was willing to work hard to achieve.

"A good lecturer can inspire even the most distractable student! If your students are talking, or not turning up, or walking out, you need to do something different!"

Oh my God. It's bad enough when the whole "bad behavior is caused by teachers not making their lessons EXCITING enough" crap is used in the case of primary school teachers. It's mortifying to hear someone actually using it about lectures for ADULTS who have CHOSEN to be in further education.

OMG the cut and paste essays, when students have not even read what they have posted.

Sorry, slight deviation but just for a laugh. I taught on an access course so technically all mature students but the odd 19 year old.

I started marking work from one who was listing building regulations from the USA. The work should have been about the respiratory system, obviously the student had stuck the word, 'ventilation' into google.

I had another where the paste was all about micro cameras, and keyboard tracking, some real James Bond stuff. The assessment was on , 'health surveillance, so things like monitoring radiographer's exposure to X rays'.

I took over from a lecturer who had gone on long term sick leave so I was marking work handed in several weeks ago. I marked one piece of work and the student accused me of racism.

I'd not met the student.

I know some names are more associated with certain cultures/countries so I could have understood the logic if the student had a name like Adebowale or Wong but it was a name like John Smith.

I could certainly be quite silly as an undergraduate, pretty much up until my final year when I decided to knuckle down and get a 2.1 rather than the 2.2 I could have got by only turning up to half the lectures and writing assignments at 4 o clock in the morning.

I changed from blagging my way through most things to actually putting in the work. Then those students who turned up unprepared to tutorials suddenly seemed so annoying!

Lydia the problem with making university entry more difficult and, by extension, degrees more prestigious is that universities are essentially businesses these days rather than places of learning. With university income almost entirely reliant on student fees and research grants, the student-as-consumer is king and universities jump to their tune to ensure retention.

I left a well paid job at a RG university in the summer because I simply can’t do it any more. Following the lecturers’ strike (which I absolutely supported), the lengths to which my university was prepared to go to appease students who had barely been affected but who were claiming all sorts of disadvantage; the lowering of academic standards to keep student numbers “healthy”...it wasn’t what I’d joined to do nearly a decade ago.

I’m afraid I got thrown out of a lecture in 1998 for reading a novel. The lecturer was bad, and was teaching a subject I had covered at a level but doing so badly (thermodynamics for anyone interested). It was the middle one of a block of three in the same room so I couldn’t just skip it easily.
So there has always been disruption, but I can appreciate how it’s got worse and how as a mature student who is probably self financed it’s seriously annoying

Following the lecturers’ strike (which I absolutely supported), the lengths to which my university was prepared to go to appease students who had barely been affected but who were claiming all sorts of disadvantage; the lowering of academic standards to keep student numbers “healthy”...it wasn’t what I’d joined to do nearly a decade ago

Yep, both trends were apparent at my previous institution. The grade scheme was manipulated so it kept from 70 to 75 then to 80 to artificially boost the number of firsts gained by borderline students, early on I gave out a 72 and got a furious response from admin that I'd given out an 'illegal mark' and it must be a 75.

I wish I could find a way out.

I teach sixth formers and I wouldn't expect them to behave like this, they would be asked to leave if they did, and it wasn't like this when I was at uni just after the millennium.
Perhaps it's the huge fees making students feel entitled to behave as they wish.

I’ll never forget the CF from one of my seminars. It was a postgraduate degree, so we were all taking it seriously. It was a small group of 6 for the seminars.

He turned up late, coffee and a parcel in hand. He sat and opened his parcel, completely disrupting the tutor. Out he pulls new shirts, jumpers etc and then stands up to try his new items against himself.

The tutor politely asked him to save it until he got home, he ignored her.

He then got out a packet of cous cous and a bowl, read the back of the pack then left the room to get hot water. He returned with his lunch and began to munch through it, tutor asked him to put it away and he ignored her.

She was clearly irritated and asked him a question related to the work we’d been given to prepare before the seminar and he responded with ‘oh I haven’t done the work. Isn’t that what I’m paying you for? To teach me?’

It was so uncomfortable.

Kokeshi

I have sat through lectures given by people with very different abilities in lecturing.

Some were brilliant and held their audience spellbound. They were in mastery of their subject, loved it, had prepared material thoroughly and delivered their lecture in a clear audible voice and clear handwritten examples on the board. The student at their lectures were spellbound and couldn't stop talking about the subject to each other.

Most lecturers were not like this all the time, and there were usually some problems for the students, and lectures might be obviously unprepared, dull, inaudible, given in silence (just writing on the board) etc etc

At the worst end of the scale, one lecturer always mumbled in an low voice so was inaudible, wrote on the board in an indecipherable scrawl and got annoyed when anyone asked him to explain anything ( because none of us had heard him or could read what he had written) - to top it all, his subject was only covered in a book he had written, but hadn't been published yet, so we couldn't get it from the library it buy it.

Would you be surprised to hear that there was a difference in how well students performed in subjects given by lecturers at the two ends of the scale? Also, there was a marked difference in the way students behaved in the lectures ranging from rapt attention, spanning bored incomprehension through to angry despair at the worst ones.

All students, whether primary age or post doctorate benefit from competent lecturers- of course at the more mature end of the scale you can ignore poor lectures and research the subject yourself.

There was one comment upthread by a userwhatever that said being on a phone, scrolling twitter is not disruptive. It absolutely is when your sat behind someone doing that and it keeps diverting your eyes. My time study time was sometimes doubled because I had to recap full lectures once home as I had been distracted by phones, misuse of laptops and inane chattering.

It's apparently much better to take notes by hand anyway (for understanding and retention).

It certainly is Kokeshi

To take note by hand you have to listen, think about what you are writing (typing can be done on automatic pilot), and reproduce the information in a way that is meaningful and memorable for YOU. You can also then make links between bits of information which strike you as important, and use colour/ diagrams/ jokes/ sketches and cartoons - even jotting down song titles/ bits of poetry or quotations etc which will help to fix it in your memory and also relate it to other parts of the course or other modules.

We have different methods of learning and remembering, and it's worth using as many that you can which suit your own learning style. It also makes revision easier, and helps connections between topics to be easily recognised.

I definitely agree that all students deserve competent lecturers, but the thing is that learning anything worthwhile will involve some stuff that is hard and not always interesting or appealing, especially at first. Things like social media and games on electronic devices have been deliberately designed to be as addictive as possible--even skillfully done lectures may not stand much of a chance if students continually have these in their hands.

True - to get the best out of a lecture, you need both a competent lecturer and an attentive student.

It doesn't sound like a good idea making the lecturer compete with mobile phones.

From earlier posts, it sounds like some students don't realise that they have to do the studying themselves.

wolly given that you are talking about handwritten slides (PowerPoint was the norm when I went to university in the late 90s) it would appear that your experience is a little out of date. Also talking about post doctoral lectures (a post doctoral post is a paid position held by early career academics, so they will be giving the lecture, not sitting in it and even at MA level there aren't really lectures in the arts and the humanities would suggest your knowledge of the sector is a bit patchy. That's the point several of us are trying to make, the behavior and expectations of students have changed beyond all recognition in the past decade, bought on by the market isa tion of the HE sector.

Plus, I am employed for my knowledge of specific topics and how to teach them, dumbing it down to such a level that it becomes 'fun' and laugh a minute is a disservice to those students who want to engage.

SOme topics are just fucking boring, dense and DIFFICULT, students cannot seem to get their head around the idea that a degree should be a challenge. But because something is dense and dry and difficult, doesn't mean it is unimportant.

Having said this almost never happens to me, I was lecturing today and two students were chatting! I tried to catch their eye a couple of times but they kept going until about the third or fourth time I managed to give them a stare and they shut up. Ridiculous to have to think about that when I am trying to be interesting!

SOme topics are just fucking boring, dense and DIFFICULT, students cannot seem to get their head around the idea that a degree should be a challenge. But because something is dense and dry and difficult, doesn't mean it is unimportant.

Absolutely! Emperor. Some things are just tedious - but they have to be done. Often they are the basis for other, much more interesting things, but unless students make the effort to master them, they'll get no-where.

Another thing which seems to be more prevalent nowadays is learning for the purpose of passing exams only ("Will this be on the paper?"). This just leads to surface knowledge - students can regurgitate it onto paper, but have no understanding of the topic and will find application very difficult if they get a job in that field (though this is unlikely, because although they may scrape a pass, in order to get a decent degree you need to be able to understand and argue.

I managed to give them a stare and they shut up

Channelling your inner Paddington, Orchid . . .

When I was very new to lecturing, I stopped a lecture to ask a student to stop eating. Food wasn't allowed in the lecture hall, but my problem (and I said this, quite nicely and calmly) was that it was rustling and as he was about ten feet from me, I was finding the noise distracting. A few minutes later I had to ask again.

Amongst the various consequences of this (including an email from my head of department which, frankly, scared me because I was so new to it all), was getting an 'explanation' email from the student in which he told me he had, in his previous job, been in the army and therefore knew all about guns and killing people.

Try imagining how I felt for a few weeks.

I really hate student satisfaction forms. I usually get high ratings (I really care about my lectures and, honestly, they are good, and most students say they are interesting). But there are always some students whose comments are things like 'boring, I don't want to hear about [course content central to the degree they chose]' or comments on my clothing. Or, my personal favourite, students who cannot distinguish between my views and the views of the late medieval societies I'm discussing, and conclude I am homophobic, sexist or anti-Semitic.

I think with all of these kinds of students, you do learn to tune it out, but it is depressing.

My students are generally absolutely lovely, but the very few bad ones really get to me at times.

Oh, and on the subject of 'boring' topics ... I guarantee, I can deliver a lecture and get a packed room, students giving me excellent reviews, all the positive feedback I could want ... and there will still be one or two people who say it was 'boring'.

What can you do?

I wasn't talking about handwritten slides, I was talking about writing on a board. Yes, it was a long time ago, and we copied the notes the lecturer wrote on the board. We didn't have slides or have any notes given out. I suppose that meant we had to pay attention!

currently studying for a Law Degree at 52 years old. Second year. Started last year with 14 I think, most lectures now there are 4 or 5 of us. They either drop out or fail I think. I enjoy their company. Intriguing to see how 18 yr olds are now. I had left home and was living in a bedsit at 18 so missed out on education then. They wanted to see me as a mum figure....soon sorted that out. Drank them under the table whilst they were throwing up and in tears (mainly the lads). I remember being silly at that age. But I think to myself, they are wanting a degree, they see the benefit of an education, even if they subsequently drop out. I have to stop myself talking a lot in response to the tutor as otherwise, they wouldn't get a look in. Works both ways sometimes I think.

From earlier posts, it sounds like some students don't realise that they have to do the studying themselves.

Oh god, yes. It's been only couple of weeks but I've hear "CBA to do this in my free time" more times than in last decade...
The look of surprise on young student's facec when they were told uni advices about 40 hours a week of study including lectures etc. Some honestly thought they will just do lectures and about an hour a day, if that, of independent study and it looks like some are sticking to it. And then they ask and ask and ask others about the subjects and info needed. And ask and ask and ask.
I have never been this annoyed by people around me before.

It's so sad to hear all your teaching experiences. Such a shame.

I teaching creative writing and English literature in a well-ranked department. Yesterday two students told me at the first workshop that they never read and 'didn't like reading'.

I TEACH. I am also literate, honestly.

I used to scrutinise UCAS personal statements. I would frequently read “I am passionate about English Literature”. When I asked the student what they actually read, it turned out to be only the book list for A level (if that). Happily it’s easy to delete fibs on a Word document. Actually I used to delete the word passionate whenever it was used, except in the two cases where it was obviously true (one in Music, the other in Midwifery).