To expect university students to engage with their studies?

[PissedOffProf]

User name changed because I don't want to totally out myself.

I am a lecturer in a management department at a mid-level UK university. I have tons of experience in teaching, love my job, am nice to students and go out of my way to help them with their learning.

Increasingly, however, I am faced with classrooms of blank faces. Students who clearly have zero interest in their studies. Students who never prepare for their tutorials and have nothing to say. Students who are disruptive in class. Students who watch videos on their phones or do online shopping instead of engaging in classroom activities. Students who do not seem to have any respect for each other as they ignore the others when they speak. Students who, in the end, deliver mediocre work with zero critical thinking or creativity.

AIBU to ask why people decide to get tens of thousands of pounds in debt to spend three years of their lives being bored to death?

I should say - I wanted and expected robust and challenging discussions. They want to be silently spoon fed.
It’s awful.

Smirking slightly at the idea that an accountancy degree might have a few boring parts. Who knew!
But seriously every degree has boring bits, everything in life has boring bits. Believe me when I say that if the lecture is boring marking 200 exam scripts is worse, but I’m not allowed to just not engage with that.

Every initiative in our university involves more academics’ time, because it seems that is both without value, due to our vague job descriptions, and infinitely elastic

yes yes!

Current unsustainable funding models and the "student experience" are being subsidised by academics' unpaid overtime.

Perhaps what the unis. need are outside eyes looking at them to develop them for the 21st Century. There are companies out there who can help if the powers that be are willing to listen and adapt.

Found one here.

www.leanuk.org/who-we-are.aspx

I think the whole grade inflation thing is deeply demoralising to kids who go to more established universities that are holding the line. DS seemed to genuinely put the hours in for three years for his 2.1 and was quite proud of himself.

One of his mates got a first. But a first from a very poorly rated university that gives 40% of students a first. Still it must be a fantastic place as it admits students with dire A levels and turns so many of them into well qualified young people.

Another of his mates went to a similarly bottom of the table establishment and managed to fail most of his exams throughout the three years, then fail his finals. No matter; he simply transferred to another mediocre university and at the end of the year emerged with a nice shiny 2.1.

DS feels his achievement to be somehow diminished. For employers there is little to choose between them.

Every initiative in our university involves more academics’ time, because it seems that is both without value, due to our vague job descriptions, and infinitely elastic. So much tedious admin intended almost purely to generate data that can be audited and used as a stick to beat us.

Absolutely. Apparently we are now personally responsible for finding things that have been lost in the mail. 😆

It’s completely absurd passing admin tasks on to academics. It is an enormous waste of university money to get a professor to do an admin task (badly) that a competent admin assistant could do (usually better). But still they remove all the support staff (pretty much any that have been retained are student rather than staff focused) and get us to basic data entry tasks instead. It’s not that I think I’m too good to do them; it’s that it’s totally wasteful to ask me to do them, and it prevents me from doing all the things you actually need an experienced academic to do.

You could be describing my university @Beerincomechampagnetastes. I really feel bad for the students that are interested and working hard. It’s awful for them. I resolutely refuse to dumb my classes right down to the lowest common denominator though. That’s not fair at all on the hard working, engaged students. It’s bad enough that they cannot befit from discussing things with their peers; they really need me to provide them with challenging, innovative and up-to-date materials to think through on their own.

Your DS’s accomplishment isn’t diminished @TinklyLittleLaugh. Most people know that it’s a myth that degrees are quality assured (and FHEQ levelled) to ensure parity between all institutions.

I’m a mature student and this is exactly my experience. Also doing a management course. Classes are so depressing to attend- very little interaction, everyone on laptops or phones browsing Facebook or online shopping. Little preparation and the standard of writing is abysmal. Working together in a group is challenging and fellow students become very defensive if you question their work.

That being said I’ve also found the instructors reliance on m/c testing with scantron sheets, premade powerpoints / quizzes is pretty standard. Which then leads to students questioning why they should bother coming to class. I’m at the point where I just want to finish.

@SingaSong12 a lot of them, because we are under pressure by the powers above to pass them no matter how poor they are. Often they complain about the injustice and lecturers are told you mark up the grades. Certainly this is my experience anyway. Of course I can't speak for all establishments.

I’ve got students complaining about the workload on my module. They want interactive classes but they aren’t willing to do any prep work for it. Apparently asking them to practice exactly the writing skills in their assignments is too much. And being asked to read one thing per 2 hour class session is far too much.

The absurdity is that this class have mostly failed or scraped a bare pass in their first semester module. And they just got those results plus feedback saying they need to read and do more work. Sontheir immediate course of action is to complain about the workload.

I have every confidence that the people above me will insist that I am in the wrong. But I cannot square a circle in which I am supposed to ensure pretty much everyone gets 2:Is but where no one is expected to do any work. And I’m not passing students who haven’t cited anything and do not understand any of the basic material in the module. Last year more than 1/3 of the students failed this module. It’s very well designed and taught - but only if the students are willing to do any work. Sadly they are not.

This just sums up how mad my university has become. All changes to programmes and new courses for next year get discussed and approved in mid April. This is done in a couple of meetings of academics, and done quite carefully; things get rejected and changed. All room booking requests have to be in by the end of February. So we have to request rooms without having finalised the course structures. You honestly could not make this up. The reason? The people who run room bookings have literally no idea how the wider university is run and academics are below them in the pecking order so can’t change the timing.