September 27, 2005
OPINIONSStudent’s time should not be wasted
When a student pays tuition for the semester, he or she expects to get a quality education and learning experience in return. And at MCC, this is usually the course of events; however, there always seem to be a few bad apples in the bunch.
Occasionally a student will find themselves in a situation where the class being taken is required for the student’s major, yet the teacher is not exactly one of the best MCC has to offer.
Becasue the class is required, dropping it is not an option.
While most students would say that switching teachers would be the next logical step, it is usually too late in the semester to do so since the student doesn’t realize the quality of a teacher, or lack thereof, until a few weeks in and by then classes are inevitably full.
The teachers on campus who are not up to par in the eyes of students are usually the ones who waste time in the classroom.
Most often, this is accomplished by teachers assigning chapters to be read in a text book, but then deciding that the class period will be spent reading through the text as a group word by word.
We are college students and are capable of reading our own materials we do not need a teacher to walk us through text like we did in third grade when popcorn reading was the activity of the day.
College is supposed to be about grasping concepts and understanding events at a deeper level than what was taught in elementary school, it’s not about going back to basics.
Peer review is another tool that teachers frequently use in all subjects that students could do without.
In English class, students are usually required to read other student’s essays, correct them, and give constructive criticism.
Frankly, the student in the next row is probably having the same problems as all the other students in the class. Therefore, I am not going to learn anything from that student reading over my paper and telling me what I did incorrectly.
In mathematics, students sometimes are told to get into groups to work on math problems.
The problem is that all the students in one group may not know how to do a problem, so time is wasted by everyone sitting there waiting for the answer from the instructor.
What it comes down to is that students pay for the opinion and the knowledge of the teacher teaching the class, not other students in the same class.
However, it’s very difficult for a teacher to create a proper learning environment when students in the class have not done their reading or assignments. This is college. There is only so much a teacher can do to inspire students, and it will ultimately be the responsibility of the student to get an education while attending MCC and the student’s grade will reflect that.
There are also teachers on campus who do not know how to teach.
For these teachers, when it comes time to explain a theory, a math problem, or a concept, getting the point across to students is difficult and student’s education and grades suffer from this.
It is not that the teacher is uneducated or unwilling to teach the class, it is just the fact that he or she doesn’t know how to teach.
In the mind of these teachers everything probably makes sense, and they understand what is being taught, but the point is not driven home to students.
Most students at MCC are extremely busy with other classes, work, and individual activities. A student’s time is precious and needs to be well-spent.
Therefore, teachers should strive to make the classes they teach worth the while.
Volume 43, Issue 3. Today is
