Higher Education?
Posted by: oldandrew in Commentary, tags: education, higher education, students, universityFor this entry I have turned my blog over to a friend so he can write about his experience of teaching, in the next level of the education system:
As a friend of Oldandrew for many years I agreed to write a guest entry for his blog. Unlike Oldandrew, I have not become a school teacher but have experience of teaching undergraduates at University. I have been teaching mathematics to students in a computer science department in a University whose computer science department is one of the top ten in the country. Here are a few of the important rules for teaching we were given in how we should handle students:
- Answers need to be marked for presence not correctness. These students are not mathematicians and are studying computer science so we can’t expect them to be interested and intelligent enough to be able to answer these questions correctly so as long as they attempt an answer it is fine.
- International students cannot fail. International students pay a lot of money for their tuition and if we fail them we may not get anymore and this will reduce our income.
- Teachers must teach at the speed of the slowest, one must never stretch the smartest students.
Sadly, the introduction of tuition fees has greatly influenced the attitude of students. It becomes increasingly common for students to demand good grades because they pay for their degree so they deserve to get a first. Similarly, students will refuse to hand in work at given times because they pay the wages of the lecturer.
International students also cause further problems for lecturers in that in some countries there is no concept of plagiarism. This means that even though students are made to sign an agreement not to commit plagiarism and the concept is explained to them in detail, international students regularly do. International students are nearly always caught because the quality of their English is below the standard of that used on Wikipedia and so whenever they cut and paste written extracts from Wikipedia it is stands out like blood in snow. If you point out to students that they are committing plagiarism then they will accuse you of racism because either you do not understand their culture (special sessions are now being put on for staff to help them understand the cultures where plagiarism is acceptable), or that you are expecting them to have too high a level of understanding of English.
A few words are in order about the ability of students from school. As a rule the only students who are actually capable of the work are Germans and Indians. The English students are often completely incapable of doing mathematics at a university level. When I went to university we did not cover anything we had done at A-level but instead starting doing new work but this is very rarely the case except at the very best universities, now the A-level syllabus is recovered in the first year so that all students are at the same level for their second year when they can be taught new material. In fact the ability of English students is so bad that at one point I was trying to prove, by induction, that something was divisible by three and I had shown that it was divisible by six. I then had to explain repeatedly that since six is three times two, anything divisible by six was also divisible by three. I even had a couple of students claiming that six was not three times two. It is at this point that I should point out that these students all have A grades in A-level mathematics.
Even when I was at university various courses were being moved from the second to the third year so the dumbing down of university of degrees has been going on for a number of years. Our education system is failing students and a lot of universities are doing their best to compensate, but this means that a lot of degrees have been dumbed down to the point where they are useless.
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October 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Things appear to have got worse since I finished my Ph.D. I only got accused of racism once by some overseas students who had both handed in identical drawings on a CAD course. I laughed at them. I also experienced some fail grades I handed out changed to passes. GRRR.
The dumbing down at university is one of the reasons I left HE and became a Secondary teacher. I had become disillusioned by students with A-level maths who could not do maths (although, in fairness, the top students were still very good). It was only when I got down here in the thick of things that I realised it was, to a large extent, the system of getting students qualifications, rather than teaching subjects, that was failing the students and giving students false expectations.
With regards to tuition fees it needs spelling out to HE students that they buy an opportunity to read for a degree, it doesn’t buy them the degree.
The sad result of all the dumbing down, of course, is for a degree to now be needed where before A-levels were and a Masters where a Bachelors would have done. For example to become a chartered engineer now requires a MEng or MSc for the fresh graduates, when I graduated, not so long ago, all I needed was my BEng(Hons).
I’ll stop ranting now.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Perhaps this blog needs to be renamed ‘Grumpy Young Men’?
I only dip in every now and then, but it seems to get more and more reactionary and opinion has so overwhelmed fact as to render it mostly ficticious.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Duncan,
I never cease to be amazed at your capacity to believe that when people’s experience does’t match your ideology, then it must be their experience that is mere “opinion”.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Agreed. I’ve only been here a month and already can see every one of OldAndrew’s posts coming true. Positives (for there are some) and negatives alike.
The education system is sick and needs help before it gets worse (if worse is even a possibility–after one of my lessons today, I somehow doubt it). And I’m deeply saddened to hear that higher ed is going down, too. Though, with such candidates as the Typical Students mentioned here, I guess there’s really no other option.
In the US a Bachelors degree is only slightly better than a high school diploma due to the dumbing down of courses. I would hate to think the same is happening here.
So how do we change the system? Please tell me, in six easy steps, because I can’t take another day like today.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Wow!
I’m a some-time reader of this blog for a few months now and it scares me.
I am not a teacher. I am currently doing a Masters and being a Dad to my 2yr old girl. I was considering looking into the PGCE, but, coupled with my experiences in junior and secondary schools (and one 6th form college), this blog is helping me look for an alternative.
I’ve taught a few workshops and have run a few arts/creative projects in these institutins and it was bloody hard work to get anyone to do anything because of the hurdles described in the above post and others that have gone before.
During the course of my MA, I’ve seen the antics above every week.
It is very, very sad. Degrees are becoming worthless almost due to the ubiquity of them, same with A levels. The student’s feelings of entitlement are joy to behold when witnessed first hand. They really are.
I don’t want to come home and feel like I could write things such as Mimi’s comment (’I can’t take another day like today’).
Good luck all of you - you deserve better.
Bocz
October 6th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Surely in time the people who employ your graduants will know how to disregard your ‘passes’.
There must be other effective teaching establishments.
Is not that what the ‘market’ is all about.
It is all a bit odd. Many, many years ago when I was at university the lecturers all acted as if they were doing the students a wearisome favour. I’m not sure if this was more effective.
October 8th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
[...] Slip is hosting this week’s Carnival of Education, which includes Old Andrew on dumbed-down degrees at English universities. A computer science professor recounts trying to teach students — all [...]