Hello everyone. I come to you today in hopes that one of you have dealt with such an issue in the past and may know how to properly go about remediating the situation at hand.
I am a long time college student and already possess two degrees and have decided to go back to school a number of years later for a bit of a change-up. I am enrolled at a local community college and am taking a course where the professor does not lecture.
The class is ‘lecture online’ and then ‘lab in class’. The lectures consist of Power Points that have come directly from the book publisher and she has done no lecturing. When asked question in class, or how to deepen my understanding of the difficult material, she reply with “You need to read the book.” and offers nothing more.
Her tests, she claims, are from the book but go multiple levels deeper than the book offers insight into. Many students are left to their own devices in attempting to understand the material, and the ones that are successful generally have backgrounds in this material.
Now normally, I would speak to the professor first about this and ask what more I can do to learn. When I did this, she told me to read the book again and again, and that I should spend at least 20 hours a week studying. When asked for extra problems or readings I could do, she just told me to reference the book once again.
Next, I would go to the head of the department, however she is the head of the department.
I feel that the only recourse here is to go to the academic dean, but I’m afraid of ruffling feathers and potentially tanking myself in this class. Advice?
And of course the site that list is on, Master Organic Chemistry, is also very good. It was helpful to me when I took Orgo 1 and 2.
It is unfortunate that your teacher is not being very helpful, but organic chemistry is just a hard class and it’s going to be on you to learn it. If there are problems in the book, do them. If there are concepts you don’t understand, supplement your book-reading (and note-taking while reading) with additional resources.
Thanks. I’ll definitely use the site. I take no issue with self-teaching in regards to college courses and I’ve done it several times before. The frustration stems from her giving tests that she says are completely from the book, and that that’s all we need to study, and then they’re not.
This teacher may be using a trendy teaching technique known as the “flipped classroom,” where students are supposed to do the “lecture” type stuff at home and “interactive” stuff in class.
Or she could just be a bad teacher.
What is your legitimate complaint that you want to bring to the dean? Is the teacher doing something that violates the “contract” of the syllabus? Is she harassing students or engaging in criminal or unethical behavior? Can you document actual examples of unprofessional behavior?
It’s college. Few professors are going to give exams with problems from the book. The best professors, IMO, will have questions which ask you to synthesize your knowledge, not just regurgitate.
As mentioned before, Organic Chem is a notoriously difficult class, but the onus on learning is on you. There are sites to supplement your learning.
I can’t say if the teacher is effective or not, but that really does not matter. In life, you may have bad teachers, and later you may have bad bosses. In this case, however, at least based upon what you have said, you have no basis to escalate.
@skieurope I don’t disagree with what you’ve said and I’m entirely capable of self-study. The root of the problem is we’re being tested on information not presented to us where it’s difficult to actually study because of such the broad range of information. The book makes examples of small, easily identifiable and nameable organic compounds, and she escalates the test (which I fully expect), but the book, nor any other resources we have, outline more complex examples of naming and identification.
It’s not a lack of self-study as much as it’s an issue of “I don’t know what I don’t know and that’s what I need to know”. I’ve found one or two resources that I’m using to substitute the gaps in what she’s teaching, but it’s sometimes just not enough because of the depth she’s drilling into the material. It’s like asking someone to figure out algebra when all they’ve been taught (and all the book offers) is multiplication. Sure a lot of the principles are the same, but things are now done entirely different depending on what’s next to what.
Edit: This isn’t about self-study either btw. The entire class is self-study as she hasn’t actually taught anything and when asked questions tells us to re-read the book. The problem is that we are self-studying, reading the entire book and going through handouts, and it’s still not enough.
I’m paying this woman for this course. She’s not answering questions, she’s not giving extra material when asked so that we can study MORE, and she’s testing on stuff that we don’t know exist.
The flipped classroom is the new thing and it’s proponents think that professors should lecture less, let students learn the material on their own, and then serve as a reference person for the in-class portion in the classroom.
I’m not sure that the Dean has a role to play here. I would encourage the OP to do what other good students do - form study groups and see how the other students can be helpful. Find out how the successful students study and emulate them.
If no one were ever getting an A or B in the class, then it would be something that the Dean might want to talk about, but the fact that a student thinks organic chemistry is hard would not be new info to the Dean.
I had a professor who did this in a grad science class and it had nothing to do with on-line classes nor “flipped” classes. The only problem we (the entire class) had was a “flipped” professor who just did his own thing and never answered to anybody about anything. No answer in book or anywhere we could ever find. He was a joke of a teacher no matter how smart he was considered to be.
He had 17 patents and the university wouldn’t touch him no matter how far out he got.
My advice: Do your best and get out of the class in one piece.
Why are you taking OChem? Are you wanting to do pre-med pre reqs?
If so, you need to understand OChem for MCATs.
Will this be the best way to do that?
First you need to evaluate if you are understandign the material.
Get the book “Organic Chemistry as a Second Language”. See if you can do the practice problems.
Then talk to the professor about specific problem. See if she seems to understand anything. Like take one of the practice problems in the above book and have her help you work it through. See if she can.
If not, I would suggest talking to the Dean of Students… tell them that you did talk to the prof, and you would have gone to the Head of Dept but she is the Head. Say that you understand she is using a flipped classroom, but when asked questions she would only point you to the book.
@CheddarcheeseMN - It’s not a flipped class. I’ve gone to her during the labs to ask for some clarity on the calculations I was doing and she stopped me, stood up, then announced to the class that if we had a problem in understanding the content, that we needed to go back and read the book again.
@gouf78 That’s really what I’m trying to do. This is a community college where I’m taking some pre-reqs and the college does NOT have a thing for research, so I doubt it’s the case of patents and more-so laziness on their part for not wanting to deal with bad professors.
@bopper I do need OChem for med, but not pre-med or MCATs. It’s for an accelerated second degree program. I found out about that book this past weekend and need to find the time between studying for OChem weekly quizzes, and my two other classes, to sit down and read it but I do fully intend to invest that time. As stated above, she’s not using the flipped classroom technique because she’s not even acting as a reference point for our questions or understanding. I took the first big test in the class last week, so we’ll see how it goes before I decide the level of energy I’m going to continue to invest.