ATTITUDE OF INSTRUCTORS

Today, we will turn our attention to the attitude of some instructors/teachers to student learning. There are many excellent teacher out there but there are some who do not care whether the student has learned or not. They will pass a student just for the sake of attending classes and doing no work or minimal work. They have the reputation of passing everybody in the class and students love taking their classes to their own detriment. Students like to give these instructors excellent evaluations and these teachers/instructors love it. What a shame? Some of these students go on to the higher level classes and then they realize that they do not know the fundamentals.

Some instructors will only teach the minimum of the course content thinking they are doing the students a good service. They think the students don't have the capability to grasp the material and they do not want to be bothered. They fear that students will fail their classes and they will be queried or lose their jobs especially if the person is an adjunct. I don't blame them because many good instructors have lost their jobs because they ensure that the students know enough of the material before they pass them. They don't fear to fail students who are lazy. These instructors usually get poor evaluations from the students because they do not bend the rules. They do not "curve" the grades and students hate them.

If instructors maintain strict rules and ensure that the course expectations are meet, we will certainly produce students who are ready to compete in this rapidly changing world. The students know which instructor is lax with expectations and they share this with their friends on various social media sites. In one school, where there are two people teaching pathophysiology, one instructor has over 100 students and the other has about 10 students. Why? This is because students second one is very strict with his expectations. He will not curve the grades and you have to work hard to pass his class. Students who pass his class always do better in the next level of the course and in the clinical courses. Instructors should wake up and do the right thing! Let's stop the trend in creating functional illiterates.

There are some instructors who will never assign any homework and some who will assign but never grade them. Students will not do the work when they realize that the instructor falls into one of these categories. They learn to play the game. Students work harder when they know that some weight is put on the homework assignments. Some instructors feel they do not have the time to grade these assignments so they do not give them at all.

As an instructor, you have to see the students as a potential instructor and even a better one than you. With this attitude, you will be able to impart the necessary knowledge to achieve this aim. Let's cultivate the right attitude to teaching!