# Poor Instructional Technique **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 15, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621 "2015-06-15T21:59:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/1 "2015-06-15T21:59:35Z")
I’m taking a stats refresher. The last stats class I took was over 20 years ago. I had even sat down over the last few weeks with one of my old college text books and gone through it. I was comfortable with it, and decided to go a little dee[er So my work offered a stats class and I signed up. The instruction is so horrible that I feel stupider than when I went in. So for those of you who are interested here are some bad teaching techniques: 1. Standing facing the board, reading out the words on the screen, and muttering so softly you can’t be heard beyond the first row. 2. Clicking around on software demonstrations without giving good verbal clue of where you’re clicking, since no one can see the d\*\*\* cursor. 3. Your slides on screen don’t match the ones in the student handbook. 4. You spend the first half of the day talking bout stuff that you will talk about later…for no particular reason that I can figure out. Anyone else have some bad teaching tips? I’m starting a short course next year, I’m always willing to learn. ---
**Author:** ![MissTake](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misstake/32/3189_2.png) [@MissTake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MissTake)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/2 "2015-06-15T22:06:12Z")
Figure out who the smartest people in the class are and teach only to them. Completely ignore those on the downside of the bell curve (I interned with a teacher who did this. The students were in elementary school). If the plan is to work on X, knowing your students have focused on X, change it up! Skip ahead to Z! Better yet, spring a test on Z that day. Tell your class all opinions are valid, then shut anyone down who expresses something different from your beliefs. Tell your class you don’t care HOW you get to the correct answer, just that you get the correct answer, then mark their work wrong if it was not done the “right” way. ---
**Author:** ![araminty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5e925/32.png) [@araminty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/araminty)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/3 "2015-06-15T22:36:38Z")
Our choir conductor may be a great musician, but he’s an awful teacher. Berate your learners constantly. Accuse them of laziness and inattention to detail. Tell them they’re not committed enough, even though they’re volunteers who give hundreds of hours of their time every year, and even pay dues for the privilege. Punish them by going over and over and over material that most have already learned, getting ever more picky about tone and technique. I wish he’d learn about positive reinforcement and the role of the amygdala in learning. Stressed, unhappy people CAN’T learn! ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/4 "2015-06-15T22:39:51Z")
I had a teacher in college who sounds to have been a bit similar to yours. She didn’t have any materials nor visual aids. She just stood, facing us, but with her head down, looking at her own shoes, and speaking as thought she was talking to a wall about 1 inch past her toes and entirely oblivious of the existence of all the other people in the room. You had to be in the first row to even hear her and, regardless of whether you could or not, staying awake was nearly impossible. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/5 "2015-06-16T00:23:00Z")
I had a psych professor like yours. One extra thing he did was write all over the board as he was talking, in no discernible manner. You could not follow him. Can’t be too mad at him, though. I broke my glasses and could not read the test, and had to try and schedule a make-up test. I was extremely stressed about this. He just said he’d average my other test grades in, because I was such a good student. Thing is, I’d made Cs on all his tests. (I think that was just one of the better grades in the class, and he curved, because I got an A in the course.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/6 "2015-06-16T03:41:10Z")
1. Provide powerpoint sent in advance. OK, this isn’t bad per se. 2. Read what’s on the powerpoints. Nothing else. 3. For five days. Eventually the coworker who was being trained at the same time and I started playing Sink the Fleet and Buzzword Bingo over IM. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/7 "2015-06-16T03:51:23Z")
1. You are complaining that the slides aren’t part of a canned lecture. Buck up and tell the prof to speak up after class. Or ask for clarification during class. If you’re saying all you complaints for the end of semester evals then you’re part of the problem, too. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/8 "2015-06-16T06:52:08Z")
Be sure to include a problem on the test on a topic that you only briefly touched on in class, and that is only briefly touched on in the textbook. But make the problem rather more elaborate than anything you covered in class or in the text or in any practice homework problems. But wait! There’s more! Have a total of _three_ problems on the test. ALL of them like that, and all of them just variations on one another. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/9 "2015-06-16T12:43:04Z")
1. The final test is something standardized by the college however it has nothing to do with what was taught in class. 2. Making students buy a special textbook because the instructor wrote it. It’s so crappy that no one else will buy it. 3. Teach in such a manner that the students know how brilliant you are; however, the material presented is so far over their heads that they learn nothing. I was an aircraft maintenance instructor in the US Air Force. I received an instructor evaluation from my supervisor at least twice a year. Later I conducted such evaluations. When I started teach in college, I did not receive an instructor evaluation for the first 8 years! That’s how bad teachers get behind the podium in colleges. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/10 "2015-06-16T12:56:28Z")
I just became a notary in my state. I passed the test, but only with an 85% score. I typically do better on tests. The teacher never showed us how to actually fill out the notary form. She was big on mnemonics and she talked for over six hours, but I just did not feel properly prepared and my score reflected that. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/11 "2015-06-16T13:03:20Z")
Make sure that English is your second language, mispronounce everything and talk real fast. Get really, really pissed off if someone asks you to clarify your pronunciation. Example: a teaching assistant from Bangladesh was in charge of a physics learning lab in college. He blew up at me because he thought that I was making fun of him when I quite seriously asked what “etch” was. He replied,“Etch?”. I said, “Yes, you just said to divide the result by etch. I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is” He said,“Not etch! Not Etch! ETCH!!! - Planck’s Constant!!! I do not appreciate you making fun of me!” (symbol for Planck’s constant is an “H”) ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/12 "2015-06-16T13:08:31Z")
Have narcolepsy. I kid you not, I once had a statistics prof who suffered from narcolepsy. Of all the subjects he could have been teaching, statistics?! It’s already prone to being dull. So it turned out that narcolepsy was contagious. The whole class caught it. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/13 "2015-06-16T13:56:11Z")
I had a professor who had an incomprehensible Polish accent, but made up for it by having indecipherable handwriting on the chalkboards. I dropped the class after 2 weeks and was shocked that anyone stayed in it. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/14 "2015-06-16T14:06:19Z")
I had one that would write on the board with one hand, erasing with the other, lecturing about what was in between, conveniently hidden behind his head. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/15 "2015-06-16T16:46:37Z")
Be senile. My economics prof once lectured on the same chapter for two weeks. He refused to listen to us when we told him he’d already lectured on it and we were supposed to be 4 chapters past that. We knew it would all be on the test, so we got the TA to help us. His comment: “Goddamn, he’s done it again.” He then taught us the material and gave us worksheets for the chapters that helped us pass the tests. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/16 "2015-06-16T19:47:28Z")
- Pick a verbal crutch and use it constantly. I was in a training class at work and the contractor brought in to teach us (something that I don’t recall) was very fond of the words \*basically \*and _essentially_. I swear, in one 2-hour session, I counted several hundred “basicallys” and half as many “essentiallys.” To this day, I refuse to use either word unless absolutely necessary. - Use class time to share tidbits about your personal life and philosophy, because students can’t get enough of that. I had 2 different instructors who did this - most notably the History teacher who was compelled to share his child-rearing tips with a room full of teenagers. - Repeatedly tell your students “This is so simple, a child of 3 could do it.” Um, no, I don’t think many 3-year-olds understand feedback circuits. OK, this was a grad student instead of a prof, but that’s still not something to say to any students in a beginning level class. I got my revenge - I wrote a final report in crayon and signed it “By a child of 3” - yeah, juvenile of me, but it felt good! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marion\_Wormer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d07c76/32.png) [@Marion\_Wormer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marion_Wormer)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/17 "2015-06-17T00:34:51Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > 1. You are complaining that the slides aren’t part of a canned lecture. > > Buck up and tell the prof to speak up after class. Or ask for clarification during class. If you’re saying all you complaints for the end of semester evals then you’re part of the problem, too. It’s a little more complicated than simply the slides aren’t part of a canned lecture. We’re supposed to be building computer models and and third of the slides are for a different piece of software than the one used in class, and the instructor has little experience with it, hasn’t taught the course in two years, and didn’t review the workbook before the class, so when he gets to a point where he wants to use a slide he flips back and forth until he finds one that’ll do. And half the files for the software are missing. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/18 "2015-06-17T01:24:45Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > I had one that would write on the board with one hand, erasing with the other, lecturing about what was in between, conveniently hidden behind his head. I had a friend who told of a teacher who did this. Is that you, Bruce? > [@BubbaDog](#): > > He said,“Not etch! Not Etch! ETCH!!! - Planck’s Constant!!! I do not appreciate you making fun of me!” (symbol for Planck’s constant is an “H”) If h is etch, then H is ETCH. Planck’s constant is denoted by _h_ . So how did he pronounce ħ ? > [@FairyChatMom](#): > > - Use class time to share tidbits about your personal life and philosophy, because students can’t get enough of that. > > I had 2 different instructors who did this - most notably the History teacher who was compelled to share his child-rearing tips with a room full of teenagers. Had a prof who did this too. Oldish fossil of a Computer Programming teacher, he spent 5 minutes of every lecture (at the most) on-topic, then the rest of the time telling his war stories. I had, IIRC, four different classes with him (three of which I was challenging since I had actually been programming for 30 years). One of those classes was C, which he _did not know at all_ beyond “Hello World”, if that. I spent that semester coaching him behind the scenes; he was at least open to that. Before the first day, I offered him my suggested first class assignment (literally, the “Hello World” program, with comment lines including my name on the top). He passed copies out to the class, the assignment being to log into our accounts, use the editor to enter the program, and then compile and run it. Half the class typed it in exactly as printed, _including with my name instead of their own on the first comment line._ In one of those classes (the FORTRAN class), the text book was just unimaginably atrocious. Just bad beyond description. The TA had to make up all his own programming exercises and pass them out because the ones in the text were so full of typos and other errors (along with the rest of the text) so as to be incomprehensible. In another class (dBASE IV, not taught by the same guy), the text was equally bad. In two other classes he taught (COBOL and C), the textbook was merely _really bad._ I can’t imagine how hard the department must have worked to find such bad textbooks so consistently. I dropped out the the Data Processing major at that community college _one semester short_ of completing it because I would have been too embarassed for any local prospective employers to know that I had an AS degree in Data Processing from this college. (I was dual-majoring in that and Math too. I completed the Math major for my AS degree.) ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/19 "2015-06-17T01:30:00Z")
I am obviously in the wrong profession. Based on the fore-mentioned discussions, I would have been out on the street with a cardboard sign spelling out “Will Teach For Food”. How can I apply for such a position? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2015, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621/20 "2015-06-17T01:41:45Z")
One of my favorite college teachers had a great method. Before each class he’d hand out the lecture notes (outline style) for that day’s class. One day someone asked why he did it. He explained that that way the students could underline or make a note or something, but in general they spent the time listening to him, absorbing what he said, engaging in conversation etc, not spending the entire time killing themselves trying to keep up with writing down everything on the chalkboard/screen as fast as possible and maybe spend a few seconds _hearing_ him before he flipped to the next thing. He always said he imagined his student’s heads to look like test tube racks. Through out the year he would speak all this knowledge at them (their heads tilted down, the test tubes pointed at him) and test tubes filled up. Come test time, they put their heads down again and just dumped all that knowledge right back on to the page. Never absorbed, just memorized for long enough to vomit it all back out on to the paper. IMO, handing out the notes was a huge help. It was really nice to spent an hour listening to a lecture instead of scrambling to copy down notes and hope I could read my writing 4 weeks later and remember what he said when I was studying for the test. Speaking of talking to the board, one of my math professors did this…with thick Russian accent. Try making sense of that. Then there was the physics chair that was like 900 years old that thought it was a good idea to teach 101 classes. Problem was, when we’d do those long (multi black board (or multi notebook page) problems, they wouldn’t work out and it would take him and the class to figure out where he went wrong…‘ooo ooo oo, Dr G, you flipped a sign in the third line’. Any of you that have done physics or something like Linear Algebra know what it means when you flip a sign in the third line of a problem that’s 60 lines long. It takes a while to propagate that back through. This was a daily occurrence. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-instructional-technique/722621.md?page=2)