Professor's guide for how to piss off students

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

PS - I assume that you’re aware of www.ratemyprofessor.com …

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@C K Dexter Haven

Most schools have students complete teacher evaluations the last week of the term, which is useless. At one school where I teach, those results aren’t made available until about six weeks into the next term: so, not only are the evaluations useless for the class that filled them out, they’re useless for most of the next term, too. By the time they come around, I’ve forgot what they were talking about. But I believe that most professors are happy to respond thoughtfully to well-meaning, helpful comments offered privately.during the course. Most professors would like to get high student evaluations, and are willing to consider complaints/suggestions that are offered politely and kindly.

Actually, this raises an interesting question for me: how does one offer feedback to a professor effectively?

Here’s my situation: I’m taking a children’s literature class, which I thought would be one of my favorite classes. Unfortunately, the professor is new to the university and (I think) new to teaching college students. She’s repeatedly prefaced comments to students in front of the class with, “I don’t mean to insult you, but. . . .” and is blithely unaware of how insulted the student looks. She gives us instructions, divides us into small groups for discussion, and then after a couple minutes of discussion starts interrupting with short useless comments on discussion, comments that are separated by about ten seconds of her silence. The effect is that discussion becomes very difficult, as any time a student begins to speak, he’s likely to be interrupted mid-sentence by the professor. She spends an enormous amount of classtime reading student papers aloud–not papers on a variety of topics, but rather papers that act as a summary of a textbook’s chapter (specifically, chapter 12).

It’s awful. Student attitudes toward her range from pity to loathing, and we’re really not learning anything in the class that we couldn’t learn from reading children’s literature on our own.

And I think her mistakes are all newbie mistakes, and I think her heart is really in the right place, and I’m pretty sure she likes me, as I’m passionate about her subject and well-read in children’s literature and will often talk with her after class a bit about a favorite book. I really want her to improve, and I want to figure out how to make her aware of the things she’s doing to sabotage her teaching. But I’m not sure how I can go about doing so.

If she doesn’t improve, I’m pretty sure she’s going to get close to 100% negative reviews from her students. As I said, this is her first year at the university, and those reviews could have an effect on her continued teaching.

Any advice?
Daniel