Any University lecturers out there?...Some advice please.

[DisneyYoda]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Yes, it's up to the students to ask the university (in the first instance, their course tutor) for assistance saying that they felt the course was poorly taught. Part of the point of universities is to get these young adults to start doing things on their own and take responsibility for their education. If they feel they weren't taught properly then they need to ask for assistance. (And, yes, I realise that sounds a bit harsh but - on the other hand - the University isn't going to help them further unless they ask).

My daughter has often asked for assistance from her lecturers, course tutor and student support with regards to some of her first year work. They will provide feedback of her answers and go through where she went wrong. Admittedly, some of her lecturers are better at this than others.

I'd hope your son'e university would do the same. It's no different to what I'd expect them to do in normal years, albeit over a video call nowadays rather than face-to-face in the old days. If a student fails a module, I'd hope the lecturers or course tutor would be happy to help where they can when asked.



The thing is, the University states not to book a holiday during the dates when resits happen - just in case. That "just in case" applies as much to the University's "foul up" and it does to the student's "foul up" (and students can, and do, fail modules for a variety of reasons even when the module is taught as well as can be expected).

Therefore it doesn't matter if the University fouled up on this module or not; students shouldn't have booked a holiday at this time. Or, if they do, they take the risk that their holiday may have to change or be cancelled if it is required to do so for *any* reason (including the University's foul up). That's the agreement you and the University make when the Univeristy advises you of these resit dates.

Now, if the University had not made it clear when the dates of the resits could happen until recently - or if they've changed the dates - then you would have a case to make. But I assume that isn't the case?

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As far as I can see they are not making an effort to put this right. But that is a question for them over the coming weeks.

All I know is that groups of students have been making representations and are getting little back from the University.

I’ve seen emails from my son to the tutor for this module asking for support and he gets one line responses (literally...and without punctuation). Basically ‘go rewatch the video tutorials’. These are the tutorials which are irrelevant to the material they were tested on. It is pretty shoddy.

And in any other year I would agree that they should push students to be more self sufficient but this is not any other year. For half the year my Son has been stuck in his room at home working/trying to work and the other half stuck in his rented room and not able to socialise or even enter a lecture theatre to meet course mates. That is not normal.

No idea if they advertised the retake dates. I suspect not as they seem to be making this up as they go along. One example of how bad they are...every week during lockdown the University were sending students messages asking why they were not turning up to lectures! This went on for six months until someone turned them off 🙄

[Melbatb]

No help but my son took a summer course last year to get extra credits (he is not at a UK university). His 3h exam was at 4am in the middle of our holidays. He managed!

But I do agree that it seems really bad of the university 😡

[CrispyA]

Exam dates are set years in advance and the guidance on not booking holidays during the resit period will have been given to all students. Exam dates will be in course handbooks and on the website. Students may need to take exams in the resit period for all kinds of reasons so it’s good advice to keep it clear.

I’m sorry your son feels that he was badly taught - the time to raise this is during the teaching period with the module leader/personal tutor/student reps/director of teaching. There are lots of ways to raise these issues and it’s hard for an organisation to fix any thing if they aren’t told at the time. Engineering is a very difficult subject and it may well do him good to do the resit and really focus on that material. He could try an appeal against any failure but the best that they could probably do would be a resit with no capped marks.

Has he spoken to the course reps? If the whole cohort performed badly it’s likely that the results were scaled. If he needs to pass this module to progress then he will need to resit. Second year can be a huge leap in difficulty so they need to make sure students have got to grips with the material

Believe me, nobody working in a University wants the students to struggle but if they don’t tell us while the teaching is going on, we can’t do anything to help. Some subjects are very difficult to learn remotely, particularly mathematical ones.

If the students really feel that they were not taught the skills to pass the exam, they could make a complaint. Students Union would be able to advise on that.

[DisneyYoda]

Originally Posted by CrispyA

Exam dates are set years in advance and the guidance on not booking holidays during the resit period will have been given to all students. Exam dates will be in course handbooks and on the website. Students may need to take exams in the resit period for all kinds of reasons so it’s good advice to keep it clear.

I’m sorry your son feels that he was badly taught - the time to raise this is during the teaching period with the module leader/personal tutor/student reps/director of teaching. There are lots of ways to raise these issues and it’s hard for an organisation to fix any thing if they aren’t told at the time. Engineering is a very difficult subject and it may well do him good to do the resit and really focus on that material. He could try an appeal against any failure but the best that they could probably do would be a resit with no capped marks.

Has he spoken to the course reps? If the whole cohort performed badly it’s likely that the results were scaled. If he needs to pass this module to progress then he will need to resit. Second year can be a huge leap in difficulty so they need to make sure students have got to grips with the material

Believe me, nobody working in a University wants the students to struggle but if they don’t tell us while the teaching is going on, we can’t do anything to help. Some subjects are very difficult to learn remotely, particularly mathematical ones.

If the students really feel that they were not taught the skills to pass the exam, they could make a complaint. Students Union would be able to advise on that.

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Thanks for that...some very useful information there. 👍

I think the point here is that the University, or more specifically the department is very aware of the issue and have had numerous comms from unhappy students since Christmas wrt this module. They have done nothing about it.

I have no doubt that if they didn’t have the cover of Covid and were actually around the deparment they would have a lot of disgruntled students turning up and things would get sorted pretty darn quickly. As it is they are all wfh and are batting off emails as far as I can see.

Unfortunately some organisations do have diffulties managing underperforming staff. No one wants students to fail but deficiencies in the organisation can bring about that failure nonetheless. Like any service it can screw up. Just reality really.

In my other son’s secondary school they have had a similar issue with a science teacher (Constantly off sick, disinterested in the pupils, not marking work etc). I’m sure the teacher has her own issues but it’s the school who have poorly managed the situation.

My son is just finishing assessments at the moment but after that I’m sure things will start to move! And from next week they can’t hide at home! 😀

[123]

I think you have a few interconnected issues here (leaving aside the holidays timing)

First you don't say if anyone passed the course with ease, if any number of students passed the course at 2:1 or 1st level then it is a hard sale to say the course was under taught, they will just turn around and say your kid (and their peers) didn't do enough self study.

If everyone did do badly they will have scaled the exam results back (making 20% raw marks appear like 40% in scored marks). If they have done this and your kid still failed then they really didn't understand the course content, this should have been apparent during the course and revision period and that would have been the correct time to ask for help.

All universities publish their syllabus and they will all say that the lectures area method to deliver the content is a way they feel is digestible to the students, they will also say it is the students responsibility to learn the material and their is more than one way to access that material.

Unfortunately your son has very little comeback on the university unless he has a written paper trail of complaints from before the exam period showing that he has asked for help but that none was given.

They are (as you said) young adults and they should be taking responsibility for their own education, this isn't school, no one is going to spoon feed them the information

[DisneyYoda]

Originally Posted by 123

I think you have a few interconnected issues here (leaving aside the holidays timing)

First you don't say if anyone passed the course with ease, if any number of students passed the course at 2:1 or 1st level then it is a hard sale to say the course was under taught, they will just turn around and say your kid (and their peers) didn't do enough self study.

If everyone did do badly they will have scaled the exam results back (making 20% raw marks appear like 40% in scored marks). If they have done this and your kid still failed then they really didn't understand the course content, this should have been apparent during the course and revision period and that would have been the correct time to ask for help.

All universities publish their syllabus and they will all say that the lectures area method to deliver the content is a way they feel is digestible to the students, they will also say it is the students responsibility to learn the material and their is more than one way to access that material.

Unfortunately your son has very little comeback on the university unless he has a written paper trail of complaints from before the exam period showing that he has asked for help but that none was given.

They are (as you said) young adults and they should be taking responsibility for their own education, this isn't school, no one is going to spoon feed them the information

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It will be very interesting to get the full facts and the comments above have been really useful in helping me frame questions to suggest to my son and be forewarned wrt the type of response which might come back from the University.

On the face of it though it appears they have a pretty poor lecturer for this particular module. One thing the students will certainly have is a paper trail asking for support and none given.

You are right that there is a need for students to be self learners. To that I would say, it's the degree of self learning here and to disconnect between what has been taught and what has been tested. In the extreme, would it be acceptable for a lecturer to pass out the reading list and say, off you go, you'll be tested on this stuff in 6 months. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be in his contract.

If I'd paid for a photography course at my local college and that happened I thing I'd be right to be a bit annoyed. Difference is, that might be £100 but if the University don't step in and do something here there's a chance my son with be thrown off a course which costs a whole lot more than that. Accountability works both ways.

[123]

Originally Posted by DisneyYoda

It will be very interesting to get the full facts and the comments above have been really useful in helping me frame questions to suggest to my son and be forewarned wrt the type of response which might come back from the University.

On the face of it though it appears they have a pretty poor lecturer for this particular module. One thing the students will certainly have is a paper trail asking for support and none given.

You are right that there is a need for students to be self learners. To that I would say, it's the degree of self learning here and to disconnect between what has been taught and what has been tested. In the extreme, would it be acceptable for a lecturer to pass out the reading list and say, off you go, you'll be tested on this stuff in 6 months. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be in his contract.

See more...

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be seen as good teaching practice, but so long as the students got the results it Ultimately doesn't matter how they get there.

Many years ago, I know one of my lectures (in maths) did optional tutorials if you wanted help. Very few went to them.

He did say at the second tutorial that whilst he couldn't confirm or deny this rumour, it was often said that all the exam questions on this subject could be found in a published book (which coincidentally he was the author of). Said published book also had worked solutions to all problems.

The book was £24 and the rumour was 100% true...

[DisneyYoda]

Originally Posted by 123

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be seen as good teaching practice, but so long as the students got the results it Ultimately doesn't matter how they get there.

Many years ago, I know one of my lectures (in maths) did optional tutorials if you wanted help. Very few went to them.

He did say at the second tutorial that whilst he couldn't confirm or deny this rumour, it was often said that all the exam questions on this subject could be found in a published book (which coincidentally he was the author of). Said published book also had worked solutions to all problems.

The book was £24 and the rumour was 100% true...

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And I had a lecturer on my degree course who invited all students in for a one to one and basically told them the questions on the paper. It's a way for poor lecturers to get the students through (and save their own bacon). I also see it happening in the teacher assessed GCSEs this year with my younger son.

Unfortunately, this lecturer doesn't seem to be playing the game!

[123]

Originally Posted by DisneyYoda

And I had a lecturer on my degree course who invited all students in for a one to one and basically told them the questions on the paper. It's a way for poor lecturers to get the students through (and save their own bacon). I also see it happening in the teacher assessed GCSEs this year with my younger son.

Unfortunately, this lecturer doesn't seem to be playing the game!

See more...

Yes the OP seems to have been cursed with the very worst of both world's.

A lazy lecturer who hasn't given the class the secrets in order to disguise his inadequacies

[Harry]

My Daughter is in her first year at Reading Uni... on the Film and Theatre design course... been in her words... pointless... virtually zero interaction with colleagues or more importantly... equipment... large part of the course is practical and since December they pulled the plug on it... so basically a few essays and written assignments that have literally nothing to do with what she signed up to do... this along with being bullied out of her first halls... and then being moved into halls full of mature foreign students who basically... keep themselves to themselves... very few friends... as you cannot meet anyone... so in her words... it's been on nigh on £15k worth of debt for nothing. Yes ... people will bring up it's all down to Covid... keeping safe.. stopping the spread... which kind of makes a mockery of two other girls we know ... on the same course ... same year... different Uni's (ones in Falmouth) but both have said they have had a whale of a time on their courses... spent loads of time in the studios... using equipment... making documentarys... using props... making friends... and basically... getting on with things... so how comes the same course is giving students such differering experiences... fingers crossed she will catch up in the next two years... however this year has been a complete and utter waste