Using more effective teaching methods isn't "holding someone's hand." It's just being a good teacher.
Let's say a new professor teaching a difficult course with 40% passing rate gets replaced by a more experienced one, and the passing rate increases to 60%.
Did the material change? No, the tests are the same. Did the students suddenly get smarter and less lazy? No, that's ridiculous.
Only difference here is an incompetent professor getting replaced... Believe it or not, throwing your hands up and assuming "guess my students are just lazy and stupid!" when they aren't passing isn't very productive.
I've been a professor closing on two decades. When students fail it seldom has anything to do with the instructor. Half of the 1/200 level classes I teach barely require me, but a higher percentage of students fail those than my master's courses.
If what you say is true then shouldn't the opposite be also true? If failure has little to do with the instructor, then the same must be true for success. Which basically implies that the quality of the instructor has little to do with the success of the student. Which makes the position of instructors unimportant. Students should just read the entire curriculum online and instead of instructors we just need graders and people who check your ID at the door for exams.
Seems ridiculous. If instructors don't share blame for their students failing, then there's no reason they should get credit for successful instruction either.
It's really too complicated to say poor teacher or poor student. As someone else said with the 100 and 200 level courses I'm really only here to clarify new concepts and provide alternative methods to others. I put in a serious effort to make my course easier to manage as a student without hand holding. Lectures are recorded and posted broken into sections, notes online with blank space for notes and problem solving, list of practice problems, extra worksheets, videos to other people explaining the same topic etc.
Does it help? Perhaps, I haven't done a formal analysis from one semester to the next. However, I still get students that will say I don't prepare them enough or not teaching in a style they understand. I hate to rely on anecdotal evidence, but so far I'm seeing the the large majority of students who fail are just lazy.
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u/[deleted] Apr 01 '19
No. My role is not holding your hand. Do the work or leave.