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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2804 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So I have a class starting up tomorrow that's required for my major, he's the only teacher for it, and he has a frankly horrendous ratemyprofessors rating. 2/5 off of 45 reviews, so sample size sure not massive, but even the positive 4 and 5 star reviews come with caveats and fully half of the reviews are a 1/5. He's got some sort of crazy setup where he doesn't use either Canvas or my university's home-grown LMS system (for posting assignments, grades, everything) but rather a custom Moodle setup that's very difficult to navigate, and the syllabus is not only confusing in its requirements but apparently he's also having us literally do 70% of the grading for him (madatory peer grading that... seems to be worth MORE points than actually doing the assignment itself! What??). There are all sorts of other signs that he's a little scattered and/or lazy, like extremely long pre-class videos, the classroom is located in the top floor of the um, athletic building (mostly it's a pool and a indoor courts and dance studios), the fact he posted winter's class setup by mistake and left it for most of the day, and still buried in the syllabus there's a whole series of tech setup steps for the code-related portion of the class and comments suggesting it should be done before the first class even starts -- yet the only email he's sent out, other than one that again linked to the WRONG CLASS, was one saying it would be nice to fill out our "profiles" on the page. All the comments are about how he's basically a non-existent teacher and going to class is almost worthless.

Anyways those are in some ways not relevant details. Mostly, it's just the quantity of awful ratings that's a bit shocking, at least for my teaching-focused university. My question: Do you think it's acceptable to ask the professor directly, whether in class or privately, why he has such a dreadful rating and if he plans to do anything differently? I know ratings != reality, but surely there's some merit to a sample size like that even if it's self-selected. And I'm honestly very tempted to, though maybe I should give it a few classes as a benefit of the doubt kind of thing.

You need to go and (re)read Professor Quirrell's early lectures from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. In particular the points about not going around making enemies and keeping sight of your goals:

Chapter 16:

Professor Quirrell's lips turned up in a thin smile. "And that is the true reason why Draco Malfoy is dangerous. Had he selected any other, that child would more likely resent being singled out, and Mr. Malfoy would more probably make an enemy. And while Mr. Malfoy might have given some other justification for selecting her, that would have served him no purpose save to alienate some of you, while others are already cheering him whether he says anything or not. Which is to say that Mr. Malfoy is dangerous because he knows who to strike and who not to strike, how to make allies and avoid making enemies. Two more Quirrell points to you, Mr. Malfoy. And as you have demonstrated an exemplary virtue of Slytherin, I think that Salazar's House has earned a point as well. You may rejoin your friends."

Chapter 19:

"But no. The first item was, 'I will not go around provoking strong, vicious enemies.' The history of the world would be very different if Mornelithe Falconsbane or Hitler had grasped that elementary point. Now if, Mr. Potter - just if by some chance you harbor an ambition similar to the one I held as a young Slytherin - even so, I hope it is not your ambition to become a stupid Dark Lord."

Chapter 20:

Understand that the Dark Lord did not win that day. His goal was to learn martial arts, and yet he left without a single lesson.

Which is to say, this is a stupid idea. Your professor is predictably going to get offended. At best he will tell you to get out of his office; at worst, you insult him in public and he will go out of his way to retaliate against your grade. The possibility that anything good will come out of this, such as the professor deciding to improve his curriculum, is so small as to be laughable; that is not how human beings work.

Your goal is to get your graduation requirement. Do not antagonize your professor for no good reason.

Does he have tenure? If he does, he probably doesn't give a fuck about teaching his subject to a bunch of losers and you won't be able to do anything.

Make sure you break the ice by asking him if he’s stopped beating his wife first. You don’t want to come off to adversarial.

Yeah, don’t ask him. But

He's got some sort of crazy setup where he doesn't use either Canvas or my university's home-grown LMS system (for posting assignments, grades, everything) but rather a custom Moodle setup that's very difficult to navigate

How is this allowed by the administration? Your college lets professors just avoid the university’s LMS? Even when they’d refuse to put useful stuff up there they still had to use it for grades and stuff for us, and that was quite a while ago.

If the class is mandatory, asking him that risks him retaliating against you if he gets offended.

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