Students blame poor teaching for lower degrees

A growing number of students are contacting the Office of the Independent Adjudicator and lodging complaints against their universities.

Students are blaming poor teaching for their failure to obtain top-level degrees. The emerging pattern reflects the attitude among some students that the heavy rise in tuition fees they are essentially customers.

The trend in such complaints, revealed by  Universities Secretary, David Willetts, during a lecture to the think-tank Politeia insisted: “They’re paying for higher education – they’re not paying for a degree. One of the increasing areas of complaints is students saying: ‘I’ve got a 2:2 when I should have got a 2:1 – they’ve let me down.'”

For the original article in The Independent, please click here.

More women becoming professors in UK

According to a new report by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, there was a 4% rise in the number of women in the UK who are professors in the last year.

Despite the increase, women account for just 20% of UK professors. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union said “I am pleased that there has been a rise in the number of female professors in the sector. However, universities still have more to do to ensure that staff are promoted on merit irrespective of their background or gender….Students want to be taught by the best and brightest, and staff want to work in universities where gender is not an issue when it comes to career advancement.”

The union went on to caution that the 40% cut in teaching grants for English universities, to be replaced with funding from tuition fees, would result in a fall of staff and faculty numbers.

For the original BBC article, please click here.

“Brightest & Best” by Matt Morrison

Congratulations to FIE faculty member Matt Morrison. Matt’s latest play, “Brightest & Best” is set to open at the pilotLIGHT Theatre on Wednesday, 15 February. “Best & Brightest” is set to run until Friday, 10 March.

From the website: “The play is about how we get trapped by the choices we make, how education prepares us for life and how it screws us up.  Brightest and Best follows Management Consultant Rob as he decides it’s time to make a difference.  Only, his new start might be the beginning of the end. ”

For more information about Matt’s play and to book tickets, please click here.

Know Thy Professor

A new website started by Daniel Abram (a Northeastern University student) called  KnowThyProf.com hopes to provide a new platform for instructors to share information and engage with prospective students.

The new site is more interactive than the popular MTV-owned RateMyProfessor.com. KnowThyProf offers students the ability to ask instructors questions about their courses and teaching styles. The instructor responds in a limited number of characters, much like Twitter.

Abram hopes the site will offer student a more complete picture (in contrast to the often polarised RateMyProfessor) of their prospective instructors before signing up for classes.

For the original article in InsideHigherEd, please click here.

 

Teachers, Students, and Social Media

In 2011, the General Teaching Council (General Teaching Council) for England heard 336 cases of “unacceptable professional conduct”. 43 of the cases involved inappropriate use of social media by teachers to communicate with pupils.

Evidence used against teachers included transcripts of Facebook messages and internet chat logs, though in some instances emails alone were involved. Many of the teachers brought before the GTC for inappropriate use of social media had specifically instructed students to keep the communication secret.

Schools in England have vastly different policies on the use of social media. Some schools have no policy, while others strictly the prohibit the use of social media by their teachers outright, and many schools fall somewhere in between.

Internet safety consultant Karl Hopwood, “My advice to schools is to always have a very clear and robust ‘acceptable use’ policy which is a living breathing document, not some 25-page tome on the staffroom shelf gathering dust. I think that they also have to have very clear distinctions between public and private.”

For the original Guardian article in its entirety, please click here.