Sometimes "F"? is an Instructor's Failure

Sometimes "F" is an Instructor's Failure

My purpose for discussing this topic is not to condone poor academic performance or a lack of initiative which leads to poor grades. There is no doubt that to be successful at any level of education requires effort on the part of the learner, which means active participation driven by desire. However, sometimes those F's are earned by the instructor just as much as by the student.

WHO REALLY FAILED WHEN A STUDENT FLUNKS?

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In my experience, some instructors approach teaching like a beast on the hunt for vulnerable prey. They figuratively ponce onto students and kill their enthusiasm for learning. If a high percentage of your students are flunking out of your course, then who is really failing? When very little is being learned, then logic dictates that very little is being taught.

When it comes to being a college student, I know a thing or two because my college transcripts represent nearly a dozen colleges and universities. Along the way, I managed to successfully complete four college degrees. Some say that I'm addicted to education, and that accusation is probably justified. No, I don't deny that there is something about the acquisition of knowledge that intrigues me in a way that borders (or breaches) on obsession.

Whatever my motivation has been, it has been my privilege to complete more than 300 professional development courses in addition to my formal postsecondary education. These nontraditional courses have been in various modalities; face-to-face classroom, remote campus video links, online synchronous, and online asynchronous. I have had success and failure in my academic journeys.

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Sometimes my success or failure with a particular course was due to my effort or lack thereof. I had exceptionally good instructors and I had some who should have considered other careers. Some of the self-paced courses were so well done that I have taken notes to apply in my own instructional design and curriculum development. Other courses were so poorly developed that they were a tremendous waste of my time and a waste of the time of those who developed them.

"Every Teaching Moment Should Also Be a Learning Moment for An Instructor"

When student failure increases, the instructor's efficacy decreases. Whether an instructor wants to admit it or not if even one student fails, then the intended goal, which is the successful transfer of knowledge, has also failed to some degree. The correlation is undeniable. However, instructors can minimize the amount they contribute to student failure by holding themselves to a similar standard.

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For example, if nothing less than 65% is a passing grade, then if 36% of students are flunking a course, the instructor has failed to successfully teach the content. Also, if 65% is barely a passing grade, then the instruction was also below average. The content and delivery method should be reviewed and revised to improve the effectiveness of the instruction. Every teaching moment should also be a learning moment for an instructor. Make mental notes of what is and what is not working.

ACHIEVING THE PASSING GRADE

So how does an instructor obtain their desired level of teaching aptitude? Well, just as with students, it takes effort and commitment.

I enjoy transferring knowledge just as much as I enjoy obtaining it. More recently I have begun teaching in higher education and my experience includes a variety of modalities and institutions. I have taught instructional design to professors who had to transition to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and to working professionals looking to upskill or reskill for better career growth opportunities. In addition to instructional design, I also teach the humanities, and communication studies courses.

My students range from graduate students, pursuing advanced degrees, to community college students who are the first in their families to explore higher education. In both cases, the end goal is to successfully teach skills and transfer knowledge. However, my instructional approach is not the same because the student demographics are much different between graduate students and first-generation community college students.

In fact, I occasionally make minor adjustments down to the individual student level to improve learning outcomes. Of course, due to the number of students I might have in a single term (e.g. 300 in a single class), it is not always possible to have a one-on-one level of instruction. Also, since I teach online across multiple time zones, coordinating one-on-one time can be a challenge. Considering those variables, I try to focus on a few recurring problems, and then I share solutions with all of the students.

I have noticed that my success rate is higher with my university graduate students than with my community college students. There could be a number of reasons for this, including a natural tendency for graduate students to be more focused on learning. Also, at the community college, many students might discover that formal postsecondary education is not for them, and so they drop out to pursue other career avenues.

Whatever the case might be, I can say that my success rate at the community college level has been as low as 25%; meaning, 75% of my students who did not drop of the course failed. On the other hand, I recently had a graduate class where 100% of the students passed the course and none dropped out. That was an outlier and will likely never happen again in my higher education teaching career. My typical success rate at the graduate level is about 70%, which means there is definitely room for improvement.

WHEN EXPERIENCE GETS IN THE WAY OF TEACHING

While subject matter proficiency and expertise should be a prerequisite for teaching any topic or skill, when used inappropriately they can be detrimental to learning. This is sometimes described as an expert blind spot (see sidebar article "Expert Blind Spot"), meaning the instructor is so familiar with the content or skill that they unknowingly skip over the foundational concepts, creating a learning gap. This is more common than most might think.

I have been on both sides of the expert blind spot experience. Two experiences were as an instructor at a community college. The students were expected to format their papers in the latest American Psychological Association (APA) style formatting guidelines. I was into my third semester of teaching when I realized that even with the links and supplemental example materials, the students had no idea what APA style formatting was and why it was important for them to adhere to it when formatting their papers.

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On another occasion at that same community college, I found that several of my students were plagiarizing their work. Even after several warnings and specific announcements, the infractions persisted. Finally, while going over the syllabus in an introduction to the course lecture, a student asked, "What is plagiarism?" It was one of the students who had been cited for the infraction in a previous course! Not only had I assumed that the students knew what plagiarism was, but I had also assumed that my minimal attempts to define it were sufficient.

"Sometimes Those Who Know Can't Teach"

I also experienced an expert blind spot occurrence as a student when I was enrolled in trigonometry analytical geometry at a university. The instructor was a chemist by profession and taught part-time. At the beginning of class, he rarely acknowledged the students and immediately turned his back to begin writing complex equations on the blackboard. I lived about 65 miles from the campus and attended night courses because I was working full time during the day. This made staying after class to speak with the instructor difficult, and especially when I had to wait in line outside of his office.

That instructor finally offered a couple of special tutoring sessions to help those of us who were struggling; basically everyone. However, when we showed up that first night, he said he hadn't expected so many students to need tutoring and had only reserved a small room, so we met outside. After about 30 minutes of listening to his stories about his dating life, it was clear to me that the opposite of that disparaging saying about teachers is more accurate; sometimes those who know can't teach.

I drove the 65 miles to the university on another night for a tutoring session and this time we met in the library where we could all fit (although there were far fewer students who attended that second tutoring session). Again, the instructor talked about his dating life for a solid 20 minutes before a fellow student spoke up, "When are we going to get to the tutoring part?" The instructor looked offended and replied, "Why don't you schedule office hours for that?" What? He was clueless that some of us only had that time in the evenings to attend that class.

The student enrollment for that trigonometry analytical geometry course went from 34 to 7 and only three students passed the course. I was not one of those who passed and ended up enrolling in another trigonometry course at a community college closer to my home. Fortunately, I was able to learn the material and pass the course.

YOU HAVE TO DO THE WORK TO IMPROVE YOUR APTITUDE

Just like with any skill, teaching requires work to improve. Failure to adapt when necessary can only result in mediocre skills and results. While it is certainly much more convenient to recycle entire lectures when you have hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of students in a school year, it is not always effective to do so. If the information, classroom culture, and modalities change, then so too must the instructor.

"Weakness Is Never A Strength Until You Strengthen It"

Read the latest literature on your subject area, join social media groups dedicated to your subject area and network within those groups. Also, find ways to engage with your students in a more one-on-one format. If your class sizes are too large to manage one-on-one time, then take a sampling of students from the high achievers, average achievers, and low achievers and invite them to have one-on-one consultations with you. This is an excellent time to discover what is working well for some and not so well for others.

Educate yourself by taking online courses on teaching in higher education or how to more effectively teach online. An instructional design course is also an excellent way to gain a better understanding of how to engage students. Never assume that you have all of the experience and skills that you need because this will only make you obsolete and irrelevant. Acknowledge your weaknesses and then find ways to improve them. Weakness is never a strength until you strengthen it.

BE ACCESSIBLE, AWARE, AND FLEXIBLE

Working 24 hours a day 7 days a week is impossible, so there has to be downtime for every instructor. The trick is finding the perfect balance between being accessible and having a sufficient amount of personal time. That is why an instructor also has to be aware and flexible, to know when adjustments have to be made. This would not only be to accommodate students but to also accommodate the instructor's physical and mental health. An emotionally overwhelmed instructor is less likely to be successful in teaching.

Watch for signs of students who are struggling and then proactively intervene by reaching out to them. When an instructor shows sincere concern for a student's progress, it could be the difference between a dropout and an inspiring comeback.

There never has been nor will there ever be a perfect instructor, but we can all achieve our true potentials if we do the work.


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