Conversation Between Student & Teacher

[Lucid_Chaotic]

Re: Conversation Between Student & Teacher

@zobia

well here my focus was more towards students. i was more willing to know whether student actually come to you and talk/discuss anything. i actually find this a lot that we students tend to go away from our teachers. we never actually try to find out about our teachers. i personally think it is very necessary. our teachers put effort to read our minds, but in return why not we try to find out what brought our teachers to this level of excellence.

i personally get to know about my professor who actually never been to any university. but he is teaching Architectural Design at UFT. That was the first time actually i started seeking the importance of knowledge- and education (that we get).

It really is up to students… I’ve had ones who are only interested in coming to class as a formality of their studentship, and then I have those who’re genuinely interested in learning and exploring. They’d come by office hours… just drop in sometimes to say hello… talk about their interests… inquire about opportunities etc. However, I can’t say that I’ve had many students who are interested in interaction for the sake of interaction – just to learn from my own personal and professional experiences. In part, this is due to the extremely demanding educational environment that they’re a part of.

That being said, I personally make it a point to convey some morsels and minutiae in my classes on a regular basis primarily founded upon things that I wish I would have known when I was in the shoes of my students. Among other things, I tell all my classes (sometimes to the point of mundane reverberation) how year 3 happens to be most important year in anyone’s undergraduate span… what they need to do in order to secure good reference letters from me and other professors etc.

@zobia

but the problem i have is with this

@Umar Talib

students need to pass ALL course components in order to pass the course. So, even if somebody gets a 100% on the exams, but only get 40% on an assignment, they can’t pass.

to me its like enforcing students to memorize INFORMATION. And you know we students gonna come up with new ways to dodge our teachers (dunia idher ke udher hogeya, na hum perhain gain na likhain gain).

You’ve only quoted part of my post from that thread (http://www.paklinks.com/gs/showthread.php?p=5499135#post5499135) where I basically expressed how I treat students differently based on what stage of studies they’re in. I’ve seen far too many students fail to realize their potentials in later years just because they didn’t do things right early on. I’ve come up with my own scheme after multiple years of experience with students from different faculties and different courses.

Also, how is that particular scheme enforcing memorization?? if anything it is BUT enforcing memorization. Someone who’s good at memorization only needs to work hard near the exams to make it through the course – whereas this way, they need to work on ALL course components adequately to pass it. Again, I only do this for SOME of my courses in the freshman and sophomore years – primarily to get students to appreciate that coming to school is not just about reading books and memorizing concepts for the short term. They need to work with deadlines and deliverables and they need to participate in class. Afterall, this is how things work in the real world.

Once they start moving on to advance courses where they have at least identified their interests (albeit many times these are marginal interests), the evaluation parameters get more relaxed. By making it to this stage, they’ve shown their motivation and deserve to at least determine the types of things they’re interested in learning. At the first level, they do this by selecting their majors and courses… and I offer them another opportunity to customize their learning experiences by determining how they’d like to be graded.

I hope this makes some sense.

Our University system is far from ideal… I can say this because I was an undergraduate student myself only about 6 years ago and I still remember my frustrations and discontent on several matters… including among other things – not being able to go to the library and read what I want to read… not what the professor wants me to read. However, coming into the corporate workforce, and now on to the other side of the fence in academia, I realize some of the reasons why frameworks, parameters and boundaries are important in students’ lives for without those it’s difficult to provide guidance and build on best practices and not repeat mistakes from the past.

@zobia

to seek the rationality, why you think i need hundreds of years of wandering to know what practicality is all about?
(if you think i am being naive here and my words reveal zero experience then dont answer my * concern.)

No one’s asking for “hundreds” of years of wandering… rather… it’s a matter of respecting life experiences of others who have something to offer by virtue of their rich encounters and lessons learnt. I for one always welcome the opportunity to talk to people… older or younger… who’ve been through something that I haven’t. I know you’re trying to do the same thing when you interact with your teachers at school… and in addition to being an admirable trait, it’s a very worthwhile endeavor in many ways! :k: