Workload Expectations

“Managing course grading and student feedback is typically ‘included in the hourly teaching rate.’ However students are increasingly asking for precise feedback on their grades.

This is understandable, but giving unique and specific feedback for each student on each assignment is very time consuming and there is not enough time in class.

If students want personalized teacher feedback, and universities want teachers to improve student satisfaction, then universities need to add a payroll component that reflects this extra work.”

– Teacher

“Teachers should include graded and non-graded exercises to challenge us students without putting pressure on us. Let us learn and make mistakes without fear of failing.

Structure classes to promote interaction rather than trying to force it; especially during remote classes.”

– Student

“The French government now requirements universities make public student satisfaction rates. Obviously, this rating determines future student enrolment.

We now actively monitor student satisfaction for every single one of our teachers, from semester to semester, and take it very seriously.

Students have stated that their teachers have, in class, openly insulted university administration.

How do we justify working with teachers with low student satisfaction, knowing the damage it does to future enrolment?”

– Teacher Recruiter

“Universities must consider the personal and professional lives of us students and not only the teacher’s when scheduling classes.

Don’t change class times at the last moment, and keep us students informed of absent teachers more quickly so we can organize our time.

Schedule classes at normal working hours, not late into the night. Respect our employment schedules, travel times and personal lives.

Either book full days on campus or full days remote. Stop booking a distance course and a face-to-face course 10 minutes later. Especially when there’s nowhere quiet on campus for us students to go for the remote class.”

– Student

“Teachers must design a more detailed syllabus which clearly sets expectations, explains course prerequisites, project expectations, submission deadlines and grading. Each syllabus must also include a more in-depth teacher profile so we students can research them.

Universities must take greater control over the course content; content should not be solely at the teacher’s discretion.

Universities need to make the course program and syllabuses more readily available to us students at the beginning of the year.”

– Student

“Teachers must know how courses they teach fit into student program in order to situate theirs and explain it to the students.

Teachers should also know the courses of previous years on similar subjects, and the other courses in the same semester.

Teachers should work in collaboration with other teachers who have similar modules: coordinate transversal cases and assessments with other courses and teachers.”

– Program Director

“Universities must schedule classes to optimize student learning; the material does not spread over several months. It is very difficult for us students to remember course material when the last class took place months earlier.

But also don’t condense the lessons too much either. We students need time to think, digest and work on the class projects. Organize course deadlines so projects are evenly distributed throughout the semester and aren’t all due at the same time.”

– Student

“Adjunct teachers are not considered ’employees’ nor part of the internal organization and as such, the internal procedures sometimes seem strange to us, cumbersome and above all not within our control.

Universities should offer teachers teaching assistants to provide administrative support; someone who knows the ‘house’.”

– Teacher

“It is often the ‘zapping’ mentality of today’s generation of students that causes learning difficulty and prevents teachers from pushing their course subjects to the end.

You explain a concept, ask the class if there are any questions and get no response or a simple “No”. So you select a student or a team to ask a follow-up question and none of them are capable of explaining, or are willing to explain, what was just covered.

It’s extremely frustrating.”

– Teacher

“Universities must pool their tools and software together. For us teachers, juggling several usernames and passwords to different systems within the same university is complicated to manage, moreso when teaching at several universities.

Every year universities integrate new ‘innovative’ platforms and abandon others, and teachers are left to figure it out.”

– Teacher

“When teachers want to stop teaching a course, they should suggest a few contacts in their network to replace them.”

– Program Director

“Compared with the pre-COVID-19 period, we teachers are seeing 40% more students per class than other years.

We teachers are doing our best to meet grade submission requirements, taking into account that we must spend our Christmas holidays grading essays. And to be honest it is impossible to achieve the grade submission deadline if the university and it’s students want individualized grading and feedback in all essays.

Obviously this is not your, university employee’s responsibility, however you must bear with us teachers and be a little patient as we are doing the best we can with what we have.“

– Teacher

“It is very difficult for teachers to juggle the planning and get a consistent schedule when teaching in several schools plus other professional obligations.

Universities should recognize this.”

– Teacher

“Teachers must respect the university program, deadlines and their professional situation.

We need teachers to keep us informed of the difficulties they encounter during the courses, such as their relationship with students or course content not adapted to the students’ level, etc.”

– Program Director

“Universities need to do a better job communicating with their students and us teachers need more constructive meetings because a lot of things tend to be left unsaid.

As teachers we sometimes find ourselves doing after-sales service for students.”

– Teacher

“Teachers should teach less theory, less rote memorization and a lot more practice.

Don’t just assign exercises. Show us students the real objectives of the exercise and link them to what we could do later.

Design interactive, operational courses with role play to prepare us students for our entry into the professional world.”

– Student

“Universities train your teachers to use Teams because it is not normal that after 2 years of COVID some still cannot connect on time.

Some classes systematically start 20 minutes late because the teacher does not know how to initiate a meeting.”

– Student

“Universities must create events to bring teachers and students together outside of class.

University and teachers must organize more inter-class projects so we can work with new students and not always only with students in our own class.“

– Student

“Universities must communicate their deliverables more clearly, even if they are the same as the previous year. It can be difficult for us teachers to get precise answers from the university.

Academic staff should be more transparent and personable at the management level. Relations with university employees are very random; it depends on the person.”

– Teacher

“Teachers rarely receive student feedback on what is working and what needs improvement for future courses.

Combine this with short-term contracts and (usually) late teacher booking, and this makes it difficult for teachers to plan ahead, manage finances and trust if the university will have them back to teach the following year.”

– Teacher

“University and teachers, simplify and externalize communication to reduce our need to contact you. And when we students must contact you, respond more quickly to our emails, even if the answer is negative.

When responding to us students don’t simply say ‘I don’t know’, and don’t speak poorly to us when responding. We are equals, not inferior. We don’t pay to be spoken poorly to.”

– Student

“Universities need to automate the contract and compensation processes. Some universities still do not offer electronic paychecks, so teachers must receive paper stubs by mail and digitize them themselves.”

– Teacher

“Teachers, learn our names. We don’t expect you to memorize our entire biography, but at least remember our names.”

– Student

“On the first day of each new class teachers should give us students a survey to understand our questions and expectations on the subject, and build them into the course.

Stop requiring us students to do so much work that is not useful for our future.

Raise the bar. It is incredibly dumb what we students are studying.”

– Student

“Teachers must be willing to attend ‘student open door’ days and talk to students and their parents.

Teachers must be willing to attend graduation ceremonies of the students they taught and helped.

Break free from time.”

– Program Director

“Course objectives are usually not clearly defined and syllabuses are often oversimplified. Teachers are asked to create and teach 12 to 16+ hours of content using a syllabus theme that is summarized in just 4 lines.

Even when course objectives and intended learning outcomes (ILOs) are clearly defined, syllabuses aren’t designed to reflect student expectations; it is the responsibility of the teacher to uncover this and adapt the content.

It can be hard to balance strict university accreditation requirements with student level and expectations.”

– Teacher

“Universities need better class planning and project submission organization so we students don’t end up with nothing to do for 2 months and then not being able to sleep for 2 weeks.

Busy, intensive schedules and heavy content forces us to ‘rush’ our work, not for lack of interest but for lack of time due to all the other projects due. Teachers should cover less material in each class, but go far deeper into the material covered.”

– Student

“Teachers need to watch their language towards students.

Non-constructive criticism, inappropriate humor, and even establishing one’s authority or presence can also make significant disconnect for certain students. This impacts the student’s perception of the teacher, the legitimacy of the course, and the university if not addressed.

Students complain about teachers often.”

– Program Director

“Most teachers are good, but…

Universities should observe teachers doing a trial lesson before offering them a job, check their skills regularly and be willing to replace teachers.

Some teachers are so bad, and their behavior towards us students so unprofessional they should consider changing careers. It damages the school’s reputation.

University should ensure good student/teacher relations & teachers should be held responsible for this.”

– Student

“The invisible, unpaid hours make adjunct teaching untenable and lead to high teacher turnover.

If total pay for a 15-hour course of 40 students at 80€/hour is 1,200€, estimate 25 unpaid hours of class preparation, grading with feedback, student & administrative emails, occasional catch-up exams and teacher meetings, this becomes 30€/hour, before taxes.

Universities that attract and keep quality teachers understand what really attracts teachers to the profession.”

– Teacher

“When the university asks for something, it is because it is important and any breach has a consequence on our organization.

When teachers do not respect new processes (software, administration, student role call…) and deadlines, this negatively impacts the university’s certifications (Qualiopi, RNCP, OPCO & CFA…)

HR cannot pay teacher until their paperwork is complete.”

– Teacher Recruiter

“The university needs teachers to speak as an informed representative of the school. Teachers who don’t stay on top of emails and events miss out on important information.

If teachers come to the events the university organizes for them, they would meet staff members and other teachers, discover resources available to them, and they would have the necessary information on school news and our operating methods.”

– Teacher Recruiter

“The same university has needed my teaching services every semester for 21 years, but will not offer me an annual fixed-term contract. Further, over those 21 years the hourly teaching rate has increased by less than 1€, while the cost of living has almost doubled.

Universities should not be surprised when the quality of teaching becomes impoverished to the detriment of the experience of students.”

– Teacher

“French regulations now require higher education teachers obtain 10 hours of ongoing certified training each year just to continue teaching the same course content, and it is the responsibility of the teacher to find, take and pay for these certifications out of pocket.

Teaching becomes less profitable each year.”

– Teacher

“Teachers should give students information on career options and the realities of the labor market after graduation.

Teachers should take the time to understand and adapt to the needs of the student population (potentially even a generational divide), otherwise the teacher and their content will not connect with the younger generation.“

– Program Director

Student entrance exams and milestones should be required to take certain courses.

It isn’t fair to the qualified students that have to follow a slowed-down or dumbed-down version of a course so all students can participate.

In group projects qualified students have complained they must also do the work of the unqualified students in order for their grades not to suffer.

– Teacher

“A university’s absolute rigidity of class scheduling makes it difficult to teach, let alone arrive to class on time. As a working professional my clients and employer require significant availability on my part, sometimes last minute.

Inflexible teaching hours and unpaid grading outside of class combined with long, unpaid transportation to and from campus makes me question whether or not I want to continue working with some universities.”

– Teacher

“Get rid of dead weight students. We all pay to have our diploma and in the end we will all have the same diploma.

So let the hard-working students work together and flourish among themselves, and leave those who do not want to work on the side.

We are no longer in high school.”

– Student

“I hate when teachers don’t bring any course content and instead their entire class is spent working on course projects. Or the teacher replaces classes with group presentations and no constructive feedback.

We are not the teachers. I am not paying to be taught by other students.“

– Student

“Universities shouldn’t hire teachers at the end of their career or who are wanting peace and quiet or easy money.

Universities cannot expect motivated students if their teachers aren’t motivating.”

– Student

“I hate teachers who are unwilling to question themselves and even less their training method.

They believe there is only one truth, that they have it, and are unwilling to consider alternative perspectives.”

– Student