Course Content

“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

“There is not enough content convergence with other teachers.”

-Teachers

“There is too much content convergence and course overlap. The same course shouldn’t be repeated again year after year. Multiple courses could easily be combined into one.”

-Students

“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

“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

“Universities must enforce stricter student entrance selection. English-only programs should not allow students who cannot speak English; they slow the class down for the rest of us.

Universities must not accept so many students if they do not have the facilities or know how to manage them.”

– 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

“Teachers, keep the whole class on an equal footing of understanding, don’t to cover the content too quickly and which discriminates against students.

Encourage us students to take notes on paper because it improves concentration.

Invite real guest speakers into classes rather than just making us watch videos.

Don’t embed YouTube videos into your slides, just give us the link to the video.

Give us a bibliography of books, podcasts, videos and articles.

Modern-day digital is important, but go back to the basic fundamentals.”

– Student

“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

“Have empathy. Teachers must keep in mind we students are beginners, not experts like you may be. The course subject may not be our individual strength or our passion.

And understand many of us students have part-time jobs and apprenticeships so our time is short and we have challenges at work outside of class. Even during class days companies sometimes expect us to work.”

– Student

“Teachers must teach through example and through concrete situations. Base course content on projects and case studies with real, modern-day companies and real contact with companies.

We students learn more during our internships and apprenticeships than we do in class because we are put into real situations.”

– Student

“Enforce academic standards. Teachers are not automatically respected by students. Beginning from their first semester, universities must require students attend workshops that set professional expectations, rules and expected behavior along with consequences.

Students are no longer in high school and their transformation into the professional world may not be obvious to them. Students need to understand, feel and respect this difference, otherwise the student and their teachers are set up for failure.

Give students a sense of responsibility and professionalism, hold them accountable and empower teachers to enforce consequences.”

– Teacher

“Classes and course projects should add value to our professional career, not just help us students fulfill basic requirements for our diploma.”

– Student

“As a teacher I’ve had program managers I’ve taught courses for for years suddenly stop responding to my calls and emails, only to discover that that program manager had been posting job announcements on LinkedIn actively recruiting teachers to teach my very course; even stating they have course content to offer (undoubtedly the content I created).”

– Teacher

“A teacher’s created content is rarely audited by the university. This flexibility and trust is appreciated, but this often results in teachers exceeding their course content and encroaching on the content of other courses.

As a result, students complain they have already heard the same – or ‘contradictory’ – information.”

– Teacher

“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

“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

“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 should hire teachers not only because of their professional experience. Ensure they are also good teachers.

Some classes are better taught by teachers than by actual working professionals.”

– 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

“Universities should ask for student feedback on courses and teachers more frequently, and show us students proof of how our responses are being implemented.

Listen to the difficulties we students encounter with our teachers, and show you are actually doing something about it.

Be open to negotiating with us students in certain situations.”

– Student

“Universities need to hire experienced professionals from diverse industries who are also competent, passionate teachers that like to share their experience.

Diversify our courses and the teacher profiles because it feels like we students are always hearing the same things and learning the same way.”

– Student

“Universities must make sure there is minimum course content overlap each semester, and the same course shouldn’t be repeated again the following year. Multiple courses could easily be combined into one.”

– 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

“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

“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

“No superficial courses. In the final years of study, offer more advanced courses on risks that can penalize us in real life: negotiating salary and employment contracts, paying taxes, financial planning…”

– Student

“Workshops on critical thinking, storytelling and ‘soft skills’ are useless; Our personality won’t change because of one class.

Add courses in eloquence and rhetoric every year because it is essential to know how to express ourselves in our professional life and in public.“

– Student

“University must offer more attractive specializations. An English-only program is not a ‘specialization’. Have specializations more relevant than just ‘speaking English’.

And if it is an English-only program, then courses should be taught only in English by teachers who actually speak English fluently.”

– Student

“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

“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

Students are paying customers. University should think of students first because we are the ones who pay.

University should refresh their website and provide more accurate explanation in the brochure because the school is not like what is advertised.

University should align their program sold and the program carried out. And stop changing program names every year.

– Student

Spy on other universities and steal what works. University should see what is happening at other schools and develop specialty programs to improve and stand out from the competition.

Universities should invest more in students and their pedagogical team, not in school advertisements.

– Student

“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 hypocritical teachers who plagiarise other people’s content for their lecture and then penalize students for it. It’s obvious the teacher’s images and content is based on the first Google result that pops up, and their PowerPoint slides appear to have been copy/pasted from the internet.“

– 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