Advice to Higher Education Teachers

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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 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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“Teachers should ask for their students’ permission before posting class photos to their social media or publishing our work.

Doing this without our permission is ‘sneaky promotion’ of the teacher’s own brand, is poor taste and makes the teacher look financially poor.”

– 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

“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

“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

“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