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Hello I have recently started my job as a teacher at a University in Pakistan. So everything is a first time experience. Now a days our university is conducting mid exams. The process is we have to assign Problem based learning topics to students. And they will make a presentation on that topic before the day of exam and on exam day students will present their topic and teacher will ask questions from presentation after that a viva will be conducted by teacher from the course. The presentation should be problem based matching some real applications.

I asked them to search for problems solutions in real life. The presentation was covering hogh portion of marks. I asked them not to use applications, examples, problems that we have studied in class. I used a social network for communication announcement purpose for students.

I teach students a mathematical type subject. They submitted presentations to me with a very low level examples that are not used anywhere. That are like word problems(school level) . Three students submitted assignment few hours before due time. I checked and observed that they have done a very low level work.

I made a post on social group(non- official created for students' communication with me), mentioned that three students, that "your applications in presentation are not acceptable, check it, and said whole class to provide high level applications in their presentations" . (**Did I do something wrong here? If yes, then what is that and what are the possible consequences?) **

After submission of their presentations, before their presentation and VIVA, I checked their presentation and I was in shock, because most of the students didn't follow rules. Only a few peformed good, and again I made a post on group and said them, " will you use these type of applications(I mentioned three topics as example) in their real life etc. Do you really think it is a PBL presentation. Your presentation is not according to rules. Your presentation is not PBL. This was your exam not joke. No ones presentation is satifactory".

(Did I again do anything wrong here? If yes then what are possible consequence?)

Then I conducted their exam and asked them to justify their applications with their assigned topic. Most of them performed almost zero, came with lame excuses like "we tried but we are unable to find applications on internet". It is wrong. I provided them a book which was full of applications of their assigned topics, internet was not needed at all. Some performed very well.

After two days, I talked to my friend and told him about my post on group. He said, that I should have done that. It is wrong. He was busy at that time, I asked him that should I delete these posts now, but he couldn't reply on time so I became very tensed and upset and delete those posts. (am I again on mistake here?)

After sometime, he forbid me to delete the post. But on listening that I have deleted he said "you shouldn't have" .

Now from that time I am worried that if students do something against me, what could be their intenstions. How chairman will behave if he get to know about this. In which way students can accuse me? Please tell me where and how I am wrong here, and what are the possible things or accusations that can harm me? Can I lose my job? If the situation became worst due to my actions, how to tackle this situation

Please tell me I am worried about my job.

cag51
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jonathon
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  • Which country are you in? – GoodDeeds Jul 26 '20 at 22:04
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    When setting the assignment, did you provide any examples of good problems to cover, or any guidelines to follow? If not, maybe the students did not understand your expectations clearly. And for future reference, you could keep a mid evaluation where you check on the students' progress and give feedback. This would avoid problems of mismatched expectations and also ensure that the topics selected are feasible. – GoodDeeds Jul 26 '20 at 22:09
  • @GoodDeeds Half of the topic were covered in class, yes I provided many examples. I given them an assignment of applications so they better get know about the applications. And also given them many hints for example as krefer book, exampled an areas and said that this whole area is connected with this topic. But they never listened to me. They were never interested. They performed Ero in VIVA – jonathon Jul 26 '20 at 22:48
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    @GoodDeeds Pakistan – jonathon Jul 26 '20 at 22:50
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    For context: How to deal with unruly, unengaged students who complain about me? – cag51 Jul 26 '20 at 23:17
  • @cag51 yes I am the same person, students are same. But problem is different? – jonathon Jul 26 '20 at 23:24
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    @jonathon Please don't ask specific people to answer your questions. This is quite rude behavior here. People will read your questions and answer them if they want to and if they think they can provide a useful answer. That is how this site works. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:34
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    @jonathon Another thing you could do next time is to ask students to first submit topic proposals, and require them to obtain explicit approval from you before they start working on the project. – GoodDeeds Jul 26 '20 at 23:46
  • Your country is important information for this question, which is why someone asked you in the comments. The correct thing to do in response to a comment requesting clarification is to edit the post to include the clarifying information. Please do not remove it. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:56
  • The topic was assigned by teacherd to student groups. As we are instructed to assign topics. – jonathon Jul 27 '20 at 00:08
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    @jonathon You said students chose their topic. "on exam day students will present their topic" "I asked them to search for problems solutions in real life." – Bryan Krause Jul 27 '20 at 00:11
  • No no teachers assigned topics to students for each subject. – jonathon Jul 27 '20 at 00:17
  • I have clearly written in question that we have to assign topics. – jonathon Jul 27 '20 at 00:18
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    @jonathon I was referring to the examples / problems / applications that you were referring to in your question when I said "topics" in my comment. Sorry for the confusion. – GoodDeeds Jul 27 '20 at 00:36
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    @jonathon: You are not allowed to delete the question for it belongs to this forum now. – user111388 Jul 27 '20 at 13:53
  • What is PBL? ?? – user111388 Jul 27 '20 at 16:13

1 Answers1

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There seem to be major communication issues between you and your class. There are also major communication issues in your posts here, which could be due to using English, but there are also structural and content issues that do not seem to be language related.

If you called out specific students in a medium accessible to everyone else, yes, that is wrong. In some countries it would even be illegal, though I have no idea about Pakistan.

Deleting instructions you have given seems like it will only lead to more confusion, and may be seen as an admission of guilt.

Your communications with your students seem very disrespectful to those students. Respect works two ways, and students will not respect you if you cannot show respect for them. It may be too late entirely with this group, as you seem to have repeatedly insulted them and treated them poorly based on your history of questions here.

From your posts it does not seem like you have sufficient training in education, and consistent issues with exercising judgement. I would strongly suggest that you try to use existing curricula and assignments until you get more experience with teaching. It is very important that you convey expectations clearly. If most or all of the class is not following your expectations, then it is very unlikely they are all failing to follow the rules, it is much more likely you are failing to clearly express them.

In addition, I would strongly suggest you read some basic "how to teach" books that are aimed at new university-level educators.

Finally, I think you definitely need a teaching mentor who is willing to review actions you plan to take including instruction materials and assignments before they go to your students so you can get feedback and avoid mistakes before they happen.

I have no idea what the severity of the situation is from your descriptions alone, but yes it seems like your job could be in danger. Teaching is a very social position, and if you do not know how or cannot learn how to get along with others and handle personal conflicts, you are going to have a tough time.

Bryan Krause
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  • @jonathon Unless half of your class are simply incapable of doing the work assigned and should not be students, that still points to an instructional failure. Especially if they are not having the same issues in other classes. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:31
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    Your feedback (what you call review) is a form of instructions. Unless you only used it to say the work was bad and not explain how it differed from your expectation. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:33
  • Agree with everything in the answer, but it does not seem completely inconceivable half the class was disinterested did not care about the topic covered in the course. Perhaps if the course was a mandatory course in the curriculum, that was not perceived as useful. – GoodDeeds Jul 26 '20 at 23:37
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    @jonathon I can't guess at why your students did not understand or follow your directions because I don't have those directions. You will have to decide if half your class deserves a failing grade or if you are at fault. Ordinarily, a class where half of the students fail represents a failure of the instructor and will probably be seen that way by the department head. If it is in fact the students' fault then you will have to be ready to argue that and to have good supporting evidence. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:37
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    @GoodDeeds Yes, I agree it's possible the class is disinterested. But I'd usually expect even disinterested students to try to put in enough effort to not fail. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:40
  • @jonathon If some in your class are not performing well you will have to decide whether this is your fault or theirs. If it's theirs, give them the grades they have earned. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:42
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    @jonathon All of "Do you really think it is a PBL presentation. Your presentation is not according to rules. Your presentation is not PBL. This was your exam not joke. No ones presentation is satifactory" sounds insulting to me. "Because they are active students of my class. Thats why I couldn't forbid myself to make them correct." - I cannot understand what you are trying to say. Please try to take a little more time with your language and use complete sentences. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:46
  • @jonathon If you think your students have earned a poor grade and you have appropriately communicated to them an opportunity to improve that they chose not to take, give them a poor grade. – Bryan Krause Jul 26 '20 at 23:55
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    @jonathon What was the total length of time given to prepare the presentation? It seems quite possible that there was no time to act on your feedback just a few hours before the deadline. That's why in the future it may help to have a mid evaluation, if this is so important. – GoodDeeds Jul 26 '20 at 23:56
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    @jonathon "two of the three studenta performed very well when I mentioned them in group" 1) Talking about individual students' performance in front of other students is not acceptable where I am from. Maybe it is acceptable in Pakistan but I would strongly advise against it. 2) So...this is all about 1 student then? One student who performed poorly? This is very very unclear from your post, please edit it to make it more clear. "They replied how it won't be acceptable, we have done very hard work" Sounds like they were just making their case, not "threatening" you. You can say "no." – Bryan Krause Jul 27 '20 at 00:10
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    @jonathon Ok, I think I am done here. Your post is not understandable, and I feel like you are giving me the run around in the comments and slowly leaking relevant information. You can choose whether my answer is useful to you in any way or not, but it seems like you'd like to have an argument here rather than hear any advice. You are probably best off getting advice from people you can communicate with in your own language and in person. – Bryan Krause Jul 27 '20 at 00:13
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    "Ordinarily, a class where half of the students fail represents a failure of the instructor and will probably be seen that way by the department head." -- This may or may not be the case; at some institutions it's customary. Which highlights that the OP should find that out and either (a) adjust level of instruction and assignments, or (b) adjust their thinking and be more sedate about the high failure rate. – Daniel R. Collins Jul 27 '20 at 14:33
  • ... In fact, in a comment on another question earlier this month, the OP quoted their chairperson as advising, "If 4 students are responding teach them, leave others they will never respond", so there's a small bit of data that OP might be in case (b). – Daniel R. Collins Jul 28 '20 at 01:44