Am I being unreasonable about this teacher?

[Josiology]

No, you are not being unreasonable - at all.

I would contact a dean or an administrator.

I had a similar experience at a community college. The end result from my complaint(s) was that they refunded my OOP expenses for that class (including my book purchase).

You are paying for a service so it's not unreasonable for you to expect the service to be provided to you. You are entitled to it.

[kval07]

It is not unreasonable to expect an instructor to do their job. If you think your test grading is inconsistent, how many other people in the class are having the same issue? I'd work my way up the ladder if I were you.

[smiles]

You have given the prof every chance to work out the problem with you. It sounds like she doesn't want to admit that maybe it's wrong or she will have to regrade everyone's test. I would give her one more chance to meet with you after the next class. I would look and see if she has office hours, and if she does show up then, because she should have time then. If you don't get an answer soon I would go to the department head, becuase you deverve to know what is wrong.

My DH had a prof like that in grad school. He never answered questions in a timely mannor and if you questioned him on his grading you were told that he was in the authority to fail you. Never explained an answer or anything. I hate profs that are on a power trip and are really to busy to be teaching a class.

[ATLmom]

Thanks for all the answers/advice. No she doesn't have an assistant. The tests are graded by the on-line system. Her office hours are "by appointment." I offered in the first email to stay after class or come on other days at her convenience, but no response.

I know she knows the subject - it's computer programming and she said she made a living doing that for 20 years. I just think she's too distracted or lazy or burned out or whatever to deal with doing her job.

We only have two more weeks this quarter. So I went ahead and emailed the dept. head to ask his advice how to proceed.

I said I had my husband look over the problems and that's because he writes code for a living. So after he agreed with me then I'm not going to be put off by her "You just need to read that chapter again." (So embarrassing in front of the class). I realize that humans make mistakes and humans write the tests. I just would like the teacher to recognize that too.

[NIGHTB1022]

I'm taking classes at a local technical college. All assignments and test are turned in on-line.On one test that got scored I couldn't figure out why two questions were counted wrong. So I did them over and over again. I re-read the parts in the book and finally showed them to my husband who is a software engineer. He agreed with me that I was right and the test score was wrong.

So I emailed the teacher and told that i thought those questions were scored wrong on the test and would she look into it. She wrote back that she would.

The next week in class I asked if she had looked at them yet. No, she said she hasn't had a chance. OK, I'll give her time I thought.

The next test there was another question that I thought was scored wrong. I emailed her again about it. No response.

The next class was the Wednesday before the long weekend. She came into class at 8:00 and went over our assignments and said she was done unless anyone had any questions. She gathered up her things and headed toward the door. I stopped her and said that I had a question about the last test. She said ok. I showed her the printout of the problem and how the test scored it. She went over it a few seconds and then said something like, well it looks like you may be right, but I would re-read the section in the book and see if you can figure out where we are going wrong. I said that I did re-read the book and still don't think I'm wrong. She said "well without getting into it in-depth right now I can't give you a definitive answer. Just read the text again." I asked her to work it out on the board for me. She said she would have to do that when there were no other students in the class because it was a test question. (OK, that test was still open so maybe other students hadn't taken it yet even though it was over-due.)

So I asked about the other questions I had emailed her about on the past test. She just said again that we couldn't do test questions in class. This whole time she was edging toward the door. I just sighed and turned away. She left.

This was at 8:20 when the class is supposed to last until 10:00.

So I immediately emailed her again with the new test question and the old ones (total of 3 now) and offered to stay after class or come in another day at her convenience to discuss this. No response. That was 8 days ago. I emailed her again just now to check if she got my last email and ask for a response.

So, am I being unreasonable to expect a timely reply from this woman? I know it's just a small local technical school but come on, I'm paying out of pocket for this class. What should I do if I don't get a response from her?

Nope, you're not being unreasonable at all. Check in at the main office and ask who her supervisor is and what their email address is and forward them the emails you sent her. Also follow up with one from yourself about how she couldn't wait to get out the door early from class.

As in anything else, if you don't think you are getting what you pay for, let them know about it. I think it's kinda crap with all the test being done "online", wow, I could teach that class probably, what exactly does this teacher do anyway?

[anaj06]

You did the right thing...her supervisor will look into it. If she is not a full-time instructor (which I am guessing she is not snce she only has office hours by appointment), she is only paid for class time. This is no excuse, but could be the reason.

If you really want to hold your ground, go up to her after class and ask her to work them again on the board. If she says no b/c its class, offer to stay with her until class is supposed to be over and then she can work them. (She is supposed to be having class the entire time anyway.) I bet she will go ahead and work them for you....

[ATLmom]

The dept. head wrote me back saying he would look into it and we would see what we could do on Monday, which is the next class with her.

[bigsweetie]

Good luck! I hope it gets resolved for you soon!