I am teaching a new course, Employment Law. I should be excited, but I am not. This course has been nothing but trouble since Day 1.
1. The college issues a course syllabus which outlines the course outcomes. I am required to tailor my syllabus to the colleges. Well, the college did not provide any course outcomes for my course, so I guess the students are not supposed to learn anything.
2. The HMFIC for the Business Department chose the textbook for this course. I don’t think he actually READ the book. I honestly believe that he saw the title “Employment Law for Business” and jumped for joy. The book is supposed to be for Business majors, but it is more appropriate for Pre-Law.
3. The book assumes that the students have prior knowledge of legal principles. The students taking this course are not pre-law and there is no requirement that they have law course before taking the class. So, I spend a significant amount of time explaining legal concepts and how to read a court opinion. My students are very confused, frustrated and angry.
4. The chapter jump from topic to topic without any sense of organization or coherence.
5. The textbook does not cover important areas of Employment Law such as Worker’s Comp, Unemployment and ERISA. Umm, I think those areas are important, but what do I know. I just have a law degree.
6. At the end of last semester, the 4th edition of the text was listed for the course. Any student who registered for the course last semester ordered and received the 4th edition. On the first day of class, I had students with different editions of the same book. Later, I learned that the 5th edition was released in January. So, any student who registered in January ordered and received the 5th edition. Don’t you think it would have been nice to inform me and the students with the 4th edition that there was a change in the book?
7. Usually, there is not a huge difference between editions of a textbook, but the 5th edition has eliminated chapters that were in the 4th edition. Plus, the cases in the 5th edition are totally different than the 4th. So, I can’t even use both editions if I wanted. To date, no one knows WHICH edition I am supposed to use.
8. I am trying to put together a research project, I have no fucking clue what to assign.
I know that there will be glitches with a new course, but WTF were the HMFICs thinking?
Is this normal or is my college just AFU?
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3 comments:
Other colleges work like yours. Thankfully (yet again!), I don't teach at one of those! We leave textbooks up to faculty and enjoy quite a lot of academic freedom in the classroom.
My old school was like that - not by that specific example but plenty of other ways. You leave one school and find another without your school's quirks and - not to worry - there's always more you never thought could possibly exist.
One of the greatest studies of (bad) bureaucracy is the administration of universities...
Having been in this situaiton more than once, I finally decided that the best you can do is to teach the course you think should be taught --
Since there are no outcomes listed, you can do your own... which leaves you lots of freedom.
For the stuff you think should be in the course that isn't covered in the book, you could turn the topics into small group research assignments for the class. The group is responsible for finding initial readings and presenting the basic problem of the course. You pick it up from there and give the rest of the material --
If they find and define the basic problem and they hear it from their peers, you don't have to cover the really dull stuff and they get the experience of researching and presenting. I did this to cover some areas where my current text is lacking and they loved it..
of course, I replaced their comprehensive final exam grade with their project grade-- which helped.
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