ASUnited (Arizona State University WeBlog)

A lot of students are rightly concerned about what classes they end up taking at ASU. A lot of different factors are considered in choosing your classes for a given semester. Schedule, length or duration of the class, is there a lab that is required with the class, are all things to consider. However, arguably one of the most important factors that I think many students overlook, is which teacher they choose to take a class from.

There Are So Many Bad Teachers Out There

If a particular class is taught by three different teachers, one is a MWF class and the other two are TTH classes, and the better teacher teaches only the MWF class, you’d probably be wise to choose this class even if it did not fit in with the rest of your schedule. ASU is notorious for hiring professors that, though they may be competent enough with the material they are to teach, either have no experience delivering that content (aka teaching) or even worse, they can’t speak English! Thus, it’s important to do a little research before delving into a class with a teacher that is going to make your whole semester a living nightmare.

Attributes of a Good Teacher

1. They are fluent and speak English understandably. I don’t mean they have to be American. In fact, some of my favorite teachers in college have been teachers from outside of the USA and English was their second language. However, I never had a good teacher that I couldn’t understand or had to strain when listening in order to get the jest of what was being said. I could never connect with these teachers and thus, was never able to get into their class discussions. They usually were embarrassed to ask questions to the students because they were rightly skeptical about their English abilities. This caused even more confusion because no one would participate in class. Most people either ended up zoning out during class and doing other things or not showing up for class at all.
2. A good professor genuinely cares about his students. You can tell when a teacher cares about his/her students by the way they engage with them during and after class time. One of my favorite teachers at ASU was Professor Balling. He teaches physical geography. Before class he would spend 10 mins or so greeting the students that came to class early. He would write down names of students and then call on them by name during class time. Though the class was a typical 300+ student class, this extra effort on his part really made everyone feel comfortable and that he actually cared about what he was doing.
3. The best teachers are fare and predictable. By predictable I mean that there are no surprises. This doesn’t mean they can’t give pop-quizzes. This just means that they clearly outline what is expected of their students from the very beginning. If there is going to be a quiz every friday and a pop-quiz once a week, the students know this and they know exactly how much each quiz/assignment/exam is worth. They also tell students exactly how grading will occur so that there are no surprises. I acknowledge that there will always be those annoying students in class that just never can seem to grasp the grading policy no matter how simplified the teacher makes it. That’s no hit to the teacher though. They are doing their best. Maybe it’s more of a hit to the university for letting morons into the school.
4. Good teachers are prepared for class! Nothing is worse than showing up for a 3 hr night lab in biology and having nothing ready to go for the experiment that students are supposed to do that night. Night labs already make students anxious. Having to spend the whole class time or even going over time to finish a project or experiment because a teacher or TA wasn’t ready beforehand is even worse.!
5. Good teachers make class fun. I’m not this “I love learning and school no matter what” type of guy. But, I do enjoy going to a class where I know I’m going to learn something interesting and the teacher is going to go the extra mile to MAKE it interesting. Good teachers are passionate about the subject matter they are teaching. They are teaching because they love what they do and they want others to catch the fire that they have. I’m not necessarily psyched about physical geography but Dr. Balling made me want to learn about it. On the other hand, I thought I was pretty interested in art history… until I started falling asleep during class because of a boring professor.

The Decision Making Process

It’s a good idea to ask your friends about who they liked and why. Ask students in your same major who the good teachers are for the classes you have to take. Don’t forget to ask them why they think they are good teachers. You can also find a lot of ASU’s professors and student ratings for them at http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/.

Keep these attributes in mind when choosing your classes. If you do… you should enjoy a great 4 years at ASU. Sure, you’ll still have some bummer teachers because of various conflicts and sometimes, let’s face it, there just aren’t any good teachers for some classes. You can keep these to a minimum though and you should be fine.

What are some of the things that you look for in a good teacher?

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