Why do educational institutions allows professors who are incompetent to continue teaching?

Some universities really are all about the research. I don’t think anyone would argue that such places should make a better effort at teaching, but there are always tradeoffs. Research is fundamental to the advancement of science. The same applies to the tenure system in general. You need tenure to preserve academic freedom, but then sometimes you get shitty or wacky professors who won’t leave.

So I’m not sure what the solution is to your general question. As to your specific problem, I would advise against trying to win this confrontation since you probably won’t. I would find a TA you like who can do a good job explaining the material and try to hang out with him or her.

Like in real life, it’s not always fair and you will sometimes have to deal with idiots.

If his English is poor you will have to meet him half way and help him out by talking slowly and precisely and listening carefully to what he says. That way you will get value for your $30,000. You could ask other students about the question. If there is an error I’m sure others will have noticed it too. They can’t mark you down for a fault in the question.

Poor instructors are everywhere. What you are learning from him is not always to trust an authoritative source without doing your own research. Additionally, by discovering the correct answer on your own, you aren’t likely to ever forget that particular piece of information. That lesson is actually worth your $30k.

You probably can’t do much short of filling out a class evaluation honestly when you’ve finished the class. Learn your professor’s patterns, learn to work within his limitations, keep up a non-confrontational dialog with him and keep questioning/looking up the things you disagree with, even if you don’t mention them to the professor.

Talk to his Department head about specific, detailed and documented complaints and unanswered questions.

If the conversation didn’t serve to settle the issue, you could put it in writing. Then you could send it to any number of relevant people, as needed.

People make mistakes. Most people hate admitting to mistakes. If you can’t understand each other, you can’t be sure you are talking about the same thing. Learn to research y our professors before you take their courses and don’t take courses with bad ones unless you can’t help it.

You answered your own question in the first sentence you wrote. He is a great researcher. Research is huge for schools, and sometimes that trumps their ability to convey the information to students, based on the schools’ priorities.

You can complain to whoever you want, odds are if that teacher is providing research (which brings alot more money to the school than your tuition payment does) he will continue to teach.

Your best bet is to go to ratemyprofessor.com find the teachers who don’t give a crap, and stay away from them. I used ratemyprofessor throughout college and loved my teachers.

Birth to 12 teachers have to take pedagogy classes; in other words, they have to take classes on how to teach and how kids learn in addition to their subject area classes.

Professors don’t. I think it’s ridiculous, but that’s how it is.

I would try to deal with the TA’s or the professor first, but if all fails, I’d set up a meeting with the department head and ask how to best address this. The professor does have to answer to his department and whatever college/unit he is in. If he brings the U money, they’ll keep him, but they do want to protect their reputation as well.

You’ll also have an opportunity to evaluate the professor at the end of the term and can write whatever you feel with full anonymity.

@linguaphile ahhh, the anonymous review, truly a wonderful and HILARIOUS tool.

A couple professors in my years shared their most “amuzing” submissions. They were hilarious.

Then his research assistant/TA stepped in, and backed him up, using different (also incorrect) reasoning. I am 100% sure that I am correct.. This is not an isolated incidence.

I’ll bet they are correct and you are incorrect. I may be wrong but if both a prof and a TA say they are correct, most likely, they are correct.

@mrrich724 Point made… but from what I’ve heard from some of my profs, some schools take the evals very seriously while some don’t. One of my friends who was up for tenure had her evals looked at as the deciding factor. Ick.

Unfortunately, in professional school – you have pretty much no say in what classes, teachers, or times you take the classes for the first few years. So while I did enjoy ratemyprofessors in undergrad.. it unfortunately does not apply anymore.

@Charles No, they were both most definitely wrong. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I wasn’t sure. It was about the signaling pathway of the olfactory cascade. It’s pretty cut and dry that the answer was wrong.

I emailed him and he did admit it – so I’m glad for that at least. I understand that people make mistakes, but it’s hard to learn from someone who doesn’t know the material to teach it in the first place. We have some truly AMAZING teachers, thankfully. I guess it just makes the poor ones stand out that much more.

Personally, as long as I’m doing well in the class, I look at exams as learning tools for myself. I learn a whole lot more from the questions I get “wrong” than the ones I blew through and got right.
It happens often, that I disagree about the wrongness of my answer. I look it up and verify that I was right or I was mistaken.

If I was right, I’ll bring it to the attention of the prof: “I think there might be an error in your answer key.” Not a challenge to his knowledge, but an opportunity for him to say, “Oh, yes.” If he corrects it, great. If not… still great. I learned something.

@linguaphile I actually wasn’t trying to make the point that is now obvious to me you think I was trying to make, LOL!!! ( I hope that sentence makes sense).

I was truly just happy you reminded me of those funny thoughts. But yea, some places could care less about those evals unless something like “the teacher comes to class high on drugs” is on there.

@mrrich724 Oops! :D Now, I do see how it reads both ways :D