Forgot your password? As the saying goes, all professors are mortal. From time to time, faculties will deal with tragedy. Due to various health situations, a professor may be unable to finish a class as planned. Perhaps the situation will last a short time. For example, a professor needs a few weeks to recover from surgery. In such cases, colleagues can cover a few classes. Or, perhaps, the professor can pre-record lectures which the students can watch.
Or, in more recent times, the professor can teach a class remotely from home. Yes, Zoom existed before March Other situations are permanent. Professors may suddenly be forced to retire. Or Professors may pass away in the middle of a semester, perhaps with little advance notice.
In such cases, colleagues will have to teach the remainder of the class—that includes preparing an exam, and grading it. Over my career, these sorts of tragedies have been quite rare. But going forward, these occurrences may become more common. And these concerns are not limited to universities with in-person or hybrid classes. Colleges need to recognize these eventualities, and establish continuity of operations plans in advance.
Administrations should try to ensure minimal disruption in teaching and grading. This post will highlight four factors to consider. First , no two classes are identical.
Every professor teaches a topic in his or her own way. That diversity of thought is ideal. Students should be exposed to as many different types of pedagogy as possible. Indeed, I applaud the standard that 1Ls cannot select their own schedules; they should be given a wide variety of teaching styles, whether they like it or not.
But that diversity of approaches creates significant difficulties if a professor is unable to finish the semester. In such a case, a colleague would be asked to jump in, perhaps in the middle of the semester. A diligent colleague would watch all the lectures to figure out what was taught, and what was not taught.
You cannot take the students' word for it. And invariably, a thoughtful colleague would recognize that some things were not taught up to her standards, and would want to revisit those areas. Or more precisely, the former teacher taught things differently that the current teacher would have. And before you know it, the colleague will decide to reteach much of the class, on top of teaching all the remaining material.
The best change you can make in this situation is to learn to move past setbacks. If you know that something in your test-taking approach needs to change, try some of the following tips:. The most important thing to do in the face of failure is to take care of yourself. There is a time to buckle down and get to work and there is a time to give yourself credit for all that you have accomplished and not sweat the small stuff.
Failures can be tough on your body and mental health if you don't manage them appropriately and this can lead to future setbacks that won't be as easy to come back from. Find a balance between working hard and practicing self-care and remember not to expect perfection from yourself. You are not supposed to go through college without asking for help and most universities offer more resources than you could imagine. Take full advantage of everything your college or university makes available to you to not only prevent future academic failure but have a healthier life overall.
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Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. I did my college education as an adult so I was a little rougher on instructors and professors.
And I'm known for gravitas so I usually got my way. I have had a prof die during the term. It was handled by cancelling his labs for that week, it was a lab course , and eliminating some of the office hours for the other prof that ran those labs for the rest of the term.
Thankfully, there was an empty week in the lab schedule so that the cancelled lab could be added at the end. The ability to do this is one of the reasons I favour, when possible, having classes taught by two professors.
Obviously, this is easier in lab courses where you have several sessions and at upper levels can become simply impossible, when the class starts the term with seven students, it's kind of hard to split them up. Yeah, I've had professors leave mid-term to return to India. Another prof just picked up where he left off. I can't believe they're are just handing out A's. I would have probably loved it at the time, but now it seems a bit unethical.
I looked at the Spartan Daily and didn't see news of any recent deaths so I assume the professor was from another campus. I guess that means there's still hope that I'll get the letter of recommendation from by thesis chair. Ideally, there should be some backup plan.
I could see canceling up to a week of classes while they put the plan in motion, but there should be some way to cover the rest of that class: another professor in that department, an adjunct, perhaps a professor emeritus, or even an advanced grad student who could certainly use the teaching experience. Since described university is a state school in California, however, I can also see how they might not have the money to implement a Plan B.
The contingency account that presumably would cover such an event may no longer exist, or it may already be depleted for the year. I didn't think things like this actually happened the As not the dead professor. It almost sounds like that urban legend that seems to exist on every campus that if your roommate dies they will give you all As. I'm surprised that worked.
I doubt it would have worked on me. Indeed, I already feel my hackles rising ; Or rather, I'm surprised it worked because of the description you gave. It sounds like bullying "not what I agreed to", "rougher", "got my way", "told him he would teach" and that often generates antipathy rather than accommodation. Most syllabi have an explicit "subject to change" and I think taking over a course is a perfectly reasonable reason to change a syllabus. I'm not sure what it means, even, that you "agreed to a syllabus".
A syllabus isn't a contract, after all. You may have selected the course based on the syllabus, but, after all, people make decisions about a course based on all sorts of misunderstandings or partial information. As long as the amended syllabus reasonably met the course description and purpose, I don't see you have a leg to stand on, much less the moral high ground.
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