Student feedback

Last week was the end of my first course with my new college. I work there two and a half days a week, which is sufficient for me. In one class a student gave me feedback. The students had/have certain problems with my teaching, which I will look at below.

1) Apparently they cannot always understand what I say. The student said one problem is that a lot of the other students were from outside Britain and had little previous experience of health and social care. I use too many difficult words it seems and have a English accent (Oxbridge, clear to any English speaker). This course is nevertheless the equivalent of a degree course.

Student's remedy: I should dumb down, that is come down to their level and I suspect even change my accent. I am a bad teacher because I do not do so. Another problem with my teaching is that I expect them to do some work!

My remedy: the students should actually do some work, read for example at least the online material provided by the college or they should consider doing a course within their limited abilities. I also said that the point of education is that they should come up to the teacher's level not the teacher descend to theirs. Many of the students want/need the lecturer to do all the work, even write the assignments. Their quarrel is with lecturers who decline to do that! So far, 4 students have delivered well-written work that is not their's but done, of course, by people not on the course and that does not therefore actually reflect the course. It is therefore completely wrong and at odds with the material I delivered. Like other lecturers at the college, I have been heavily criticised by students who really do not have the ability, knowledge or educational background to do the course. Students have been signed on for these courses because if they are recruited on to the lower levels they will not get grants.