Complaint regarding inadequate instruction in IIT physics course

Letter of Complaint

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing this letter to inform you of a problem with courses at IIT. I have paid $15,000 every year to attend IIT as a part time student and expect a very high quality education in return. For the most part, this has been the case. However, some of the classes have poor instructors with little in-depth subject knowledge and teaching experience.

In particular, I don't feel that I learned much from the class taught by James Cameron. He didn't spend much time preparing class material; most of his lectures came directly from the NRC Web site. There weren't any handouts in the class. Instead, Mr. Cameron gave us the NCR Web address and even referred us directly to the site for test questions. This was a problem because I had expected to learn more than NRC regulation.

The very premise of Mr. Cameron's class was violated through his tests. For example, questions related to the history of regulation had little academic value. Most questions were subjective short essays that did little to test to the knowledge of the student. They were also mundane and irrelevant to practical experience when they should have been related to real-world problems. and, as mentioned earlier, test questions were repeated directly from their sources.

IIT is a high quality distance learning school, but this Mr. Cameron's course was a total waste of time and money. I do not believe I should pay a lot of tuition for an instructor who came to class without proper preparation and who read material from NCR sources. In fact, it appeared that he didn't spend any time outside of class preparing lessons. During class, he just read the PowerPoint slides, often without any attempt to explain them. He often appeared to be pondering what the slides meant. When asked questions, Mr. Cameron explained things poorly. He also spent too time trying to figure out how to load PowerPoint files. Under these conditions, it's impossible to expect students to understand the lectures.

Consider the following chronological events as evidence that I have received unfair treatment.

Aug. 26-classes begin - Sept. 9. 2004-PHYS 573 class begins

Dr. Howard did not send out an email informing students that James Cameron was a new instructor who is teaching at the university level for the first time until September 16, well after classes began.

Nov. 05 - last day for official withdrawal

No student knew grading standards at this time

Throughout the term

Mr. Cameron read from an overhead projector that displayed small, blurry words and he often covered the words with his hand. Therefore, it was difficult to read the text and follow the lectures. To resolve the issue, I sent an email asking him to provide materials. However, he refused to provide the information and accused me of not listening to his lecture tape. I then had to forward his email to other students in the class to get him to reply.

A strongly feel that I did not get an appropriate level of interaction between students and faculty. This is a very vital part of the learning tool according to the guidelines for distance education (WICHE) principles,-page 1. Long distance education lectures depend on a quality lecture that the student can see and follow. Mr. Cameron's refusal to provide information that was needed to follow the lecture was an example of poor quality interactions between instructor and student.

Nov. 24, - received email from instructor 2 w / a grade of E (Thanksgiving vacation 25-27).

A received my grade three weeks after the last official day to withdraw from the class, w / I between this time James Cameron refused to review the information that I provided to support my answers for the midterm exam.

Mr. Cameron was not interested in the information that I provided him to back up my answers. I had written him an email to offer him the documentation of how I derived my answers. He replied back via email stating that my test was still under review.

Mr. Cameron waited until Nov. 24 at 10:40 PM on the Thanksgiving Eve holiday to make his decision. He stated that w / high confidence that I had collaborated my answers w / 2 other students in the class. In reality, I had gotten my answer #3 from one of the major health physics public Web sites that Mr. Cameron had given to me during his class lecture. He disregarded school rules and policies when he gave me the worse punishment without any evidence and without going through the appropriate procedures. He claims that he had consulted w the appropriate department officials, but this is misleading. He forwarded his email to the advisor of the Academic Program, Andrew Howard). However, he needed to go through Discipline,