Professors who don't teach

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I admit I first thought that based on what I heard on my first day of the semester, it seemed as if I had lucked out on math 104 (college algebra). As my professor put it "This is the easiest math class you will ever take".

However, my professor has very goofy teaching style. His voice is very soft and is hard for me to understand, and he jumps around on topics during his lecture and is never really specific or clear on how to go about doing things. He just puts a problem up on the board and verbalizes his own thoughts as he solves it.

On thursday we had a lesson on adding, subtracting, multipling, dividing, simplifing/factoring nomials. Trying to understand what was going on felt like gears crashing inside my brain. Tonight I was trying to read thru the book for some follow up so I could the homework assingment and I got that same feeling again of gears crashing in my head.

I know it's early in the semester, but I'm an aspie who has never had even basic comprehension or understanding of any area of mathematics outside of +,-, & *. I've relied on rote and luck to get where I am now and like last semester with spanish, I feel as if I'm falling into a trap again.

How do I approach this guy for help, let alone tell him that I don't even belong in his class.

I've had a series of people that can't teach and are hopeless at it, all through out my schooling life.

What you have to do is work together with friends or family if you can't approach him, what he can't teach you will have to teach yourself. It works - I had a bad teacher once and Mum and I basically did the whole thing myself.

I would also reccomend a one on one maths tutor. I've had one of those before. The tutor can come to your house ect.

You can go to the campus councillor usually to find out abou help for people with Autism/AS and what aides they've got to offer.

This makes me glad that my best friend is in teacher's college...

We need a few more good teachers... people who interact with every student...

Yeah, I used to teach at a university and as far as I can tell, most college professors see teaching as sort of a side bar of their job - I know my students said I was a GREAT teacher and as far as I was concerned I was only doing what I needed to do . . .

A tutor is a good idea, because you are just going to be beating your head against a wall trying to get the professor to change . . .

Uhggg, today was even worse, Radical expressions. He all over the place so much so that I couldn't even get down any notes down.

His teaching style must be working, everyone else in the class was hanging on his every word. I asked my neigbhors in class if they understood him at all, they both said his lecture was easily understood.

I'm totally lost here, and were just covering review items! We're not even in the actuall course material yet! We have a test on it thursday and if I don't get some help fast, I'm going to be getting a ZERO on this test.

Or you could drop the class for now, talk to an advisor and see if maybe a different prof is teaching the following semester. You also must remember that when you are in those 100-200 level classes, it is normally graduate students teaching you and they have little teaching experience, unless your University does not offer a graduate degree in Mathematics.

I would go to your student advisor, educate them on Asperger's and tell them what you need in order to be successful. They work for you and it is their job to make sure you succeed.

When I went to University, I had my advisor map out my remaining two years completely, to the last detail. I knew exactly which classes I was taking, who was teaching and what the expectations were. She played to my strengths by assigning me professors who tested with papers and essays instead of multiple choice, which is hard for me, b/c I read too literally and get confused. It was nice to have a plan in place and it made registering every quarter so much easier.

I found a professor that taught to all different sorts of learners, visual, aduitory, etc. and he was extremely organized. His test questions were specific, concise and he combined multiple choice with essay questions, so that he played to students' different strengths. I took every class he offered.

When you get to your upper division classes, I think you will find that in a lot of cases, the lecture isn't as important, but your papers are.

If you can't drop the class, or don't want to, I would definitely look into a tutor.

Tallgirl.

http://www.wtamu.edu/academic/anns/mps/ ... /index.htm

I found this website thru google. Reading thru the tutorials has been quite helpful.

I don't have a undergrad teaching my class, I have a full fledged PhD teaching, and looking thru my course catalog, he only teaches my class and one other. The rest of his time is spent doing "research"

Hey I can help teach you mathematics if you want. I have a very good understanding of most concepts up to Calculus, and have some experience tutoring. I would be glad to help.

Sometimes professors are just hard to understand. I've had a couple that I had trouble with. You can try learning on your own that might work, and ask a question after class or in the professors office about something you tried figuring out but didn't understand.

Its a sad fact that with Maths you can either do it or you can't..... I breezed through Maths at Shool/University with hardly any effort at all(confusing lecturers or not), while of course some people worked their rears off and still couldn't get even the basics down...... Its just one of those things.....

Yes, I don't think you ever see an average maths ability in AS. People are either above average or below. Myself, I don't speak the language of maths, or the way it was taught just confused me. I'd talk to your disability officer about accomodations/tutoring, or drop the class for now (if that's possible).

Generally lectureres don't like teaching...it's not an important part of their duties to them.