Recent hire doesn't actually know the material

[huitz2020]

We had to do a last-minute hire in my department last month. The individual is teaching two courses as an adjunct. They just graduated with the MA in their field, which we assumed meant that they knew the material for the beginning level.

They do not. They know some, yes, but they fumble their way through the rest. Our good students in the upper-level courses could easily correct the materials this instructor uses to teach.

We have spoken to the person. They are intransigent and insist that they've never been told that they had a problem before, that we are micromanaging. They refuse to submit materials like quizzes to us ahead of time so we can correct them. Instead, they are using materials riddled with errors. Embarrassingly bad errors.

I fear that they are doing real damage to the trajectory of the students in these sections.

Is anyone here aware of a similar instance? Any advice?

[research_prof]

I agree that you are micromanaging. Have you heard of academic freedom?

[arcturus]

Do your junior faculty (of all types: adjunct, visiting, tenure-track) have mentors assigned? This is best handled in the context of 'professional development' where all junior faculty (and even senior faculty) are provided the opportunity to consult with others regarding their teaching (and research and service). Otherwise it is very much on the micro-managing level.

Is the instructor engaging students with the type of material that will develop their cognitive abilities appropriately for your discipline? While it is unfortunate that the current students may be experiencing less than optimal teaching, factual errors can be corrected in the future whereas cognitive development is much harder to rectify.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I understand this is not OP's fault, so please don't take it personally, but departments get what they pay for. It shouldn't be surprising that an adjunct who just graduated from a master's program is not ready to teach at the college level or willing to put in extra time/work to do a good job.

[mamselle]

Are there articulation directions the department uses to guarantee consistency in student content absorption and demonstrations of competency in the field?

It might be useful to share those as well, for a more global picture of the class ' place in the wider scheme of things.

And it's quite possible for MA grads to teach a rigirous course: I know of some who fielded complaints that they were too exigent, it depends on their level of overall scholarship, teaching experience and personal academic standards,  not just their degree.

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

I have taught a lot of last minute classes.  That is very hard to do without adequate time to prepare. 

I have also taught a number of classes that are outside my area, and these are also very hard to do first time around.

If what you say about their attitude is accurate, this person may be a pain and not someone you want to work with in the future.

But part of the problem is certainly the "last-minute hire" aspect of the job.  Give'em a break.  Try to approach them in a friendly manner.  Offer to help.  Don't "correct" their lesson plans.

Hope it works out.

[huitz2020]

Hi, all, thanks for the responses.

In response to the points mentioned above:
-no, there is no formal system for mentoring in place. I coordinate the program and volunteered to work with the new hire to help with onboarding, department/institution culture, a not-so-intuitive LMS, etc. New hire said no, thanks.
-Regarding rigor, expectations for students, etc., I fear that this is all a moot point. New hire is teaching a lower level language course but is actually unable to use the language accurately. By that I don't mean using MY version of the language. I mean a general international standard, akin to what appears in textbooks. NH's interactions with students are full of language errors typical of students in the level that NH is supposed to be teaching. Some of the mistakes are minor, while others render their message incomprehensible.
-I agree that the pay is contemptible. And I hate it. We've rearranged some things within the department to make some funds available to part-time faculty for travel and professional development. Band-aids, I know, but the problem is institution-wide. It's out of our hands in the department.

We didn't "test" the new hire before they arrived to make sure they actually knew the language, as that has never been our practice (and would feel insulting to the hire, I think -- it would for me, were I in that position). They just got a masters degree in the language, so it felt like a safe assumption that they knew the material for a second-semester course. They do not. It felt like a reasonable assumption that a recent grad would be able to produce basic sentences without errors. They are not able to do that.

I sympathize with NH's position, I really do. One's first post-graduation job, even if only part-time, produces a lot of anxiety. I get that. But NH also neglects to meet deadlines (like submitting paperwork within the department, submitting paperwork to HR, providing a syllabus to students, etc.). That last one was problematic: when the department chair learned that the students didn't have a syllabus, they provided one to NH, but NH refused. Students contacted the department office to find out what texts they needed, which is how we learned there was no syllabus.

So... what do we do? What would help NH grow as an academic AND serve the needs of the students in the sections they are teaching?

[huitz2020]

I have taught a lot of last minute classes.  That is very hard to do without adequate time to prepare. 

I have also taught a number of classes that are outside my area, and these are also very hard to do first time around.

If what you say about their attitude is accurate, this person may be a pain and not someone you want to work with in the future.

But part of the problem is certainly the "last-minute hire" aspect of the job.  Give'em a break.  Try to approach them in a friendly manner.  Offer to help.  Don't "correct" their lesson plans.

Hope it works out.

Sorry, I missed this while I was responding.

It does help to be reminded of the new hire's perspective, so thanks for that. To clarify, though, we aren't correcting their lesson plans. We asked them to rework a quiz that was requiring incorrect conjugations (among other things). It's embarrassing to have your mistakes pointed out by your boss, and the chair was very gentle about it. They have since posted another version of the quiz, one with fewer errors (and less egregious ones) but still full of mistakes. Chair and I decided to let this one go, as these mistakes are not likely to create problems for the students in future courses, not like the first set of mistakes.

[Wahoo Redux]

It sounds like you just made a bad hire.

I was at a school which fired an adjunct midstream.  Don't know how that worked out, actually.

Good luck.

[Caracal]

We had to do a last-minute hire in my department last month. The individual is teaching two courses as an adjunct. They just graduated with the MA in their field, which we assumed meant that they knew the material for the beginning level.

They do not. They know some, yes, but they fumble their way through the rest. Our good students in the upper-level courses could easily correct the materials this instructor uses to teach.

We have spoken to the person. They are intransigent and insist that they've never been told that they had a problem before, that we are micromanaging. They refuse to submit materials like quizzes to us ahead of time so we can correct them. Instead, they are using materials riddled with errors. Embarrassingly bad errors.

I fear that they are doing real damage to the trajectory of the students in these sections.

Is anyone here aware of a similar instance? Any advice?

Teaching is hard and doesn't come naturally to most people. For the most part, there's very little actual pedagogy training in grad school. Usually the assumption is that if you know the material, you can teach it effectively. That often isn't true. It could be that this instructor is just drowning, lacks confidence and is making a lot of mistakes as a result.

You could be right that this is about knowledge. It's your field and your observations and so you have to be the judge of that. I just would make sure to consider the possibility that this is a teaching problem rather than a problem with their background knowledge and competence. It can be incredibly difficult and time consuming to create new materials-would it be possible to offer some from past classes to this person? That could save them a lot of time as opposed to asking them to submit everything early which is just going to be more time consuming and inconvenient.

[Parasaurolophus]

It doesn't sound like micro-managing to me; these problems are simply not acceptable. Tardiness with materials and the like is common enough at the faculty level that it's not something I'd hold against a newly-minted MA, but error-ridden materials and assessments just can't stand, not in a language class. Mistakes here and there are fine (especially common ones like misgendering a noun), but the assessments can't be chock full of them.

I think that the department head needs to make what Francophones call a "muscular" intervention. You guys need to get into damage-control mode. That means requiring the instructor to use pre-existing materials which you provide or, yes, checking their materials ahead of time (which may not be doable if they're generating them on the fly themselves, not having taught before). If they won't comply, then you just have to fire them (it sounds like there's cause) and pay someone else for an emergency overload.

IMO, the kind thing to do is to force help on them. If they reject it, then you just have to salvage your class. You owe it to the students (not to mention whoever gets those students in future semesters).

[mamselle]

OK, that's something I can speak to very directly.

You need to find a different adjunct. There must be others around--even if you have to go online to do it.

I've twice been called in to teach beginning French with, once a week's notice, and once a day's (overnight) notice (at the same place...).

Beginning language learners absolutely need good pronunciation, grammar, and sentence structure examples off the bat. Language learning is (correctly) based on the concept of hearing, speaking, reading, and writing--in that order--as the best pedagogical model for absorbing the language in the way children do--so hearing it correctly spoken and learning the grammatical forms correctly is paramount.

And it's NOT insulting to test for competency. At my first interview, I was sent in to have a conversation with a senior member of the department who was fluent, to be sure I knew to speak correctly and didn't make egregious (or any) errors in hearing, understanding, or replying to questions and comments.

If the individual got a degree at a place where reading competency was emphasized over speaking and hearing, which does happen, their proficiencies may not be in the spoken language at all. It takes forever to learn to speak in any language correctly--Berlitz lightening courses notwithstanding--and a huge degree of humility before the craft of the language in order to remain a lifelong learner in it.

I keep one of my browsers in French, I have my Wikipedia account in French, and I used to make myself read at least two French books a year until I a) found a French reading group to attach to--it does 6 books a year with discussion in French--and b) I started doing all the reading for one of my research specialties almost completely in French, just to keep my awareness up. I've started language groups in the workplace and have friends with whom I only speak and write in French to stay current as well.

In other word, you have to be passionate about language acquisition before you can teach it well, and if you're getting a lot of defensive guff, that's not a good sign.

I, too, by the way, didn't even have the textbook either time I had to 'hit the ground running,' the next day or the next week, and I constructed a syllabus that covered all the basics and then some until I got it--turned it around in a day--because I KNEW those basics and how they're taught. (And none of my degrees are IN French, I just take it seriously.)

Articulation to the next course is of paramount importance as well. Languages are hard enough without landing in the second semester not knowing all the things expected to have been covered in the first.

Get an alternative in there and replace your "it's not working out" person, because you can't teach all the stuff they need to know before the end of the semester, especially if they're resistant to learning about it.

M.   

ETA: Para and I just crossed in the ethernet. +1 to all Para said as well....

M.

[kaysixteen]

Yes, and when you seek to hire a replacement, perhaps consider doing something like having at least some of the job interview be conducted in the target language.

[financeguy]

This is exactly what one should expect from the circumstances. Good luck finding someone else willing to teach the subject as a hobby with no job security, pay or autonomy. In addition, good luck getting other to pay to be on the receiving end of that instruction.

[ciao_yall]

Hi, all, thanks for the responses.

In response to the points mentioned above:
-no, there is no formal system for mentoring in place. I coordinate the program and volunteered to work with the new hire to help with onboarding, department/institution culture, a not-so-intuitive LMS, etc. New hire said no, thanks.
-Regarding rigor, expectations for students, etc., I fear that this is all a moot point. New hire is teaching a lower level language course but is actually unable to use the language accurately. By that I don't mean using MY version of the language. I mean a general international standard, akin to what appears in textbooks. NH's interactions with students are full of language errors typical of students in the level that NH is supposed to be teaching. Some of the mistakes are minor, while others render their message incomprehensible.
-I agree that the pay is contemptible. And I hate it. We've rearranged some things within the department to make some funds available to part-time faculty for travel and professional development. Band-aids, I know, but the problem is institution-wide. It's out of our hands in the department.

We didn't "test" the new hire before they arrived to make sure they actually knew the language, as that has never been our practice (and would feel insulting to the hire, I think -- it would for me, were I in that position). They just got a masters degree in the language, so it felt like a safe assumption that they knew the material for a second-semester course. They do not. It felt like a reasonable assumption that a recent grad would be able to produce basic sentences without errors. They are not able to do that.

I sympathize with NH's position, I really do. One's first post-graduation job, even if only part-time, produces a lot of anxiety. I get that. But NH also neglects to meet deadlines (like submitting paperwork within the department, submitting paperwork to HR, providing a syllabus to students, etc.). That last one was problematic: when the department chair learned that the students didn't have a syllabus, they provided one to NH, but NH refused. Students contacted the department office to find out what texts they needed, which is how we learned there was no syllabus.

So... what do we do? What would help NH grow as an academic AND serve the needs of the students in the sections they are teaching?

Bolded are your problems. If the NH isn't willing to work with you to solve them, then the problems are not solvable.

I have taught classes that went poorly, but I never refused help or coaching.

My college prefers faculty to be native speakers of the language and holds the interviews in the target language.