I really struggled with this assignment for two reasons. First, I think that I have been genuinely blessed with (at least what I perceived to be good teachers) through out my primary, secondary, and for the most part university education. Second, while I have had several teachers make “de-motivational” statements (i.e., their class is “extremely hard”, that “very few, if any, students will get stellar grades”, etc) either to me individually or my class as a group, these kinds of statements tend to be very effective at motivating me to work hard. That said the following is my de-motivational story.
All through primary and secondary school I loved history. I was a voracious reader, had an excellent memory, and typically did extremely well on the types of standardized tests typically given. During my first year at university I took a course in ancient European history. While I really enjoyed the discussions in the lectures, I did not enjoy reading the primary source material, and did not do well on the exams (which consisted primarily of essay based questions). I was particularly frustrated and de-motivated by the lack of feedback on my exam papers. This lack of feedback made it difficult to improve my writing/historical analysis skills. I came to feel that the lecturer just “didn’t like” the way I wrote/thought. With no hope of improving I basically stopped trying and focused my attention on other classes and subjects. I have never taken a formal history class since.
What could have been done differently? The obvious answer is that the lecturer could have given more detailed feedback on my exam papers. Such feedback would have helped me to see how I could have taken steps to improve my mark on future assignments. However, having been responsible for marking undergraduate essays as a graduate teaching assistant I am well aware that providing detailed feedback on essays can be extremely time consuming or impossible (depending on the size of the class). Given the difficulty of providing necessary feedback on essays, the lecturer could have searched for an alternative mechanism for assessing student progress. Some combination of multiple choice/and short answer perhaps.