Do I complain about this teacher at my university?

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I’m not taking an English class at uni, but I thought maybe somebody with some university teaching experience could give me ideas on what to do in this situation.

I’m taking a course in flash as a part of my university studies. This class is notoriously ‘hard to pass’ (all of my seniors and classmates say that whenever I mention I’m taking it). Having been in it for several weeks now, I know exactly why.

We have not ONCE used flash in class. Our entire class time is watching the teacher run through the different commands and show us how to use them/change the settings/etc. on our screens (screen control - we all see what she sees on hers, and can’t do anything with our monitors). While she’s doing this she basically just reads the textbook, demonstrating bits of it as she goes.

So when we have homework, we really have to teach ourselves how to use the program using resources like google and youtube. Which I’d be fine with, if my tuition payment wasn’t coming up and I hadn’t just realised that I could do this for free. Basically I’m paying money so that I can pay more money to buy a textbook and have somebody read it to me.

Should I complain? And does anyone know how?

2

Does your university do student evaluations of professors? Is it too late in the term to drop the course?

3

Having taught Flash for a technical school myself, I can say that I would go about a month of classes without using the application.

HOWEVER: I taught design and composition theory and applied it to Flash screen/resolution and assigned Flash homework precisely b/c the students need to know theory AND they teach themselves how to use the software anyway.

In a 16 week course, the second month would be exploring the application and taking the skills to the next level, which sounds like what the prof is doing. And the front half of the term was strictly working on Flash projects with the students, with class discussion at the end of each lesson.

I’ve had bad profs like this one and felt screwed money-wise but nothing you can do about it. Drop the class or send a note to the chair of the program outlining what’s going on/not going on in the course.