I’m still doing the guest instructor thing and it involves taking all the tests so I’ll be familiar with the material. When I took it at YVCC the tests and questions were from Blackboard and were sharp and professional. The ones for this course were developed here in the state and they’re a travesty. Grammatical and spelling errors abound and you can almost hear the collective groans from the students. One test was checking competency at “combining forms” an example of which would be cardi/o for heart. Each of the questions would ask, “What is the Enlish equivalent of ______?” They never spelled English right throughout the test. Subsequent and previous tests have it spelled correctly, however. I’ve been taking the quizzes and exams to become familiar with the proprietary material. We get specific instructions at the beginning of each week to let us know if there is any material we don’t have to be responsible for. One note last week warned us that we would have to know the origins, insertions and actions of several specific muscles and that we would see them on the exam. I patiently committed all the info to memory and eagerly anticipated being able to show off my knowledge. There was NUTHIN about that subject on the exam. That is Not Fair to the students. Some of these students are taking several courses at once and the last thing they need is to be told to learn a big bloc of material and then find out it’s just a cruel hoax. The instructors have to work with this until a new course can be designed so they’re equally frustrated. It should be revised sometime this fall when we get new textbooks. My dream job is to have the MT program at YVCC. It’s handled now by an excellent teacher who is an ARNP. She essentially has two full time jobs. One of these days she’s going to give up the teaching. I hope I’m available to apply for her job because it’s a real plum. I also hope I have some experience under my belt so my app will be more appealing.
