To be the squeaky wheel or not...
I'm sitting in my Computer Architecture class and maybe a third of the class is listening. The rest zoned out, one appears to be sleeping. The instructor is a nice guy, but well, way past his prime. I don't know if he had a stroke or something, but he mumbles a lot. He also never prepares anything. Most of the time he asks us where we left off last time. If he plans his lectures, it surely doesn't show. He's rambling through the PPTs provided by the book publisher, more or less reading them. Oh, and he has no clue how to use PPT and he's a CS instructor. I get the impression he's never looked at the slides before. Most of the class bombed the midterm, why we do not know because we haven't gotten it back yet. We took it almost a month ago. Likewise, I've yet to get back the last two assignments we handed in over a month ago. He often goes off on tangents and has told the same stories at least four times.
Believe it or not, but I tend to avoid creating trouble when I can. But I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I shouldn't send an email to the department chair outlining the problems in the course and suggesting that she make an unannounced visit and sit in on one of the sessions. I understand the need for tenure - for research. But instruction is a different matter. I can see tenure protecting professors who research controversial areas, but incompetent instructors need to be handled. Perhaps he should teach online courses where he doesn't have direct interaction, where he'll be forced to plan in advance and software will do much of the work for him. I checked online and he has no positive reviews from anyone. This is a stark contrast to the other courses I've taken here. All the instructors I've had to date have been knowledgeable and most are good teachers. Despite being a community college, CCSF has for the most part a good faculty. They manage to do quite a bit with dwindling resources. This class however is the worst I've taken anywhere. I had some tenured profs back at UW who just went through the motions to collect their pensions, but they were few and they at least could answer student questions.
Mostly I'm not sure what would be done, if anything. Apparently he's been terrible for years...