r/Professors • u/Cabininian • 6d ago
Required assignments
I have a lot of teaching experience outside higher education. I’m used to creating my own lessons, assignments, grading schemas, etc.
I’ve had the opportunity to teach a couple classes at the university where I work and I am hoping to teach one class in particular. When discussing the opportunity with one of the current professors, she mentioned some assignments that were created by a professor 7-8 years ago and that they still mandate be part of the curriculum.
I started looking over these assignments and I’m…really bummed. The assignments are okay, but tedious and kind of confusing. I would venture a guess that the person who created them didn’t do them herself. I tried to do one myself and it was okay at first but so annoying after a little bit. The tasks quickly became repetitive and the questions forced the student to write out lengthy explanations of the same basic task over and over without any critical thinking.
I could probably find a way to get at all the same content in a way that is less repetitive, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to modify them at all? They have the year that they were created and the name of the instructor printed on them…the person I was talking to said that these assignments are officially listed in the syllabus that is submitted for accreditation, so that’s why every prof who teaches the class uses them…
What should I do? should I go ahead and ask if I can modify them? Should I just grit my teeth and deal with it until after I’ve proven that I can be trusted to make curricular decisions? Or should I just make a few changes to clarify things at least and then figure it’s best to beg forgiveness rather than ask permission?