I love Constructivism; It's Constructivists I can't stand

rant warning...

I'm a busy person, and my time -- both in class and out -- is valuable to me. I assume that the same is true for every one of the participants in every class I teach.

To me, rule #1 when teaching adult learners is "Don't waste their time." I spend a lot of time and effort thinking about the most efficient ways to manage my own time and my own learning, and I take a lot of care in trying to design activities that are an asset to participants in their efforts to do the same.

Now, I don't always succeed, but it's never for lack of trying.

So why is it that so many academics seem to think that simply calling their approach "constructivist" or "experimental" automatically legitimizes their unfocused - and sometimes, frankly, downright lazy - approach to teaching?

To them I say: Look, people, if you don't want to teach or haven't planned and organized your class, fine. Your students will either drop the class or wait out the semester. Feel free to find some way to make it look like you're doing something during class, but don't assign busywork for the evenings unless you're going to at least pretend there was some point to the effort.

In other words, stop wasting everybody's time. You're giving the rest of us a bad name.

/rant