I have taught at both ITT and at the local JC. The first time I taught at the JC after teaching at ITT, I was shocked that there was NO Curriculum, NO syllabus, NO quizzes or Final Exam. My first semester teaching at the JC, I was called in to teach 4 days before the semester started. There were 46 students enrolled in the class I was assigned to teach! I asked the Dean... Do you have any materials for me? He looked at me like I was crazy! I asked if he had a textbook and he found a used out of date older edition under a pile of stuff on his cluttered desk. I asked who I reported attendance to... He looked shocked and said I didn't need to take attendance unless I wanted to. All he was concerned about was that I met 6 learning objectives. He didn't care if students had exams or needed to write a paper or have quizzes! It took 2 months before I could log into their computer system! I had a limited amount of copies I could make and the paper use was limited. They messed up my paycheck 3 times! On one occasion, I didn't receive any pay until the end of October! Mind you I started in August! This kind of experience was common at the JC every time I taught there. I always had what I needed in the way of support at ITT! And they paid me every 2 weeks and even paid me if I needed a substitute due to illness (which only happened 2 times in 5 yrs). We always had plenty of supplies and we had plenty of course support.
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One of the reasons that everything is prepped is due to the fact that many of the instructors are adjuncts and many of them work full-time in their field of study. Perhaps ITT feels that by having everything done, it was saving time for the instructors.
I have seen adjuncts who came from a traditional university or community college and teach and were blown away at how little input or academic freedom they had when it came to the courses they were taught and how little they were allowed to deviate from what they were given. To the adjuncts who were working in the field, they were frustrated as well because some of the stuff they were teaching wasn’t even at the core of field anymore.
"he threw the book across the classroom "---that's funny/sad, many years ago in teaching my very first ITT class (first day), I mentioned I had spotted an errata & 2 students immediately threw their books across the classroom (bam-into the wall!!) & started saying how much their books "always s---ed" & that they were completely upset with all of the NITT books they had been getting during their program. Since it was my first day, I wasn't sure what to think.
@Russell Hilburn Did they pay you to say that? There were 2 instructors at the Getzville campus that were top notch and they had to practically rewrite the labs because they were so outdated for the Networking class. One of them was so upset at the fact that this was happening, he threw the book across the classroom and on his way out, said tomorrow is my last day. I can't teach this trash that's provided yo you and expect you to learn this!!! I have fought this long enough and I cannot win! Teacher- Amado Figueroa!
The world is better off with ITT gone. Same for Corinthian.
I am so glad that after I looked at both Devry and ITT that I ran like hell to the local community college. When I visited the Columbus, Ohio campus, the sales pitches made my skin crawl. I was lied to by the recruiter at ITT, as I had researched my financial aid options prior to meeting with them, when I called them out, they continued to lie and I walked out and asked them to never contact me again.
The community college price is affordable, the computer labs are routinely updated, our school just moved to Win 10 and Office 365 and as an IT Student, I have access to Microsoft Dreamspark that allows me access to Microsoft's developer software at no charge. Class sizes are manageable, every class has a syllabus on the first day - no exceptions and beyond a few challenges with textbooks, mostly due to the campus bookstore, I have had an issue with the school. The community college has flexible course times and many courses are offered online as well. I also have access to an online state supported e-tutoring service that has come in handy on numerous occasions.
The main reason I chose a community college is this; I live in Ohio and my courses will transfer to a state university. The Department of Higher Education created a Transfer 2 Degree program that streamlines the credit transfer from the community college to a traditional 4-year college. This ensures that I do not loose credits and have an efficient pathway to my 4-year degree. I a will shortly graduate and transfer to Ohio State to complete my degree.
I have been instructed on current technology by faculty that work in my field of study. When I graduate I will have about $10,000 in loans, all government backed, due to my financial aid and the scholarships that I received after being matched by the financial aid office. The school also works hard to keep tuition and books affordable by using open education resources when possible, especially in the IT courses as the books are out of date as soon as they are published.
I and most of my classmates are happy with the education we have received, as with anything, the quality of my education is based on the effort that I put into my studies, the classroom work is just a taste of what is to come, you need to motivate yourself to go beyond the coursework and learn every day.
As a real teacher you are expected to create lesson plans, tests etc. This is the profession. Needing a prefab lesson plan would be like Modigliani needing a paint by number set.
Not sure what it is that you are talking about. I was an adjunct at a community college for quite number of years; yes the pay rate is higher than ITT; yes the syllabus, tests, final exam, quizzes, etc., has to be developed by the instructor
So you think that having preset final exams which don't change is a good thing? Is that because the exams are answers are available online for the students (as many are for ITT Tech)?
Professional teachers at CCs & universities make up their own curriculum all the time. CCs and universities also generally pay more than ITT Tech!
ITT Tech education is a scam. In the view of head-quarters, the instructors are basically spoon fed the curriculum, and so don't need to do much prep, or even have to know very much about their course content, and so shouldn't have to get paid much. Then, in turn, the instructors are expected to spoon feed the students, make sure everyone passes, again without having to do much or even know very much about the content.
The misconception that some people have on this post -- i.e, since community colleges don't spoon feed, no teaching or learning is probably taking place -- is stunningly ignorant.
ITT-Tech headquarters likes ignorance. Keep drinking the kool-aid, and the executives get to keep funneling gov't student loan money into their pockets.
Start figuring out how to get by without the spoon feeding folks, because its coming to an end.
I am a Cisco employee, just browsing other boards here. I'll go on record here regarding my community college experience. I got my AA degree from Merritt College (Oakland, CA), my wife went to Vista Community College in Berkeley (not it's called Berkeley City College). We both transferred to UC San Diego, got engineering degrees, we both have been working at Cisco for 10+ years.
Our Community College experience was stellar, we never had a class without a syllabus, classes were never overcrowded (UCSD was a different story though), and counseling was laser focused on making our transfers happen. Supplies were scarce but sufficient, labs were old but well kept... At $13/unit (price at that time) my Pell Grant was covering pretty much all I needed and more. They would hand out small $500/semester scholarships if you had a 3+ GPA and low income. We both worked part time while in school, had roommates, ate ramen, etc. - nonetheless, my debt load after getting my AA was literally zero.
Just wanted to share my experience in light of comments above. I have many friends with similar experience and I really cannot say anything bad about the community college system here in California.
Lets see if I can explain this. You might be looking for a teaching job next week, not at ITT-Tech. You say, "I did research and supplemented given curriculum with additional material." Okay, now imagine that your are doing research and putting together an entire curriculum. Say you are given a textbook to use, and a set of objectives to teach by management. Maybe even a lab manual. Now, think about what it means for students to master those objectives. And figure out how you will know if the students are on track, ie "assess" student progress. Outline activities for the entire quarter, make lesson plans for each class, write up assignments, quizzes, practice quizzes, exams, labs. Do all the assignments and quizzes yourself, make answer keys. Put together Word documents, Powerpoints, etc. Edit and re-edit. Set up lab equipment, test all labs to make sure everything works.
"It's up to the teacher? That's like School of Rock. That would work for lazy teachers. At ITT you can't be lazy."
What? Again, this story seems unbelievable. If you think putting together your own curriculum for scratch, as in instructor, is the lazy way out, you are totally clueless about education. Sorry, but that is a fact.
"And they paid me every 2 weeks "
It's hard to count the large number of new adjuncts who didn't get paid by ITT for weeks upon end, even though they were brought in several weeks before the start of the term. I remember one instructor didn't get paid til about week 7 or 8, Around week 6 he was saying if he didn't get paid for the several classes he was teaching (and after hearing other adjunct horror stories), he'd stop until paid. It was well known not to expect to get paid for some time upon starting there. Then dean was always having to apologize for HR/payroll being so unresponsive to multiple requests. Many times new instructors couldn't log into the "training sessions" they were supposed to take before beginning classes, until several weeks into the term. Perhaps this is too common across the board at all schools.
Having a hard time believing this story. Not the part about another school not having a curriculum package ready for every instructor, but the part where you actually expected that to be the case. And the part where you seemed to have no clue about what your job entailed before you started. Did you not have a job description?
I have taught high school, college, adult basic education, for years. None of these schools had a curriculum package prepared for me, nor did I expect one. I always assumed I would be preparing my own curriculum -- based on the objectives the school wanted the students to master. And then there is ITT-Tech. And the curriculum material handed to me at ITT-Tech was beyond bad. Problems with curriculum have been discussed in great detail on this forum already, by many instructors.
The expectation my supervisors have had of me , except at ITT-Tech, is that I know my topic so well, and am familiar enough with education "best practices," that I will want to prepare my own curriculum. I was shocked when I heard instructors at ITT-Tech confused about how to grade a final exam without the answer key -- like they didn't know the material well enough, for the course they were teaching, to confidently take the exam themselves?