I don't have a ton of time (been this way for a bit now) but I want to respond in a general nature.
To me, the best teachers were the ones that set a general direction in which the semester/year would go, but allowed the subject matter and details be a sort of living document so to speak.
Teachers that basically assigned tasks by chapter and dictated the in class teachings off a script so to speak were completely useless in my opinion in "teaching" the topics at hand. The teachers that actually allowed the students help drive the teachings in open dialog on top of the book work were much more effective in my opinion.
Of course some subject matter it truly didn't matter the style, but in most cases it did.
It is extremely boring and mundane to be presented text book material in class and then taking the standard concept retention tests each text book wants to present. I don't need to sit in class and absorb that.. hence why I usually (in college where I had a choice) attended the first couple of lectures of every class.. then weeded through Profs that were just puppets of the textbook and then either flipped out of the class or sat in the back of each lecture and bailed as soon as I got schedule information (and the profs that thought they would wait to end of class to layout the schedule, pop back in late in class to grab it.)
I seen no point to sit through the puppet show when I could cover the same material on my own.
So basically to answer your questions:
1. What, of the things your teachers have asked you do (or are currently asking you to do), have been the big wasters of your time and attention?
Having the puppets cover the same material one was going to read and then taking the quiz at end of chapter with another test on top. If you can't effectively "teach" the information without gutting the textbook for your content, quit and change professions.2. What things that your teachers have asked you to do have been (or are) most valuable?
A teacher that actually knows the topic and introduces it in more of a tangible nature than an audible textbook format. Bring the teaching to life.. otherwise, just assign the chapter, allow us to read it in class and like a prison warden make sure we pay our penance via test/quiz, I need not hear you re-script the material.3. What things do you wish your teachers would have done more of?
See #2 4. How old are you?* [Decades (teens, twenties, thirties) or generation (boomers, gen X, gen Y) are sufficient here.]
Graduated High School in 1990.. undergraduate in 1995 and continue to take select classes yet today. Today I just bail if the Prof is a puppet... I can buy the book and accomplish the same dam thing on my schedule, not wasting time to fit it in for a puppet.Some of the best classes I remember (and still leverage today) were the ones where the material was not just presented.. but it was openly debated and torn apart. An example off the top of my head... the Gettysburg Address in high school, we covered it, but we covered not just the speech itself but the related tangents in detail. It probably chopped off another topic that may have been covered because we spent time here, but we effectively covered a much referenced moment in our history.. effectively and not just learning the words or having to recite it correctly. What made it that moment..
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"