Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate
I think one of the major problems with university teaching at the moment is the strong emphasis on student evaluations.<p>I don't believe students are necessarily the best judges of learning outcomes. In face I have learned that students tend to be the most conservative entities at university. Try to make any change in a course and they will hammer you on the evaluations. The detailed instruction example is a perfect example of this. In my experience it is not so much that students find creative ways to misinterpret loose instructions, instead I had students literally complain they had to think for labs or homework. I find this attitude very weird, as if when they start working they will always be given the detailed step by step instructions.