Rating College Professors

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Hortonka, Aug 1, 2007.

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  1. Hortonka

    Hortonka New Member

    Hello everyone,


    I was provide this website link that upon entering the name of a particular university you can browse and check how other students rate this particular professor. It also allows you to add other professors and provide feedback base on your experience.

    Here is the Link

    http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/index.jsp
     
  2. buckwheat3

    buckwheat3 Master of the Obvious

    Hortonka,
    Yes I swear by that web site! I have seen many professors that I took classes from campus " in-the-seat" classes and also online classes. In most cases the student assessments are right on spot.

    That web site is wonderful, it actually help me make a decision to drop from a grad program before I became too involved and take my credit hours and run to another program! The reason was, I essentially found close to 50% of the faculty as being listed as "duds"
    all the best,
    Gavin
     
  3. Hortonka

    Hortonka New Member

    Buckwheat3,

    Thanks for the feedback I hope others on this discussion board will find the link useful as well. I wish I had discover this link earlier otherwise I would have not taken a couple of courses with professors. You are correct many of the feedbacks are correct.
     
  4. Longwaytogo

    Longwaytogo New Member

    Yes, indeed, it's a useful website. One doesn't have to register to search schools and professors, so for a couple years I've just read the first page and found the comments accurate.

    Recently I wanted to know more, so signed up as a member. Lo and behold, some professors I'd taken classes from in person had over 70 ratings, all very accurate. That website has just saved me from taking a distance course from the only "bad news" professor in a department. Maybe they give the poorest teachers online classes as punishment?

    Anyway, I highly recommend getting any advance knowledge you can, it's a jungle out there!
     
  5. Tylin

    Tylin New Member

    I wish I'd known about that site when I was taking traditional courses at my local university. It might have saved me a lot of stress! The ratings I read about my old profs are right on the money.
     
  6. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    I too have used the website many times and have found it to be accurate, so far.
     
  7. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    As an instructor, I monitor the site in order to get feedback. Although it is useful, you might also find that there is a lot of revenge feedback left by students that got a bad grade. You find that some angry students leave multiple messages judged by the date stamps of the messages as the site does not control this.
     
  8. Shawn Ambrose

    Shawn Ambrose New Member

    While it is a tool, ANYONE can log on and comment. I believe that the person who operates the Capella Sucks websites went and rated me in a class. This is based on the comments and the time frame that the comments were made.

    Shawn
     
  9. warguns

    warguns Member

    Every college professor knows that to get good ratings, one only has to give out high grades. I know professor who practically read a telephone book to their classes. They give easy tests, high grades and get good ratings.

    It is not a coincidence that the rating of professors and grade inflation occurred simultaneously.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 22, 2007
  10. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    You also need to be funny and tell good jokes in class. High rated professors give good grades and are funny. I taught few stats courses and got rates as "this course was boring". I also observed that many good professors get bad ratings just because they are strict and give difficult exams.

    The reality is that many students that rush to go the site is after the exam as out of revenge.

    I would disagree that those ratings are very credible. I have seen many bad rates for professors in my University that get consistent good evaluations in official evaluations.
     
  11. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I have to agree with this, I taught few classes that were rather easy and most students got high grades. For those classes my rates are high. I also taught few stats classes where I had to fail quite a few students, those gave me the lowest rates.
     
  12. Hortonka

    Hortonka New Member


    I would concur that there is an element of students who rated certain professors out of revenge or anger. However would you agree that this segment is very small? If you look at the rating, there is a section that details the level of difficulty of the professor.
     
  13. CoachTurner

    CoachTurner Member

    grade inflation didn't begin with the rating of professors online - grade inflation started a long long time ago.

    While there may well be some revenge ratings on here (is it revenge or did you actually fail at reaching that student); there are plenty of ratings where the professor is being rated highly AND the class is being rated as hard. Ease of class does not correlate with quality of professor. There are examples of classes marked as very easy and the professor still has low ratings.

    Some professors just suck and should get a job making french fries at the local eatery, I know this because I was in their class. Some others are truly outstanding educators but can't seem to advance in the academy because Dr. Ima Butthead is in their way and won't quit. I'd like to think RatemyProfessor helps move the latter out of the way.

    As a side for those who didn't know - I've sat on selection where we went through the ratemyprofessor ratings of applicants. We also checked out Facebook, MySpace, and a simple Google of the name. You need to be aware of what's out there and what it says about you.
     
  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Just because there are some instructor who are rated both highly and hard doesn't mean there's not necessarily a correlation between ease of the course and high rating of the instructor. It just means that it's not a one to one correlation, and I'd be surprised if there weren't at least a weak correlation between the two.

    -=Steve=-
     
  15. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member


    Not a good approach, what prevents me from going there and rate my self with an automated software with tons of good evaluations? the system uses a weak cookie security system that can be fooled easily with a bit of effort so multiple entries from the same computer can be done.

    I have been in hiring committes for part time faculty and have seen professors with good course evaluations being rated bad there. I'm not saying is a bad place to consider as a student but I would be careful to use it for hiring purposes.

    If this is the case, I would just make sure to rate myself everyweek with few star ratings to keep my employability high.

    The reality is that I don't think a student with a good experience is going to run there to give you a star evaluation. However, if a student did bad, he would make sure to get back to you some how.
     
  16. warguns

    warguns Member

    re: importance of joke-telling for good evaluations

    A good point. IMHO two kinds of humor are best: self-deprecating and "insider". Never, never use sarcasm on a student. It's like slapping a blind person.

    __________________________________
    Self-deprecating:

    Our Governor Schwarzenegger at Merv Griffith funeral recalling his early appearance on The Merv Griffith Show

    Griffith: "In American, anything is possible."

    Schwarzenegger: "You mean I might win an Oscar!"

    Griffith: "Almost anything."

    _____________________________________

    Insider (a physics joke):

    Police Officer stops Werner Heisenberg after he was speeding on the Autobahn

    Police Officer: "Do you know how fast you were going?"

    Heisenberg: "No. but I know exactly where I am."

    (Uncertainty Principle, which says that the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.)
     
  17. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    As an aside, those jokes were both really funny!

    -=Steve=-
     
  18. warguns

    warguns Member

    Thank you. I heard the Schwarzenegger story on the radio yesterday. Even Hilliary could be elected President if she could tell a joke like that.

    It's an old trick in public speaking to begin and end with a joke. There are an unlimited number of jokes on the web and where you find them doesn't make them any less funny to an audience.

    As others pointed out, a few jokes slipped into a lecture is something students really appreciate. Best to slip the jokes in at appropriate points rather than to have a monologue.

    another physics joke:

    You enter the laboratory and see an experiment.
    How will you know which class is it?


    If it's green and wiggles, it's biology.
    If it stinks, it's chemistry.
    If it doesn't work, it's physics.

    And another:

    Q: What is the simplest way to observe the optical Doppler effect?

    A: Go out at and look at cars. The lights of the ones approaching you are white, while the lights of the ones moving away from you are red.


    My favorite physics story of all time:


    EINSTEIN was asked by his hostess at a social gathering to explain his theory of relativity using analogies so everyone could understand it

    Said the mathematician:

    "Madam, I was once walking in the country on a hot day with a blind friend, and said that I would like a drink of milk."
    "Milk?" said my friend, "Drink I know; but what is milk?"
    "A white liquid," I replied.
    "Liquid I know; but what is white?"
    "The color of a swan's feathers."
    "Feathers I know; what is a swan?"
    "A bird with a crooked neck."
    "Neck I know; but what is this crooked?"
    "Thereupon I lost patience. I seized his arm and straightened it. "That's straight," I said; and then I bent it at the elbow. "That's crooked."
    "Ah!" said the blind man, "Now I know what milk is!"
     
  19. JLV

    JLV Active Member

    Hhehe :) , no speed limit in the autobahn, but hilarious anyway.
     
  20. warguns

    warguns Member


    Quite correct of course, but a funnier joke when "autobahn" is included I think.
     

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