University Professors Gotcha Down? RATE THEM!

[TeknoTurd]

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/
This website was just passed on to my by one of my buddies here at school. This tool could is invaluable this time of the year when you are scrambling to find out which professors not to take for next semester. The ammount of reviews depends on your school so check it out. And try to help others out by reviewing good and bad professors you have had in the past.

[wdlove]

The joys of the computer age. I hope that this will be helpful to students. When I went to college everyone had to depend on our fellow students comments. Wonder if professors will avail themselves of this site for self improvement?

[pivo6]

Originally posted by wdlove
.... Wonder if professors will avail themselves of this site for self improvement?

Ha! My professors were more interested in publishing their next book or doing consulting work in Chicago. I doubt that ant professor will listen to these comments. Anyways, when I went to the U of Illinois, we had to rate our instructor. I have no idea what they did with the data.

[Kwyjibo]

I goto U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and some of my more boring teachers have really high ratings, I guess i'll have to wait until i get a bit deeper into core classes before I figure out a good use for the site.

They also have ratemyteachers.com with the same system for high schools


edit: one of my more candid professors explained that in her long timme at the university she's never seen a prof fired for bad teaching but only for not producing research or other conduct violations, but not for poor teaching

[Mr. Anderson]

Wow, that's really impressive - and even though its been 10 years there are a couple profs that I had at OSU rated on there.

Had to rate one of my favorites, as well....would love to have had that rating system back in the days....;)

D

[question fear]

Originally posted by pivo6
Ha! My professors were more interested in publishing their next book or doing consulting work in Chicago. I doubt that ant professor will listen to these comments. Anyways, when I went to the U of Illinois, we had to rate our instructor. I have no idea what they did with the data.

if it helps, i know my mom uses ratemyteachers.com (for high school students) as a way to gauge what her students think of her...she called me all excited the day she made it onto the list..and even more so when she got a popular rating.
it might not be exactly the same for profs, but im sure people care.

also, theres not much verification to rate my profs, i went on and gave my fave teacher from my alma mater a great rating.

--carly

[mactastic]

We've had a rating system for a few years here, and the experience has not been altogether pleasant. Because the posters are anonymous, and the board is essentially unmoderated, there is a lot of very nasty things said about professors. It goes way beyond their ability to teach a class to their sexual preferences, home adresses and phone numbers have been published, they have been called names and all kinds of other things.

I really like the idea, but unmoderated and anonymous postings cause a great deal of trouble, as I'm sure the people who moderate these boards would understand.

If people could be mature about it, it would be a great assistance in picking a professor, but the reality for me was that so few classes are offered here that much of the time you take what you can get regardless of who is teaching it.

Poly Ratings (http://polyratings.com/)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by mactastic
We've had a rating system for a few years here, and the experience has not been altogether pleasant. Because the posters are anonymous, and the board is essentially unmoderated, there is a lot of very nasty things said about professors. It goes way beyond their ability to teach a class to their sexual preferences, home adresses and phone numbers have been published, they have been called names and all kinds of other things.

I really like the idea, but unmoderated and anonymous postings cause a great deal of trouble, as I'm sure the people who moderate these boards would understand.

If people could be mature about it, it would be a great assistance in picking a professor, but the reality for me was that so few classes are offered here that much of the time you take what you can get regardless of who is teaching it.

Poly Ratings (http://polyratings.com/)

i couldn't find any of my profs on there since they are either dead or retired

they were old then (during the early 80s) and i don't recall any profs there under 40 and most were in their 50s or older which at least shows they liked teaching there...i wouldn't trust any college with all young professors

EDIT: i found music professor craig russell...i took guitar and music appreciation from him and he was a great teacher and the poly students gave him an overall 3.6 out of a 4.0 rating so i see he hasn't lost his magical tough :D

[Dros]

Originally posted by TeknoTurd
[B]University Professors Gotcha Down? RATE THEM!

I think the title of the thread is why no professor is going to care. People upset that they couldn't get an extension or a test was hard... just log in and bash away! There are rating systems in every college. Most studies of these show the ratings match how easy the class is rather than what may be more important like rigor and clarity. Within a pile of comments a few are probably useful, but the overall score-- no.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Dros
I think the title of the thread is why no professor is going to care. People upset that they couldn't get an extension or a test was hard... just log in and bash away! There are rating systems in every college. Most studies of these show the ratings match how easy the class is rather than what may be more important like rigor and clarity. Within a pile of comments a few are probably useful, but the overall score-- no.

it is always just those few comments that can make a world of difference and perhaps lead to a great class with a great prof and be a life changing occurence

before i delved into the study of computers, i had really bad computer classes, professors, and equipment and i thought i was the worst person to have walked this earth when it came to computers and anything technical...then one day i walked into an adult school classroom (for older students like me) and i saw a row of macs ready to use

the rest, of course, is history

i almost married that teacher:p

[Dros]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
it is always just those few comments that can make a world of difference and perhaps lead to a great class with a great prof and be a life changing occurence

before i delved into the study of computers, i had really bad computer classes, professors, and equipment and i thought i was the worst person to have walked this earth when it came to computers and anything technical...then one day i walked into an adult school classroom (for older students like me) and i saw a row of macs ready to use


That's a good story. Maybe that teacher was so great because in the previous years students had great insight into how to make that class great. Here are some random comments I grabbed from the site:
A poorly rated teacher--
His tests will kill you. Good thing he is gone_
his class was hard and i didn't learn anything_
Good researcher poor teacher/no skills

A highly rated teacher--
Adam is a funny guy. Pay attention in Lecture and be prepared for something screwy on the test._
His test were very easy no problems if you kept up with things. Great teacher, very helpful, and a funny guy too_

These are going to help anybody? These were just clicking randomly. Interesting that bad guy = hard, good guy = funny. Sure, go ahead and vent on this site if it makes you feel better. Or use this site if you want to be entertained for your tuition dollars. I think students want to have class like MTV, hate the idea that they might have to actually work things out themselves, and think that they 'employ' the professor so should have a say how the class is run. Of course, not everyone is like that. And many teachers are burnt out and tired or don't care. Again, not all.

[pivo6]

Originally posted by Dros
...These are going to help anybody? These were just clicking randomly. Interesting that bad guy = hard, good guy = funny. Sure, go ahead and vent on this site if it makes you feel better. Or use this site if you want to be entertained for your tuition dollars. I think students want to have class like MTV, hate the idea that they might have to actually work things out themselves, and think that they 'employ' the professor so should have a say how the class is run. Of course, not everyone is like that. And many teachers are burnt out and tired or don't care. Again, not all.

You forgot how you can rate your profs on whether they are "hot" or not.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by pivo6
You forgot how you can rate your profs on whether they are "hot" or not.

somehow, i don't think the middle aged, or older, teachers (on average) at most schools i went to can really capture the "hot" rating from kids 17-22 years old

even a hot 30 year old professor just out of grad school looks old to an 18 year old boy when many of the students that are dateable look like jennifer love hewitt and britney spears and are also 18 year olds ;)

gotta remember that most profs are older than these kids' parents or at the very least, the same age:p

maybe some older adult student who had his/her kids leave the nest would find a young professor pretty/handsome

because we are dealing with adults here in college, students and teachers do date and at one case where i was at cal poly, the professor married the student even though there was a 20 or so year age difference...while the student is in the class, he or she isn't allowed to date the teacher and that is usually a school policy anywhere

in some cities like santa cruz or berkeley where a large contingent of students become teachers, then who knows what the heck happens? plus those cities, both near me, can get pretty wild at times since uc santa cruz is just up from a few of nudist beaches and uc berkeley still did not ban the nudist law from the 60s which allows nudity on campus to be fair to nudists like the rest of the campus is fair to minorities, women, gays, communists, or anyone under the sun...when i went to sonoma state university...cal state's so called liberal berkeley, nudism was only allowed behind the cafeteria out of site of most of the campus and any off campus onlookers who would happen to go to use the library or bookstore

[Dros]

Originally posted by Kwyjibo
I goto U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
...
one of my more candid professors explained that in her long timme at the university she's never seen a prof fired for bad teaching but only for not producing research or other conduct violations, but not for poor teaching

Yeah, you'll need to go to a small college before you'll find a place where a professor needs to be more than satisfactory to get tenure. It is deceptive to undergrads, but universities want strong research to gain prestige and grants (science departments at a reasonably good university subsidize students by bringing in millions of grant money). There should be greater support of teaching assistants and a way for good teachers to join research universities long term instead of as 1 year appointments. They aren't going to fire someone bringing in a ton of money. But usually those people try to teach graduate seminars on their specialty (easy), so the undergrads don't suffer.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Dros
Yeah, you'll need to go to a small college before you'll find a place where a professor needs to be more than satisfactory to get tenure. It is deceptive to undergrads, but universities want strong research to gain prestige and grants (science departments at a reasonably good university subsidize students by bringing in millions of grant money). There should be greater support of teaching assistants and a way for good teachers to join research universities long term instead of as 1 year appointments. They aren't going to fire someone bringing in a ton of money. But usually those people try to teach graduate seminars on their specialty (easy), so the undergrads don't suffer.

it becomes the reality of the business of running a large research, grant getting university

it's great for the grad students, but then the undergrads suffer by getting substandard levels of education and schools once great for turning out 4 year grads now rely on thier past name and laurels to turn the first four years of school into a big degree mill churning out undergrads totally unprepared for true graduate degree level work

some schools really excel on the grad level and perhaps they should stay solely that and have school focused on the undergrad students to do that job which they do well

i wish there was a way to be a great research graduate university and a great undergraduate university but from what i have heard for the last thirty years, you either have one or you have the other (i have heard an exception is yale which is good all around and has small classes, even for the undergrads)

...it kind of reminds me when the great basketball player michael jordan wanted to be a professional baseball player...even he couldn't excel at two totally different sports on a high level...one had to give:p