If someone has a lot of ratings it get give you an idea of what to expect...but with a rating or two, you might be simply dealing with a lazy disgruntled student who thought they should get a good grade with no work.
Back when I was a Teaching Assistant I actually turned up on the site. Evidentially I had a couple of students that said I was "hard but helpful and cute." I got some good natured ribbing from my friends for that.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I attend a community college. I had a teacher last fall for Mythology, and I struggled through her class and felt constantly challenged. She was demanding of us, but she was very passionate about her subject. Anyway I felt very proud of the grade I received in the class and thought I learned a lot, but when I looked up the professor on RMP I was surprised she received mediocre ratings.
On the other hand, the horrible speech teacher I had got the ratings she deserved. =/
But I notice that in GENERAL teachers who are merely easy will receive positive ratings. Not as many people are as eager to point out the professors who expect a lot from their students.
Maybe I'm making a mistake but in the fall I've signed up for three teachers who are purportedly hard, just to repeat that experience with the mythology class...
Posts: 722 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I find it of mixed use for any survey course, but more helpful for higher up classes where you get more serious with people in their majors.
On the whole it's somewhat helpful, but I wouldn't let it be the deciding factor in my choice of professor.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I use Rate My Professor to help me decide my classes each semester. I say it's very fair, but it's necessary to read the comments moreso than the ratings. If you do some digging you can usually find some folks who mention workload, fairness of grading, degree of boredom, and whether the class is pointless/poorly taught/hard or challenging/rewarding/hard.
Posts: 81 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
There are usually only a few ratings, and it's from those that are highly motivated to go there. You won't find much about the opinion of the average student, because the average student doesn't bother.
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
ratemyprof has successfully allowed me to avoid many professors who
1. grade capriciously 2. have terrible teaching plans 3. have no idea what they are talking about 4. are overly activist or shove bald politics 5. are lech
In addition you can use ratemyprof to find coaster classes, should one be so inclined. Like it or hate it, it's bloomed into an actually informative site.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's very different actually because in regular evaluation systems, almost everybody responds, so you get a good average of what people really think.
Posts: 544 | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Qaz: almost everybody responds, but students do not fill in what they really think. Most students fill out the multiple choice by some sort of system (all one thing, a pattern, et cetera), and most put at most one or two words in the free response sections.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
High schools (even down to elementary) have ratemyteacher.com, as well. However, in many of these cases, the ratings turn into a popularity contest, with the *kewl* teachers getting high ratings and the *hard* teachers getting low ratings.
While one would assume ratemyprofessor.com would have a higher level of maturity, that is by no means a guarantee.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have a professor who printed out the page and highlighted the chili-pepper symbol so that he could show everyone that he's hot.
Posts: 31 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Qaz: almost everybody responds, but students do not fill in what they really think. Most students fill out the multiple choice by some sort of system (all one thing, a pattern, et cetera), and most put at most one or two words in the free response sections.
I always did. And my brother does, too. I always took evaluations very seriously because I figured the teachers deserved the feedback. I always also said both the things I liked and the things they could improve on.
There was more than one occasion where I wrote so much that there was no doubt it was me writing and the teacher called me in to clarify. Since that usually meant the teacher actually wanted to know what I thought they could improve on I was happy to explain.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
After my second year of teaching, I started saying, as I handed out evaluations, "I use these to improve my teaching, so feedback on what you liked and didn't like about my teaching is useful. Feedback on what you think about my clothes, hairstyle, etc.,--not so much."
I hope it helped students understand that this is meant to be constructive feedback, though some still took the opportunity to be less than constructive.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, I did too. There are exceptions. I talked solely about the majority, having both evaluated and been evaluated (edit: and under the same system; in fact, I was teaching some students at the same time as I was taking one or two other classes with them).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Megan, I'm guessing the usual reason to be personally insulting to a Music Theory/Aural Skills professor is if the course revealed the student's own lack of musical talent. I sympathize with you. I still wonder how so many people with so little natural musical ability get into degree programs. I had to audition, for heaven's sake. What are the rest of them doing?
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The picking on clothes/hair/etc. is far from unique to music theory profs. My mom (who teaches math) gets a little such nonsense every semester, and on the first day of my first college chemistry class, the professor commented that he had every intention of keeping his hair collar-length despite the number of students every year who made negative comments on the end-of-quarter evaluations, and not to bother. (I was astounded that students would write that sort of thing on evals. I was young and naive. )
posted
I wonder if there's a marked gender difference in the picking on clothes and hair. I just...I can't imagine doing it. It seems just...I don't know.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just looked up some ratings for professors I had as an undergrad lo, these many years ago--and for the most part they reflected my experience, once you discounted a few grudge ratings. I was actually surprised by how accurate the comments were.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I looked up a few of my more memorable professors. Some were not listed, and of those that were I only agreed with about a third of the reviews. In particular, the best Math professor that I ever had, the professor that I learned the most from and kept me interested in math when I was ready to change to a major that didn't require advanced math and who I would have rated very highly had a very low rating. On the other hand the rating for another professor, who I would have rated very poorly, had ratings that I agreed with 100 percent.
Okay my faith is a little restored. I didn't see the rating for my favorite computer science instructor the first time around, but the ratings and comments for him when I did find them were spot on in my opinion.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I used ratemyprofessor for my last 3 semesters in college, and I can say it DEFINITELY helped me find the teachers I wanted. It's obviously not perfect, but by reading the comments, I was able to find the best professors for all of my classes in the last few semesters--and I felt like I learned a GREAT deal more because I had motivating, helpful, challenging teachers.
It can definitely help you AVOID the professors you don't want. A teacher won't have a frowny face average unless there's something wrong.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm just sad that my worst college professor ever was in a required course, so even though I knew he was a complete jerk and a worthless teacher, I had to take him anyway.
Damn you tenure system!
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Launchy, I disagree with that. It may be that a professor will get a frowning face only because the 2 or 3 people who've decided to use the site to rate that professor are all bad students or students who hold grudges and have decided to use the site to get vengeance.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
I'm rated on the high school site. According to it, I am popular but mediocre. There are coworkers of mine who don't know their subject matter well, and colleagues for whom I don't have any respect, because they don't teach a damn thing, who are rated awesome. What you're basically looking at is the average grade a teacher gives. Highly-rated teachers give mostly A's. Mid-rated teacher give mid-level grades, and low-rated teachers give lower grades. That's pretty much it.
I'm not a fan.
Frankly, it feels like a violation of my privacy to be discussed by name on a website that has no connection to me.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just looked for the first time, and the only professor on the first page that I had had was listed as terrible. I didn't like him, I'll admit that, but i did fairly well in his class and didn't think he was terrible. Someone said " I don't like the way he teached" Yes that person has all of my respect now.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have too little college experience to use ratemyprof, but ratemyteacher.com is pretty worthless. The ratings are pretty inaccurate and the comments are almost completely worthless. This doesn't surprise me, though, since the amount of choice you have over your teachers in high school is borderline non-existant, so it doesn't actually have a benefit the way ratemyprof could, and as a result looks far more like a venting board than an actual rating system.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My favorite professor is very well-rated, noted to be hard but fair, a fascinating lecturer, a bit of a sarcastic wit, sharp as a whip, and hot.
I'll TELL you WHY....whatever. He sucked. A lot of my more attractive female friends used to get creeped out when he'd just pop up out of nowhere in the hallway or wherever and take their picture. He was a photographer for the yearbook, but it was still pretty creepily done. They all complained about him doing that, independently. Not only that, but the guy would only help the female students in class. If we were dissecting disgusting, stinking shark corpses, he'd walk over and help every female in the room who asked for help before he'd help me or another male. We were all asking, but he was only giving to one gender. Finally, he graded the females much more generously than the males, to the point where I couldn't take my test grades seriously.
His teaching style blew too...he'd write the notes for us to copy up on the board, then go hang out in his office for 20 minutes, come back, and repeat. I fricking hated taking verbatim notes, and I prefer to be able to ask questions as soon as the info is presented.
I prefer to be inspired, not disgusted. But hey, that's just me.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Personally, I like this site. As to how accurate the ratings are, if a professor has a good amount of comments you can usually average them out to get a reasonable idea of the professor and their style. When I've left comments, I tried to be as fair and as detailed as the site would allow. All in all if you're torn between professors, this may make a difference.
Posts: 66 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
(It is cool, though.)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
