Rate the Teacher

[Lisa]

There are sites on the net that allows people to "rate the teacher"

www.ratemyteachers.com

www.ratemyteachers.ca

The sites made the news here. Apparently one teacher has been slammed pretty badly by some current and former students. Many slanderous things being said about him.

What does everyone think? Do you believe these are a good thing? Would you use a site like this to determine whether you children would got to that schoool. There is also a parent mode. Would you post your opinion?

 

[Steel Tiger]

I'm not sure about this type of assesment. Personally I think it is useful for teachers to be assessed by students, but I think it should be done in house, within the particular institution. This way it can be of more value to both the teacher and the institution's administration. When I was at university, all courses were assessed and critiqued by the students annually. These assessments were for the course coordinator and the faculty.

This all seems a little too broad to be constructive. It really looks more like a place for students to blow off a little steam. As always someone will go too far.

 

[Ping898]

I think some value can be found in it, but the value is limited and all comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Personally I have used it in the past, but ignored everything except for comments specifically related to the class/homework/exams or teaching styles....
I mean the problem with those course evals at the end of the course is you as a student never see them and personally i have found them useless. Even when every student in a class has slammed the teacher as being terrible, and giving specifics, I see the teacher teaching the same classes again the next semester and the following semester and the semester after....
It is something that has lots of room for improvement, but I think an area that should be addressed

 

[donna]

I think it could be abused , and I dont know that the personal hersay (good or bad) of a student would influence my sending my child to a particular school until I had done further research.
Having said that I was suprised to see my chemistry teacher from 30 years ago is still teaching. He was a great teacher then, and by the comments, it looks like the students of today still find him to be an excellent teacher.

 

[arnisador]

I'm listed at ratemyprofessor.com and I only have one question...why has no one listed me as "hot" yet?

 

[Kacey]

Well, I'll say this: I looked up the school I work at, and found some interesting errors... teachers listed twice, with 2 different first names, retired teachers listed, the school psychologist's last name is misspelled (2 d's instead of one) and he is listed as a sociology teacher, one of the asst. principals is listed as a geography teacher - so I would definitely take whatever they say with a rather large grain of salt, as the above errors indicate. That being said, I do rather agree with most of the ratings - although no one has rated me yet, so that could change!

 

[arnisador]

One downside is that people are more likely to complain than praise. I've had a student leave class two weeks into the course and enter a 1 1 1 for me because he didn't understand something that one day, or did poorly on a test, etc. It'd be better if they couldn't do it until the end of a course, as in the school's evaluations.

 

[Tarot]

I think the HS ones and below are pretty pointless. It's public school after all and you really can't pick your teachers. However I wish this would have been up when I was in college! Man it could have saved me a lot of stress from having to deal with really bad proffs.

 

[Grenadier]

I tend to disregard what such sites say about the individual teachers.

1) There are always going to be some underregenerate students that would have failed the course no matter how good of a teacher you were. These characters are usually going to scream "The Teacher Sucks" when in reality, they could have simply done the homework, attended classes, and taken the exams seriously, and at least passed the course.

2) With today's internet, it's all too easy to create multiple identities for yourself, and stack the deck. Either that, or they have their friends claim that they took the classes, and give you the worst ratings possible.

3) On the other side of the coin, there are many "fluff-filled" teachers who give an "A" to any of their students, as long as they have a heartbeat. Unfortunately, this also makes them quite popular with the students, who will give them excellent ratings.


In the end, I simply look at who was able to get the most out of the course material. If a particular teacher can impart the knowledge to the students, then that's how I rate a teacher. If it means that they have to be stricter, then so be it; I'd give them a good rating for that. I'd also give a good rating to a less strict teacher, as long as the students learned the material.

 

[Ping898]

I agree that the site is basically worthless below the college level, but as an undergrad when you have to take a class and there are 5 different teachers teaching it there can be some benefit to know who to avoid to at least narrow down the list of who to take...