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When tables turn: grade your professors

BY CASEY FELDKAMP
EDITOR IN CHIEF

At the end of every semester, students on all USF campuses are asked to fill out course evaluations. With heavy sighs and exaggerated motions, many students hurriedly fill in the answer bubbles in less than a minute and dash for the door, not fully realizing the importance of those single sheets of paper.

Ideally, these evaluations will help improve the overall learning experience. But one cannot help wonder whether they are all that effective.

As a perfectionist, I never just stop after filling in the answer bubbles portion of these end-of-the-semester reviews with my No. 2 pencil. No, I always write essay-style evaluations of the courses and the professors who taught them, easily taking 10 minutes to explain what professors do well and what they need to improve.

Is it excessive? Perhaps. But someone needs to tell administration when some professors are good at their jobs and when others need to send their instructional skills back to the drawing board (or, I should say, the blackboard).

What many students do not realize is that their professor evaluations are an important part of the education process. These assessments are used not only to improve professorial instruction but also to help departments make decisions about promotions and tenure.

When professors become tenured, their salaries increase and the status offers them protection from summary dismissal. This protection gives these select professors the freedom to criticize their employing administration without fear of losing their jobs.

If you write an honest and fair evaluation of a good or bad professor, you are playing a key role in improving the academic environment. By taking the time to earnestly assess your professor, you are helping other students who want or need to take classes with that same professor in the future.

Instead of using this academic method to rate their professors, some students look elsewhere to speak their minds. Web sites like www.ratemyprofessors.com have become commonplace sources of information for students who want to find out more about their prospective professors. From hard to easy—with three rankings in between—students rank their professors in areas of easiness, helpfulness and clarity. What’s more, you can rate the hotness level of your favorite (or least favorite) professors, an option that is cheekily symbolized by a chili pepper icon.

RateMyProfessors offers students an opportunity to directly inform other students about their experiences with specific professors. Although the Web site has many skeptics, studies have shown that to a certain extend the site may hold some validity.

In May 2007, peer-reviewed electronic journal Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation published an article by University of Maine professors Theodore Coladarci and Irv Kornfield who studied the relationship of the Web site and in-class student evaluations.

The study showcased that RateMyProfessors, like any other system of evaluation, is not foolproof. The authors found that instructors who ranked higher in easiness also ranked higher in overall quality than their more difficult counterparts, sometimes showing that some students look for an easy grade instead of a quality education. However, they also included a comment made by one site user about a high-quality, low-easiness professor who said, “This class is a lot of work, but it’s certainly not impossible. He really knows his stuff and if you ask for help, you’ll get it. One of the best professors I’ve had yet.”

Even though the Web site may have some fairness issues, such as students potentially giving professors bad feedback on the site in retaliation for bad class grades, the public forum at least gives students the chance to speak their minds. As great as that freedom may be, it is equally—if not more—important for students to give earnest reviews of their professors at the end of the semester. These assessments, after all, are what count in the academic system itself.

So take an extra five or 10 minutes to think about what you will write when handed those pesky evaluations this week. By doing so, you will help save yourself and others from frustration in future semesters.