Student Evaluations of Professors

[InverseOfNeo]

I heard that if they are untenured they matter but not nearly as much as if you wrote on the back. If they are tenured then the impact isnt that much except the prof will know what students think of them. Either way, make sure you write something on the back. If you just fill out the bubbles, it doesnt realy mean anything...its pretty much just crunched by statistics.

 

[RadioHead84]

I sure hope so! I had a teacher this semester that really didnt teach at all. He was a nice guy dont get me wrong but he needs to teach us more. We were like 3 weeks behend before finals so he crammed like 3 chapters in 2 days. He just didnt know how to get people to pay attention, he didnt know how to go about teacher..he didnt really seem to know much. I dont want to see the guy fired cause he is a nice guy but he really needs to learn how to teach.

 

[Eeezee]

If the professor cares at all, it gives them feedback on how to change the class. It can also help determine whether to change the book or curriculum for future generations. Evaluations are read. Some schools even post the evaluation responses on the internet for other students to view.

If the professor has tenure, it will require entire classes of angry students to do anything. If so much as 1/10th of the class enjoyed the tenure professor's work, then a review board can only say "I guess those were the hard-working ones that got a good grade."

 

[zerocool1]

for profs that don't have tenure, yes.

 

[morrisbj]

For untenured professors, consistently bad student feedback can lead to dismissal. For tenured professors it could cause censure, or at least losing a bonus. For the most part they are intended to help the professor fix any problems with their teaching style and/or course.

 

[chcarnage]

I don't think they're that important here since one of the worst profs "forgot" to distribute the evaluation forms. In my opinion a walk to the director of the institute's office equals about 500 kg of evaluation papers.

 

[Imdmn04]

For some of the tenured profs at my school, they don't even hand out the feedback form to let you fill it out. Simply because they can do anything they want.

 

[vegetation]

For lecturers, evals count a whole lot for administrative purposes, as they are hired on a per class basis. Non-tenured faculty is sort of in between. Tenured faculty could care less -- those evals are not held against them in any way. But even so, not all tenured Profs are a-holes. They do care if you liked the book or not, as sometimes there's a college-mandated book they have to use. Slam the book and it may give them ammo to use another book in the future.

 

[Feneant2]

Can students usually see the results? I'm not a student but I heard the university here boycotted them because students were not allowed to see them to aid them in choosing the teachers they would pick (because we are the bottom of the barrel in terms of teachers, equipment, facilities, etc...)

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Lithium381

Originally posted by: AbAbber2k
Heh, my SO is a Languages grad student and teaches 200 level Spanish... the only less than good eval she got was from a girl that never went to class and complained that, in order to get a good grade, she had to be in class every day and she didn't like that. WTF is wrong with kids these days?

It is hard for these kids to descern between a BAD teacher, and a teacher that they DIDN'T LIKE.....personally i know the difference, but i generally respect teachers as a whole. I take the time to fill out the evaluations with constructive critisism, if i were a teacher i'd appreciate it to know ways to improve. But that's just me..

Yeah, I've had some professors that were kind of assholes that I learned a lot from. I didn't like it when he gave me a D- on my half assed assignment or that time he threw a piece of chalk at me...but he was an animated and entertaining motherfvcker and I actually deserved a D- on that assignment.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Originally posted by: bugle25
I don't know how many of you have had to do these, but usually when a class ends you evaluate the professor and the class. If you give them a bad evaluation, does it do anything?

Some schools look at it for adjunct professors. They can easily be fired or conveniently let go at any time. A professor who is tenured isn't likely to be let go based on those reports.