Student Evaluations of Professors

[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?

 

[JonnyStarks]

Quite a few of my profs take their evals seriously. But only constructive critisicms. Writing down THIS WAS A TERRIBLE COURSE YOU SUCK isn't going to give them much insight into how they can teach the course better.

 

[BrianH1]

yeah, we had a chinese math professor, he received a ton of bad ones, and bam he was gone. however, IMO he was already getting fired because of the lack of learning. You could not understand a word he said, he never showed up for class, and was always doing this tours to promote a book he was writing. I still got an A in the class though.

 

[AbAbber2k]

It hurts their feelings... generally no.

Though I believe if a professor is applying for a position at a different university, that university can request student evaluations.

It's good to be honest and constructive though because some professors DO take them very seriously.

 

[The Stigenator]

yeah.. my bio prof from last sem got 'the boot' he isnt teaching this sem.. he failed too many peeps..

 

[henryay]

They post our evaluations on a website. These evaluations do affect my choice of professor for a course.

 

[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?

 

[DAGTA]

If the professor has tenure, then the evaluations will help determine how much extra raise he/she gets at the end of the year. By extra I mean that there is a standard raise amount the professors in the dept will get. The chairman then has extra funds to allocate as 'bonus' added to the raise for the professors that he/she chooses. That's about the extent of impact of evaluations for most universities.

 

[bugle25]

Originally posted by: henryay
They post our evaluations on a website. These evaluations do affect my choice of professor for a course.

Wow, that's nice. My school doesn't do that. I think it's unfortunate how half the students stop attending class because the professor sucks. Unfortunately, they don't evaluate at the end. Only the ones still left standing.

 

[chuckywang]

YES THEY MATTER!

 

[Dissipate]

I don't think they matter worth a damn at my university (UCSD). Here evaluations are done by this organization called CAPE which publishes a book. As far as I know these evaluations have no impact on the status of a professor at the university.

I picked up one of these books one time, it did not help me at all. I use ratemyprofessor.com instead.

 

[mjh]

I always liked to think that student evaluations of professors mattered.

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?

haha. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a few people I know left evaluations like that for their professors.

 

[Indolent]

I had a teacher that spent half of a 2 hour lab talking about mid semester evaluations, then another full class period at the end of the semester... that was annoying

otherwise, none of them seem to care

 

[Spydermag68]

The only time I really have a comment for the evaluation is when the professor is really bad. I took a Java course and the prof read from the book and did the examples out of the book in class. Only three students in the class had not taken another programming class and it frustrated the rest of us at the slow pace. THe professor for that class was replaced at the end of the year.

 

[RaDragon]

Bad evaluations do not necessarily mean immediate termination but evaluations definitely matter! The more constructive the better and professors do not even know about what's written on the evals (or who wrote the eval) so students should really take advantage of this.

 

[bugle25]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
I don't think they matter worth a damn at my university (UCSD). Here evaluations are done by this organization called CAPE which publishes a book. As far as I know these evaluations have no impact on the status of a professor at the university.

I picked up one of these books one time, it did not help me at all. I use ratemyprofessor.com instead.

Great website, first time I've heard of it

 

[Baked]

"I think you're hot, you should wear that see through blouse more often. Bending over to pick up the chalk doesn't hurt either."

 

[AbAbber2k]

www.ratemyprofessors.com

I've had a couple profs suggest adding comments there as well.

 

[Albis]

if they are tenured, nah evaluations do not really matter

 

[thegimp03]

It does factor into their pay and if they receive tenure or not. I never really took them seriously though for most of my professors. Only a few that made major impacts did I give honest evaluations of.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

For most professors it is meaningless. For profs that are going to be kicked out, it can be used as leverage (but they would be leaving anyway). For profs hoping to get tenure, it can certainly help. Some tenured profs actually care about the comments, but they are few and far between. My favorite thing my college did last semester was eleminate all sections of the evaluations for all departments except the multiple choice (scale) scantron evaluation. No more actual written comments for us.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Yes it affects whether they get tenure. I had a really good history prof, a new guy, and after his second semester, he got tenure based on the evaluations.

 

[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..

 

[cyclohexane]

not if they are tenured, there are some horrible profs whos been teaching the same course for 10+ years...

 

[HombrePequeno]

It definitely helps me choose which professor I take for a course. I also look at what percentage actually bothered to review the teacher. Generally if it's a lower percentage, the professor is boring and people didn't show up to the class.