In the old days, it was done by word of mouth. Today, with the
World Wide Web so pervasive, it’s done via the Internet. It’s the
ability to rate teachers and their effectiveness in the
classroom.
In the old days, it was done by word of mouth. Today, with the World Wide Web so pervasive, it’s done via the Internet.
It’s the ability to rate teachers and their effectiveness in the classroom.
Rating professors online is popular at colleges, where students sometimes use these evaluations to plan their class schedule each quarter or semester. Recently, a company set up a Web site that allows middle- and high-school students the opportunity to vent their frustrations about or recommend their teachers.
RateMyTeachers started in 2001 and now serves the United States and Canada. Posted on the site are about 1.2 million teacher ratings, and the site gets more than 300,000 daily hits. It allows students to rate teachers in four categories – ease of classwork, helpfulness, clarity and overall quality – on a scale of 1 to 5. Students can also post comments about the teacher and/or the class.
Despite its name – RateMyTeachers, which uses the plural – the site’s address is www.ratemyteacher.com.
While there is very little flexibility in choosing teachers at the middle- and high-school levels, Nancy Davis, owner and operator of the Web site, said it can still be useful.
“There are some classes, such as many of the electives, where students do have a choice,” Davis said. “Even if they can’t avoid a teacher, the comments can give them some useful information about dealing with a teacher.”
Some of these helpful comments can include “Don’t talk in class,” “Do your homework” and “Easy class,” Davis said.
San Benito and Anzar high school students agree that RateMyTeacher.com wouldn’t be much help to them since students aren’t allowed to choose their teachers.
SBHS senior Leslie Vega said she would use the site, but not necessarily to help her pick teachers.
“It could be beneficial. The problem is that we don’t get to choose which classes we take or who we take,” Vega said, but added, “It would help prepare students for what the teacher is going to be like.”
Vega said there is more flexibility at SBHS in deciding which elective courses to take, so RateMyTeacher.com could help in that area.
Anzar has a small number of students, making it harder for students to avoid teachers based on evaluations from the Web site, said sophomore Brittany Conrad. But she also said the comments would help students prepare for a certain teacher or class. At Anzar, comments from seniors would benefit underclassmen since seniors have had most of the teachers at the campus, she said.
SBHS teacher Dennis DeWall said the ratings wouldn’t help students who are not in college.
“I don’t think such a site would be beneficial. There’s not a lot of flexibility with scheduling,” DeWall said. “In college, there’s so many different hours you can take classes. There’s not a lot of choice of what period you can have a class – and that’s for high schools in general.”
DeWall said he asked upperclassmen for advice on which teachers to take and which ones to avoid when he was in college.
“It’s more realistic to do at the college-level because of the maturity of the students,” he said.
The maturity of the comments posted by students can be an issue. There is a fear that some students will personally attack a teacher or that they can’t be objective and critique teachers based on quality of teaching. Davis said the site is censored at times. The company has “strict rules about what is appropriate,” she said. Also, each school site offers a school administrator who handles the ratings for the school. This person can be a teacher, administrator or student.
The school administrator is not meant to be a censor, Davis said. All comments are reviewed by someone with RateMyTeachers or the school’s administrator.
“Many of them (decisions on whether to censor comments) are judgment calls and that can be tough,” Davis said.
Although the site can be useful to students, teachers might also get some value out of the evaluations. DeWall said he would look at the ratings to gauge his effectiveness as a teacher.
“There are some students where I would respect their opinion, mostly because of their maturity level,” he said.
Conrad said because of Anzar’s small nature, most teachers would look at the evaluations.
“It seems like most teachers here, especially since we’re so small, are interested in what people have to say,” Conrad said. “Most schools don’t operate on such a personal level. I think Anzar teachers would try to use the evaluations and apply them to when they have us in class.”
