How Do You Pick The Right Class?

Easy answer: RateMyProfessor.com.

But is that a good answer?

Of course we’ve all been wondering that for some time now–wondering if the criteria is fair, the responses biased, and the users real–but I think we could all probably agree on this: there has to be something better.

But what is it? Now that’s a question for which there aren’t easy answers, but it’s still surely worth asking. In that spirit, we took it to the Dean of Faculty last week: a few members of ASCMC met with Dean Hess and Dean Cody to discuss how we can facilitate informed decision-making. Our initial solution–an obvious one, really–was to publish the school-wide, end-of-term course evaluations online. Sure, we expected a challenge, so we came complete with technical recommendations and even offered to chip in. But they weren’t buying it. To be fair, that “they” requires clarification. From what I gather, the administration seems willing to share the data from the evals online–they are already accessible in-print in the office. But it’s the faculty that frustrate greater publication. Professors don’t want their numbers getting out. Interestingly, though, it seems that it’s those particular numbers that are the problem. In the faculty’s eyes, the evals seem like a paper version of RateMyProfessor.com–focusing on personality, preference, and bias–so they’d hardly like to see the administration publish them for the world to see.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the course evaluations shouldn’t go online, just that they probably won’t. To be honest, I don’t find their argument persuasive, but that’s not the point, at least now. Faculty disapproval is too strong, and their power is ostensibly absolute. They could simply stop distributing the evaluations. Accordingly, our discussion with the Deans focused on alternatives, ways to get new, more fair, and more acceptable numbers, and they were optimistic–I’ll explain why in a later post–that a student-backed proposal could become policy. So now we have to turn the question back to you, again.

How to do you pick the right class?

We’re looking for your input on what specific questions you think would generate the most useful responses in course evaluations. They can be either quantitative or qualitative, and remember that they should be appropriate in any course in any discipline. Post your thoughts in the comments below, and we’ll take the top responses right back to the Dean of Faculty.

This is a chance to help yourself out and help us change college policy. We’d appreciate your input, honesty, and thoughtfulness.

Abhi Nemani

Abhi Nemani has a problem. He doesn't sleep -- nor does he plan to. He plans on not sleeping in fact, so he procrastinates during daylight hours -- usually watching Mad Men or perusing lolz -- and then schedules productivity for 3am. So expect late, misspelled, and rambling emails (and bios) from this editor emeritus.

Interaction Effect

In my experience, the best questions on those evals are the effort put into the class or there “did the prof encourage the student to put in effort” coupled with the expected grade question.

An easy class where everyone gets an A isn’t a sign of a good prof. A class where everyone puts in a lot of effort and everyone gets a C is not a sign of a good prof. But those few classes where a prof encourages students to put in much effort and those students who do also get good grades… Thats s a sign of a prof I want to take. There is probably a huge correlation between the two but the extent of that interaction effect sounds like a good way to measure how good profs are.
Interaction Effect

In my experience, the best questions on those evals are the effort put into the class or there “did the prof encourage the student to put in effort” coupled with the expected grade question.

An easy class where everyone gets an A isn’t a sign of a good prof. A class where everyone puts in a lot of effort and everyone gets a C is not a sign of a good prof. But those few classes where a prof encourages students to put in much effort and those students who do also get good grades… Thats s a sign of a prof I want to take. There is probably a huge correlation between the two but the extent of that interaction effect sounds like a good way to measure how good profs are.
Humm…

I think it would be interesting to ask students what they think the spread of grades in a particular class would be (some A’s, lots of B’s, hardly any C’s) and where they feel they fall within it. I also think it would be interesting to ask students how much harder they would have needed to work to get a half a letter grade higher (from a B+ to an A-).
Humm…

I think it would be interesting to ask students what they think the spread of grades in a particular class would be (some A’s, lots of B’s, hardly any C’s) and where they feel they fall within it. I also think it would be interesting to ask students how much harder they would have needed to work to get a half a letter grade higher (from a B+ to an A-).
Nathan

I think that part of the problem with the evaluations is that they ask a lot of questions like “how did this class compare to others you have had at the 5Cs?”. I actually think this question is the most meaningful one to ask, but i doubt the student’s ability to answer this in a useful manner. People tend to answer these questions with extremes- professors are either much better or worse than the average. Also, it is likely the case that at the 5Cs the majority of professors are good, so saying your professor is better than average should mean that they are especially good, but this doesn’t seem to be reflected in the evaluations. I would bet that there many more students than the laws of averages would predict that evaluated all of their professors as either better or worse than the average last semester.

Its all on the students here. The evals ask the right questions (well, at least some of the right ones), but if students cant be disciplined in their responses, then we’re just gonna get meaningless data. Crap in, crap out.

On another note though, I wish they’d ask students to put their GPA on the evals. They’re anonymous anyway so i dont buy an argument about privacy (and if you really care, the evals are technically optional anyway). its not helpful to see that 50% of the students got an A in a class if you dont have a way of measuring the quality of the students in the class. Prof Keil gives his econometrics classes a median grade of A- because he says “it self-selects for the best students”, but that doesnt mean that its a really easy class.

Josh

yeah, dean hess said that the average professor gets like a 4/5 on most things

Nathan

I think that part of the problem with the evaluations is that they ask a lot of questions like “how did this class compare to others you have had at the 5Cs?”. I actually think this question is the most meaningful one to ask, but i doubt the student’s ability to answer this in a useful manner. People tend to answer these questions with extremes- professors are either much better or worse than the average. Also, it is likely the case that at the 5Cs the majority of professors are good, so saying your professor is better than average should mean that they are especially good, but this doesn’t seem to be reflected in the evaluations. I would bet that there many more students than the laws of averages would predict that evaluated all of their professors as either better or worse than the average last semester.

Its all on the students here. The evals ask the right questions (well, at least some of the right ones), but if students cant be disciplined in their responses, then we’re just gonna get meaningless data. Crap in, crap out.

On another note though, I wish they’d ask students to put their GPA on the evals. They’re anonymous anyway so i dont buy an argument about privacy (and if you really care, the evals are technically optional anyway). its not helpful to see that 50% of the students got an A in a class if you dont have a way of measuring the quality of the students in the class. Prof Keil gives his econometrics classes a median grade of A- because he says “it self-selects for the best students”, but that doesnt mean that its a really easy class.

Josh

yeah, dean hess said that the average professor gets like a 4/5 on most things

Andrew

I feel that professors who refuse to have their evaluations published online stand to lose any sort of moderate opinion of their teaching. I know from my dealings with ratemyprofessor.com that I have only gone out of my way to comment on professors I thought were either good or bad enough to warrant a post. I understand that some professors will be be reviewed harshly, but if its understood that your evaluations will be used as a tool to assist your fellow students in making future decisions I believe a majority of students try to represent the class in an accurate light.

I know there are times where I really wished ratemyprof had said a little more about just HOW far out of my way I should have gone to avoid a professor.
Andrew

I feel that professors who refuse to have their evaluations published online stand to lose any sort of moderate opinion of their teaching. I know from my dealings with ratemyprofessor.com that I have only gone out of my way to comment on professors I thought were either good or bad enough to warrant a post. I understand that some professors will be be reviewed harshly, but if its understood that your evaluations will be used as a tool to assist your fellow students in making future decisions I believe a majority of students try to represent the class in an accurate light.

I know there are times where I really wished ratemyprof had said a little more about just HOW far out of my way I should have gone to avoid a professor.
http://abhinemani.com Abhi Nemani

Do you feel the professor clearly laid the expectations of the course (i.e. what you should have learned by completion)?
Do you feel the expectations of the course were met?
http://abhinemani.com Abhi Nemani

Do you feel the professor clearly laid the expectations of the course (i.e. what you should have learned by completion)?
Do you feel the expectations of the course were met?
keep it real

Assuming you could go back to the beginning of the semester and re register, would you still take this class or this professor? Why or Why not?

Was this class worth the time/work assigned?
keep it real

Assuming you could go back to the beginning of the semester and re register, would you still take this class or this professor? Why or Why not?

Was this class worth the time/work assigned?

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How Do You Pick The Right Class?

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Abhi Nemani