Saturday, August 1, 2020
Is It Fair to Rate Professors Online?
An app called Rate My Professor provides insight for a college student by narrowing which teachers are better and affects the student's decision in taking the class. Some people find the app morally wrong because you are rating a human being. While reading this article from Room For Debate, the writer made several points about how beneficial it is to be informed especially when the financial cost is a lot. He points out that in reality some professors are better than others and Rate My Professor reveals that. However, not all reviews are accurate and some bad reviews could reflect on the student's lack of effort rather than the professor's inability to teach. I personally like Rate My Professor because most of the reviews are based students firsthand experience but I'd probably be more cautious and read consistent reviews. Would you rely on it when choosing classes for college? Does it matter who is teaching the course?
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Hi Drew! I agree with you that Rate My Professor is indeed helpful. My own siblings depended on this app and webiste while choosing their classes and teachers this month. While it is true that every student has different experiences and work ethics, overall, Rate My Professor seems very trustworthy. My siblings did however read multiple reviews from multiple students to get a better idea of how their experience will be with that professor should they be in their classroom. In the future, when picking my classes and teachers, I will rely on Rate My Professor to find the best possible professors who would teach well with how I learn.
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ReplyDeleteFor those who have watched college prep videos, I’ve seen many people say one of their urgent tips is to check Rate My Professor. In college, you are paying for decent quality (whether that be out of pocket tuition or taxpayer dollars for community college). There is pressure for professors to provide an educational experience of a dignified caliber, so I don’t think Rate My Professor is inhumane or rude, especially in an atmosphere where students are paying for the education. When someone is working towards their degree, they clearly would not want to take a class that wastes a valuable semester due to an inadequate teacher. Although, Drew, I understand where you're coming from: in some cases, reviews may not reflect the professor's teaching but the student's work ethic. However, I find these incidents are rather isolated, and doesn't inherently mean that the app is untrustworthy. All in all, Rate My Professor reaps more benefits than bad effects.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that the rating of a teacher and class rating is very crucial to the academic success of a student. Websites such as Rate My Professor give the student more mobility when it comes to whether they want to take the course with that particular professor. For me, I'm a visual learner and when I can see the material being taught, I can work more effectively. When choosing college classes, I want the opportunity to know the teacher's teaching style, and whether or not it is compatible with my learning style. If the course was focused entirely on lectures with no visuals, I would be doing poorly in that class as that is not how I learn. Learning how the class is taught and how comprehensible the teacher is will contribute to the success of a student. That's why I personally think Rate My Professors is a trustworthy site because most feedback is from students who actually took the class. I will definitely rely on the website when I am in college to select classes. I would want to find the best professor possible that is compatible with my style of learning.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the site is morally wrong. I think it is silly to even consider that. The app is not allowing you to rate the person, the app is allowing you to rate their work. That is like saying Uber is wrong because it lets you rate humans. That statement is incorrect for the same reason. The quality of the app could be debated. There are definitely students out there who could put a bad rating on a good professor, intentionally or unintentionally. Though I think, similarly to Uber again, if a good teacher is good enough to have a lot of good ratings with one or two outliers, then people will understand and trust the professor regardless. I don't know if I would personally use this app because I am not in the stage of my life where I would need to, but if I were going to I would definitely be cautious of outlier reviews or bad teachers disguised as good ones.
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