Do Professors read their own ratemyprofessor.com comments?

[osnarf]

I was just wondering if any of you professors read the comments on ratemyprofessor.com about yourself. My professor last semester said he went and looked it up whenever he needed a good laugh.

 

[eumyang]

I'm not a professor, but a high school teacher. There is a similar site for teachers, ratemyteachers.com, and I do read the comments from that site from time to time, mostly for laughs.

 

[MECHster]

One of my profs said he loves checking his out (probably because he's an amazing prof and has like a 4.9/5 or something). But he said his favorite part is checking his peers pages.

 

[MATLABdude]

Most of the younger profs in my department have checked their pages. Definitely good for a laugh, since the respondents are largely self-selecting, and thus you'll get people that love the teacher, or those that hate them. The university's own student-accessible review system (without comments) does a better job, IMHO. You can also read between the lines (e.g. a prof with a class of 100 has only 5 reviews).

 

[Pengwuino]

We made our chair check out his ratemyprofessor. He saw the ratings that said all he cared about was talking about his Fulbright trip to Russia. He laughed and said "Yah I did talka bout that too much"

 

[Jack21222]

My research advisor admits to checking out his.

 

[mathwonk]

i confess i read mine once. they said essentially that i am the worst professor in the university, but i think i am probably only in the bottom 5.

i have a suspicion that students with low grades frequent this site.

i.e. i have also read my class evaluations, and in honors classes they have said on average that i walk on water, but in non honors classes that i am a satanic sadistic ****.

so i deduce that i am better appreciated by strong as opposed to weak students.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I don't read mine, but my wife does.

 

[Nano-Passion]

so i deduce that i am better appreciated by strong as opposed to weak students.

Lmao, this cracks me up. Only the strongest survive. Its survival of the fittest. In this evolutionary habitat, the strong survive and the weak go on ratemyprofessors.com to complain. =D

 

[osnarf]

Haha, this is pretty much what I expected. You definitely have to read between the lines to get a clear picture. I read through all the comments and almost always wind up going with the lowest 'ranked' professors. Along the same lines with what mathwonk said, I usually wind up picking these teachers for the same reasons the 'weaker' students rate them a 1 across the board.

We made our chair check out his ratemyprofessor. He saw the ratings that said all he cared about was talking about his Fulbright trip to Russia. He laughed and said "Yah I did talka bout that too much"

This is too funny. Sometimes, though, I really like when teachers get sidetracked and talk about (semi-related) things from their life that aren't directly related to the material. Nice to hear about the real world sometimes.

 

[mathwonk]

Rate my professors can be pretty extreme but sometimes i did get a kick out of my negative actual in class evaluations. Once I complied a page of only negative ones and posted them on my door for laughs.

I remember one that criticized my fashion sense because i had no belt or something. Another one I thought was clever and maybe even intentionally funny said "he's good, ... not real good, but good."

A classic said: "this man comes to class with only a box of chalk and a bucket of water [to wash the board], no lesson plan!"

I thought students realized that only an inexperienced novice carries his lesson plan in his hand instead of his head. I always prepared and wrote out the lesson the night before for several hours, including examples, even though I had taught many of them repeatedly for 20-30 years.

One other such student remarked that only once did I come to class with my lecture written out. He thought that was the only time all semester I was prepared when it was the opposite. What he did not seem to understand was that was the one time all semester that I found the material so tricky that I did not have it all down cold and needed notes.

In the early days I took my negative comments very seriously because they were actually helpful -- if i got comments like: "often runs over the time period" or "sarcastic when answering questions" or "slow to return homework" I worked hard on them since those things are important aspects of teaching.

But someone who just says: " he is the worst teacher i ever had, and is the toughest grader in the department", ... that stuff is not helpful or informative, just vengeful and more telling about the student than the professor.

and students who think the prof is unprepared because he has no notes in hand are just sort of clueless. it makes you wonder how to reach them when they don't appreciate at all what you are giving them from 40 years of experience in research and teaching.

this summer when I taught a class of extremely gifted 8-10 year olds a course of euclidean geometry and linked it to work of archimedes and Newton at the end, they applauded at the end of the last two classes and made thank you posters. the brighter the students are, the more they appreciate the experienced teachers.

 

[flyingpig]

Probably not the most reliable site...

 

[Nano-Passion]

Rate my professors can be pretty extreme but sometimes i did get a kick out of my negative actual in class evaluations. Once I complied a page of only negative ones and posted them on my door for laughs.

I remember one that criticized my fashion sense because i had no belt or something. Another one I thought was clever and maybe even intentionally funny said "he's good, ... not real good, but good."

A classic said: "this man comes to class with only a box of chalk and a bucket of water [to wash the board], no lesson plan!"

I thought students realized that only an inexperienced novice carries his lesson plan in his hand instead of his head. I always prepared and wrote out the lesson the night before for several hours, including examples, even though I had taught many of them repeatedly for 20-30 years.

One other such student remarked that only once did I come to class with my lecture written out. He thought that was the only time all semester I was prepared when it was the opposite. What he did not seem to understand was that was the one time all semester that I found the material so tricky that I did not have it all down cold and needed notes.

In the early days I took my negative comments very seriously because they were actually helpful -- if i got comments like: "often runs over the time period" or "sarcastic when answering questions" or "slow to return homework" I worked hard on them since those things are important aspects of teaching.

But someone who just says: " he is the worst teacher i ever had, and is the toughest grader in the department", ... that stuff is not helpful or informative, just vengeful and more telling about the student than the professor.

and students who think the prof is unprepared because he has no notes in hand are just sort of clueless. it makes you wonder how to reach them when they don't appreciate at all what you are giving them from 40 years of experience in research and teaching.

this summer when I taught a class of extremely gifted 8-10 year olds a course of euclidean geometry and linked it to work of archimedes and Newton at the end, they applauded at the end of the last two classes and made thank you posters. the brighter the students are, the more they appreciate the experienced teachers.

I thought professors aren't supposed to be handed class evaluations??

They are complaining of someone not carrying notes? That is extremely odd, I haven't seen that in my college lol. Nor have I seen someone come in with a bucket of water to erase the black board hehe.

You spend several hours a day to prepare notes? Sounds like a stretch, if so, that would be extremely time-consuming. A professor of mine (p.h.d. of mathematical physics) just comes in and goes over the book theorems/concepts page by page. Hes been teaching for 20 years or more and he's great, I don't think he really practices at home. He seems to be a very busy person and told me that he was editing two books (or something like that).

 

[mathwonk]

no matter how long one has been teaching, that mainly helps you understand the concepts really well. the preparation time is still there because you have to make sure the examples you work are correct and you don't get hung up on incorrect details. A conscientious teacher always prepares every night, even a course he has taught many times before. By telling you he is editing several books, your teacher seems to be apologizing for not doing a better job of preparing.

also as you get to know the class you make adjustments in the way you do things so as to be more accessible to the students because of their weaknesses.

At a top school it is easier to prepare in some ways because all you have to do is think about what you are going to do, and you don't have to worry about whether they are strong enough to understand it. you also don't need to do as many exercises.

I also frequently write up complete lecture notes for the class, so the students will have a record of what went on even if they take poor notes. This alone can take 3 hours per class, and that's just for the rough version. I also peruse numerous other books to find good workable problems. I often consult as many as 8-10 books while teaching a class to get the best presentation of every topic.

Of course I don't need to spend much time learning the material, but even there I always try every year to actually learn something new myself that I have never known before, and explain it to the class, to keep it fresh. I.e. I make it a point never to teach the exact same class twice.

E.g. late in my calculus career i realized that archimedes actually would know how to compute the volume of a 4 ball, not just a 3 ball. I.e. he did his calculations based on physical concepts like torque generated by a weight revolving or trying to revolve around a balance beam.

that computation is actually 4 dimensional volume since it multiplies a three dimensional volume of the body by the one dimensional circumference of the revolving beam. Thus since a 3 ball is generated by revolving a half 2-disc around the z axis, so also is 4 ball generated by revolving a half 3-ball around a 4th axis (actually revolving it in 4 space around the plane of the equator of the 3 ball). Since Archimedes knew the volume of a half 3-ball equals the difference of the volumes of a cylinder and an inverted cone, he would have known the same holds for the 4 dimensional volumes they generate under revolution.

Since he also knew the centers of gravity of both a cylinder (in the center) and a cone (3/4 of the way from the vertex), he could have calculated the 4 dimensional volume generated, i.e. the volume of a 4 ball.

thus a 4 ball has volume =

vol gen by revolving cylinder of radius and height R about circle of radius R/2
- vol gen by revolving cone of height and base radius R about circle of radius 3R/4

= (πR^2.R.)(2π.R/2) - (1/3)(πR^2.R)(2π.3R/4)

= π^2R^4 - π^2R^4/2 = π^2.R^4/2.if you want to see the fruit of a few of those hours of preparation, some of the class notes are on my web site. Many hundreds of pages more, on complex analysis, sheaves, riemann surfaces, algebraic surfaces, projective varieties, have never been posted.

I never stole time from my classes to do research, i did the opposite, giving my classes full time, and doing research in the holidays or in time i stole from my own sleep.

That 400 page set of graduate algebra notes took far more than 3 hours per lecture to prepare.That guy you describe sounds like a teacher who doesn't care much or who does not have very high standards for his class. He is just reading the book to you. if that is the kind of teacher you find great, you would probably not like my class. I am a lot more demanding of myself and of the class than that. I would find what he is doing very boring and I think many students would as well.

However I am aware many students just want a clear, unchallenging, explanation of the basic material. And he is giving you that. That is fine if that is what you want. That works for average students who just want to get through the subject and do not really find it exciting, or are just trying to get the basics under their belt for some other purpose.

But even in basic plug and chug classes, I almost never find a book that presents things in a way everyone gets, so i try to expand or vary the presentation from that of the book. After all the student has the book. From me they deserve something more. That's why I am there.

Our staff retypes the class evaluations for us, to maintain anonymity, but so we can learn from them. We never see the originals.

 

[sandy.bridge]

I have yet to encounter a professor/instructor with the attributes you have described... Hopefully some of my upper level undergraduate courses will have some.

 

[Nano-Passion]

no matter how long one has been teaching, that mainly helps you understand the concepts really well. the preparation time is still there because you have to make sure the examples you work are correct and you don't get hung up on incorrect details. A conscientious teacher always prepares every night, even a course he has taught many times before. By telling you he is editing several books, your teacher seems to be apologizing for not doing a better job of preparing.

also as you get to know the class you make adjustments in the way you do things so as to be more accessible to the students because of their weaknesses.

At a top school it is easier to prepare in some ways because all you have to do is think about what you are going to do, and you don't have to worry about whether they are strong enough to understand it. you also don't need to do as many exercises.

I also frequently write up complete lecture notes for the class, so the students will have a record of what went on even if they take poor notes. This alone can take 3 hours per class, and that's just for the rough version. I also peruse numerous other books to find good workable problems. I often consult as many as 8-10 books while teaching a class to get the best presentation of every topic.

Of course I don't need to spend much time learning the material, but even there I always try every year to actually learn something new myself that I have never known before, and explain it to the class, to keep it fresh. I.e. I make it a point never to teach the exact same class twice.

E.g. late in my calculus career i realized that archimedes actually would know how to compute the volume of a 4 ball, not just a 3 ball. I.e. he did his calculations based on physical concepts like torque generated by a weight revolving or trying to revolve around a balance beam.

that computation is actually 4 dimensional volume since it multiplies a three dimensional volume of the body by the one dimensional circumference of the revolving beam. Thus since a 3 ball is generated by revolving a half 2-disc around the z axis, so also is 4 ball generated by revolving a half 3-ball around a 4th axis (actually revolving it in 4 space around the plane of the equator of the 3 ball). Since Archimedes knew the volume of a half 3-ball equals the difference of the volumes of a cylinder and an inverted cone, he would have known the same holds for the 4 dimensional volumes they generate under revolution.

Since he also knew the centers of gravity of both a cylinder (in the center) and a cone (3/4 of the way from the vertex), he could have calculated the 4 dimensional volume generated, i.e. the volume of a 4 ball.

thus a 4 ball has volume =

vol gen by revolving cylinder of radius and height R about circle of radius R/2
- vol gen by revolving cone of height and base radius R about circle of radius 3R/4

= (πR^2.R.)(2π.R/2) - (1/3)(πR^2.R)(2π.3R/4)

= π^2R^4 - π^2R^4/2 = π^2.R^4/2.if you want to see the fruit of a few of those hours of preparation, some of the class notes are on my web site. Many hundreds of pages more, on complex analysis, sheaves, riemann surfaces, algebraic surfaces, projective varieties, have never been posted.

I never stole time from my classes to do research, i did the opposite, giving my classes full time, and doing research in the holidays or in time i stole from my own sleep.

That 400 page set of graduate algebra notes took far more than 3 hours per lecture to prepare.That guy you describe sounds like a teacher who doesn't care much or who does not have very high standards for his class. He is just reading the book to you. if that is the kind of teacher you find great, you would probably not like my class. I am a lot more demanding of myself and of the class than that. I would find what he is doing very boring and I think many students would as well.

However I am aware many students just want a clear, unchallenging, explanation of the basic material. And he is giving you that. That is fine if that is what you want. That works for average students who just want to get through the subject and do not really find it exciting, or are just trying to get the basics under their belt for some other purpose.

But even in basic plug and chug classes, I almost never find a book that presents things in a way everyone gets, so i try to expand or vary the presentation from that of the book. After all the student has the book. From me they deserve something more. That's why I am there.

Our staff retypes the class evaluations for us, to maintain anonymity, but so we can learn from them. We never see the originals.

Wow, your amazing. That really shows you care about your students! I really admire the effort and planning you put forth. Even though I am not in your class, I just want you to know that I appreciate it; and I hope your students do too! In contrast, my professor doesn't really care about his classes much; its been becoming obviously clear that he comes in and goes over examples in the book. Kinda makes me wish I had a professor like you. I'm the kind that never complains about professors or misjudges anyone but he really doesn't care much at all.

Mathwonk, one of the most powerful traits of a professor is his enthusiasm toward the subject. My professor (I have his for both physics and Calc) didn't show the beauty and power of derivatives. It was almost as if he just wrote down another formula. This bothers me because a lot of people don't see the beauty of mathematics as it is. When I tutor someone I try my best to show the beautiful side of mathematics, I'm often caught saying "AND THAT is the beauty of mathematics!" after I show a powerful concept.

Do you go up and try to convey the beauty/power of mathematical concepts and proofs?

Edit: Can you link me to your website mathwonk?

 

[Randomguy]

To me, mathwonk sounds like the kind of guy who's rubbish at getting your average student to learn the basic material and pass the exam but perfect for an aspiring mathematician who wants to understand the power and the beauty of the mathematics involved at a deeper level. Unfortunately most people are in the former camp and hence he gets a lot of negative press.

I think it highlights the difficulties of teaching when everyone is at completely different levels of knowledge and understanding.

 

[Nano-Passion]

To me, mathwonk sounds like the kind of guy who's rubbish at getting your average student to learn the basic material and pass the exam but perfect for an aspiring mathematician who wants to understand the power and the beauty of the mathematics involved at a deeper level. Unfortunately most people are in the former camp and hence he gets a lot of negative press.

I think it highlights the difficulties of teaching when everyone is at completely different levels of knowledge and understanding.

I disagree, if you read his last post here you'll see otherwise. He really cares about getting the concepts across to the general mass. You don't have to be a mathematician, you just need at least a respect and apt for mathematics.

 

[Randomguy]

^I'm sure he does really care about getting his concepts across. My point though is that most people who take his course don't really care about understanding the concepts - they just want to pass the exam.

Have you ever seen those textbooks, often written by brilliant mathematicians, which lucidly explain concepts in a way that is exciting and fresh? Have you ever found that though, even after reading them you still can't answer the questions that have been set? Meanwhile a less beautiful but more pragmatic course teaches you all you need and you ace the course.

This actually happens to a lot of 'normal' people and it's why the latter textbooks are often made.

 

[mathwonk]

if you want to know what rubbish my explanations are like, you could read some of the 8,000+ of them on this website. But that may not be a fair comparison, since people asking questions here actually want to know something, whereas many students in a class only want a pass. This is why I spent so much time here, it is very satisfying to try to help people who want to understand.

Here is one of my earliest attempts here to explain something to a beginner. "What is a tensor?"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=38646&highlight=tensorheres another attempt at the same question:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=67946&highlight=tensorThe difficulties I encountered in making these explanations to people who obviously wanted to learn, attracted me to this site and encouraged me to keep trying to explain things conceptually. Many people thought they wanted formulaic explanations, but I keep trying to convince people that understanding the concepts helps you also to use the formulas correctly.

E.g. in one of those explanations of tensors above, you will see that others answered with prescriptions for how to multiply two things in a way that is utterly without motivation. I on the other hand gave a brief explanation of the concept and used that to deduce the only possible answer to the question.

The reluctance to spend the time to understand concepts may be one reason some "students" (i would not call them average) resent being presented with this challenge in a classroom. I would say my strength is in teaching those who want to understand, and they can be at any level of expertise, average, above, or below. I am not at my best with those who will not work hard, even if they are very bright math majors.

Here is another thread from someone it was a pleasure to respond to:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=162737&highlight=tensorYou may find enlightening this discussion by professors on the challenges of teaching well:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=480548