Emma sends a link to this article from today’s Guardian: Who’s the Hottest Teacher in the US? (Hint: it’s not me, darn it all.)
The piece is a very English reflection on Ratemyprofessors, a site about which I’ve had a bit to say in the past. (See the archive here, and my NPR interview here.) As I’ve said, my faith in RMP as a useful evaluation tool vanished after it became clear that anyone could rate themselves or their colleagues or their worst enemy or their parents. Being an enrolled student was not a requirement to rate, and that makes the whole site largely useless (which is why I haven’t followed it as eagerly as I once did.)
In any event, the Guardian piece makes a very good point, of the sort that might cheer those of us laboring in intellectual backwaters like my own Pasadena City College:
Obviously, as a conventional register of quality - whether of staff, scholarship, or courses - the MTV/RMP poll is less reliable than weather forecasting with seaweed. No statistician would see it as anything other than a joke. Sneering aside though, it does furnish food for thought. And uncomfortable thought.
What it reveals to me is that the level of student satisfaction is higher the lower you go down the prestige scale. That is, undergraduates at, say, Rhode Island College, or Stephen F. Austin University, feel they are getting a better deal than Yalies, Caltechers or Princetonians.
It could be the students in those less classy places are less demanding, or humbler. It could be the fees aren’t so vexatiously high in these less famous places, giving a better sense of value for money.
But the real reason, I suspect, is that those students are indeed getting a better classroom experience.
Bold emphasis mine.
It could be the students in those less classy places are less demanding, or humbler.
In my experience teaching in higher ed — which is limited to only about a dozen sections over the past five years, but runs the gamut from remedial algebra in a community college to linear algebra for engineers in a public research university to medical ethics for pre-med undergraduates at a prestigious private school — this is exactly what’s going on. The students at prestigious schools — who are overwhelmingly white and wealthy — have a sense of entitlement to a 3.75 GPA that their `peers’ at state schools almost completely lack. In official evaluations here at Prominent Catholic University, I’ve been called a `mean’ grader by my students specifically because I think grade inflation is pernicious and refuse to relax my standards.
“of the sort that might cheer those of us laboring in intellectual backwaters like my own Pasadena City College”
Hugo do you realize what an insulting and disappointing comment this is? I was so taken aback by its pretentiousness, that I had trouble focusing on what the post was actually about. After reading it, all I could remember was that remark. Do you think that the intellectual capabilities of the people at PCC (faculty and students) are beneath you?
Elizabeth, it’s a backwater because it’s not on the map. The whole point is that magnificent teaching happens here too — and that first-rate students come here. A “backwater” is a place that is remote and off-the-radar, not a place of poor quality. That’s how I understand the phrase to be used.
I pour my heart and soul and mind into this place which I love very much. Damn right it’s a backwater, and I’m proud of it.
Before I left academia, I taught at an institution ranked by US News and World Report among the best 50 in the nation. I also taught at a city college, a state university, and a “diploma mill.” Out of all of these teaching experiences, the city college experience was my favorite–students were generally more mature and more receptive to the learning process through constructive input. They also displayed greater accountability for their part in making the class a success. Undergrad students in the 4-year program and grad students at the state university did display the horrible sense of entitlement Noumena speaks of–very similar to students in the diploma mill. The attitude here was, “we pay you and you work for us, so give us that A already!”
But there is another side to the dichotomy you point out, Hugo: The higher-ranked the university is, the less does research faculty actually interact with students (considering a teaching load of 1-1 or 2-2). OR, when research faculty does interact with students, these interactions tend to be self-gratifying and absolutely not focused on students’ learning. How many people were asked to write a dissertation not on what they were interested in, but what their adviser wanted to use for his next book?
Also, where RMP is concerned, consider the distribution between undergraduate (i.e. taught mostly by grad assistants) and graduate students (who actually get their hands on professors). I haven’t read the article, but what does it say about satisfaction statistics in that regard?
I agree with the downfall of Rate My Professors. I gave up on that site a while ago. Too often there are repeat raters, professors who rate themselves, and various other skewings of the rating system. Maybe a similar program attached to a site like facebook would help alleviate some of the problems? Where ratings are limited to students or professors within the school network and linked to their school email account? It could still be anonymous, and would keep it a lot more accountable.
Charlotte, the article isn’t a study — more of a musing, so there’s no research involved. It does suggest, however, that students are more likely to think highly of profs who actually teach them, as opposed to those who teach through grad students.
Mike, excellent idea. Propose it to Facebook!
But the real reason, I suspect, is that those students are indeed getting a better classroom experience.
As someone who has spent a great deal of time at Caltech, and has friends in various other similarly prestigious colleges and universities (such as Brown, Cornell, and William & Mary), I would have to agree. I have listened to many conversations about the Princeton Review results which rank Caltech’s professors very low, and how it’s a fair ranking. The professors are quite knowledgeable in their field, but they often have little to no charisma or actual teaching skill and a fair number of them have only a loose grasp of the English language. Lately I’ve been hearing seniors saying that they’ve had maybe one decent professor a year (they’re usually taking 12-15 classes/year). From my friends at other colleges and universities, I hear a lot about all the work they have to do, but I never hear anything about professors. I talk about my interactions with professors, good and bad, with some frequency, but my friends talk about how they’re smarter than the TA and really never say anything about their professors.
I had my doubts about going to a community college, and for most of the first year and a half that I was here, I felt like I was just getting college credit for courses I had taken in high school. It’s grown on me though, and I really appreciate that most professors here are reasonable and approachable people who actually care about whether or not their students succeed, and even bother to learn their names. I’m not going to be buying a PCC sweatshirt anytime soon, but I am happy I came here instead of going to a four-year school first.
Joanna, I’ve been teaching here fifteen years and still don’t have the sweatshirt. But I do know your name. Thanks for the feedback.
Back in another life when I was a very new PhD student I was told that I had to teach maths (my primary degree subject) to the first year engineers in my dept. I had absolutely no teaching experience, and no training. I was just given last year’s notes and told to go do it, at only a day or so’s notice. I was awful, really bad. I’m OK tutoring in a 1-1 context but I had no idea how to stand in front of a class and teach a group. And the dept I was working in? A highly rated research institute. It was partly that experience that made the article resonate with me.
Great lecture on birth control/contraception today. But your new haircut, nicely fitted shirt and the tight jeans was might distracting from old Margaret Sanger. When you bring it, dochugoboy, you bring it. Sometimes you bring almost too much! ;-)
I don’t doubt that students are happier and have a better learning experience at the so-called “less prestigious schools” one bit. Having had undergrad experience at a large private university, a UC university, and two community colleges, and now having teaching experience at a state university and another community college, I can say without reservations that while I had great teachers at all of them, and have great colleagues at both the schools I teach at now, I’ve always found the best teachers at community colleges. And there’s something about the environment, too — CCs are far more diverse, both in terms of ethnicity but also age/life experience. Given that much of the learning that makes up a college education comes from one’s fellow students, one is bound to learn more (though maybe not in measurable academic terms) i nthe “wild and woolly” student bodies of community colleges than among the carefully groomed populations of the top-tier universities where a goodly number of one’s fellow students share more or less similar backgrounds.
I wish I had more to actually say about Hugo’s periodic posts about the community college experience. I just went back to college at North Seattle Community College after ten years out of school (and a pretty unconventional life path), and it’s been quite an experience. I’m really enjoying and being challenged, and I’m able to respond and rise to the challenge in a lot of ways that I was unable or unprepared to do when I hit college at the more normal age of 18.