Get Your Professor Fired!
- Filed under: College Development
- Date: Apr 24,2008
One thing students do not take advantage of is the class/professor evaluation forms. And this is very unfortunate. In a class the other day I heard a student say “If I think I’m getting an A in the class, I just go down the line and mark strongly agree for everything.”
I have a question. Does getting an A in a class indicate that you learned something in the class? Some professors curve the grade so drastically that your final grade does not accurately express your understanding of the course.
The way I see it is you, as a student, are the customer and your courses are part of the service you receive. You have every right to complain. Even if you do not take another class with the professor you are still helping future students.
So you probably don’t want to go and get your professor fired, but give the professor a really good critique. When answering questions about the difficulty of the class, do not complain because it was difficult, ask if you really benefited from the tests. Did tests accurately test your knowledge, even if your knowledge was very limited? What about the assignments? Did they help you learn the material? If the assignments did not help, don’t mark down that the assignments were awful unless you actually attempted to take full advantage of the given assignments.
Attempt to give your professor the best critique possible. You may think that a professor will never change, but this isn’t true of all professors. Believe it or not some professors are actually teaching because they want to help. As you should be open to critique by your professors, so should your professors be open to critique by you.
By giving excellent critiques of your professors you will slow change the environment of your university. The class evaluation forms may seem unimportant, but if everyone in the university takes advantage of them a simple form can be a changing force at your college.
Loading ...
4 Responses for "Get Your Professor Fired!"
I take full advantage of the teacher evaluations. I’ve marked teachers whose methods were flawed as they deserved and I’ve marked teachers whose methods were excellent as they deserved. One thing that bothers me though is teachers who are horrible and then at the end of the semester you don’t get to evaluate them. That bothers me cause it seems the teachers are slacking in the classes they know will not evaluate them and keeping on their toes in the classes that will evaluate them. Alas the game of Evaluation.
@Minda
I am glad I am not the only one that takes the opportunity. Something you may consider is going to the administrators to discuss your professors. Just because you don’t get an evaluation form doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be evaluated.
But the most important thing is that the evaluation is constructive. I see many people give complains when the complaint is not the fault of the professor, but rather that of the student.
If you do go to an administrator, prepare your argument in advance. That way your criticism is taken seriously.
But you should always attempt to speak to the professor first before running off to their superiors.
[…] I wrote a post about evaluating your professor., but today I would like to focus on how to evaluate yourself. When finals are over you should not […]
We just filled out in-class evaluations in a couple of my courses yesterday. I really like filling them out and letting the admin and profs know how I feel about their classes and how they conduct them. Our admin really takes to heart what the students say, so we can expect improvement by the time the next school year rolls around. Thanks for the nice article!
Leave a comment