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| Not The Site That Shall Not Be Named!!!! |
By Lynn O'Shaughnessy
The Princeton Review thinks it knows. It recently released its list of the nation's 300 best professors.
In its search to find "professors who have made a lasting impact in the lives of its students," the Princeton Review plucked "inspiring and challenging" professors from a total of 122 colleges.
The Princeton Review teamed up with RateMyProfessors.com to pinpoint the professors, who teach more than 60 academic disciplines. Four schools -- Colgate University, College of William and Mary, James Madison University and Mount Holyoke College -- accounted for 15 percent of the best teacher list.
Does this list really represent the best professors in the country? I don't see how it could since many schools were not surveyed. The Princeton Review relied on students who volunteered their opinions about their schools and their professors.
The company ultimately turned to RateMyProfessons to check its data on 42,000 teachers at those schools. RateMyProfessors.com includes more than 13 million professor rankings from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. The site reaches more than four million college students a year.
RMP is the mark of pure shit, the proof of instant failure.
ReplyDeleteIf CBS now calls this a news story, then Walter Cronkite must be turning in his grave.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the way it is.
Kudos to O'Shaughnessy for poking a few holes in the methodology of the study (though maybe the study's authors noted the limitations of their own survey also - I didn't read it). She is right about the emphasis on research and its relationship to tenure, which is a shame.
ReplyDeleteYet again, what "education experts" decree strikes me as amazingly unscientific, statistically nonsensical, and obviously transparent even to simple common sense.
ReplyDeleteWell, I only know one person in my field on that list, and she is a top scholar. Occasionally excellent teaching and top scholarship go together. Also, O'Shaughnessy says that mentioning a passion for teaching hurts graduate applicants, which isn't true at places where grad students teach their way through most of the program.
ReplyDeleteNot that RMP isn't bullshit, mind you.
I checked the list, since I know a couple of proffies at one of the schools named, including one I could easily imagine landing on the list on the basis of personal charisma as well as smarts (okay; I had a serious crush on him when we were both in grad school -- but I probably wasn't the only one). He isn't there, nor, after a quick glance, do I think I know anyone on the list. But I'm willing (in fact, would like) to believe that good research and teaching can go together.
ReplyDeleteStill, any methodology that includes approaching within a mile of RMP "data" is extremely suspect.
Actually, I just took another look at the list, and I do know two of the people -- one very slightly, one a bit more -- from an institution at which I worked as an adjunct. The one I know very slightly is, to the best of my limited knowledge, an excellent teacher, researcher,and colleague. The other tends toward the sort of narcissism that might make for a good teacher in some (limited) situations, but has colleagues cringing at the thought of hir being in charge of anything (or, in other words: (s)he was chair for a while, after I left. From everything I've heard, it didn't go well).
DeleteVery anecdotal evidence, I know. Make of it what you will.
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ReplyDeleteThis list is SO obviously bogus, because I'm not on it. It reminds me of Rolling Stone's list of the 100 greatest rock guitarists of all time. It didn't include Rory Gallagher, who clearly ought to have been in the top ten.
ReplyDeleteMy uni has a couple people on it, and is therefore using it to proclaim our awesomeness. I certainly understand that, but it's still kind of gross.
ReplyDeleteMy undergrad has a few as well. It was on the front page of the website. Probably still is.
DeleteIn all fairness though, I did take a class with one of the profs. It was probably the most challenging course I took, and I had nothing but good things to say about the prof.
Isn't that the worst part? Watching the folks in marketing all getting big chubbers over ways to exploit the list to goose enrollment. Then scurrying off into their lairs to plot ways they can bump up their favourite proffies' scores on thesitethatshallnotbenamed.
DeleteWell, since "education experts" have basically destroyed American education as we know it, I don't place much credence in anything they say.
ReplyDeleteI had one of those profs as an undergrad. And he was indeed an incredible prof. I loved him, and everyone else did too.
ReplyDeleteMy president cited this as an example of what we should aspire to. I almost vomited on the spot.
ReplyDeleteI must have been 301st. Shit.
ReplyDelete