December - Wingspan

20 WingspanDecember 6, 2010wingspan.lccc.wy.eduWebsite offers students opportunityBy Jeffrey PallakDeputy Online EditorOne of the challenges we face ascollege students is finding the rightinstructors for our classes.How do you know if instructorsare the right ones for you? How doyou know if they are fun? Are theirtests overly difficult? Do they makeyou write a lot of papers?The quality of your instructorscan make or break a class, yoursemester or ultimately your entiredegree.Word of mouth worksok if you happen toknow someone whohas taken a classfrom a giveninstructor. Butoften we findourselves insituationswhere wedon’t have anyway of getting thatkind of information.Every semester,we fill out course critiquesabout our instructors and ourclasses. Ratings and comments arecompiled from student responses.This information is used to improvethe quality of the instructionby the college. Wouldn’t it be greatif we, as students, could see thoseresults? If we could see how otherstudents graded them? If we couldchoose our instructors based onthat data?Well, let’s face it: That’s probablynever going to happen. If onlythere was some way we could rateour instructors and give our opinionsof them in such a way thatother students could have accessto that information.Oh, wait…there is! The Internetcomes to the rescue once again.I have been introduced to awebsite called ratemyprofessors.com. It is a website where you canrate your instructors’ performancesand post comments regardingyour experiences in their classes.The site allows you to searchfor professors at your college orother colleges by name and course.You may view the ratings of theinstructor and any commentsthat students who have taken thecourse have posted.The ratings range from a minimumscore of 0.0 to a maximumof score 5.0 in multiple categories.The categories for which the professorsare rated are overall quality,helpfulness, clarity, easiness andhotness.Professors who have a high hotnessrating are awarded a red chilipepper on their profile. Not that Iwould endorse choosing instructorsbased on aesthetics, but it’sthere if that is more important toyou than the quality of instruction.You can also upload photos of yourinstructors.If an instructor you wish to rateis not listed, adding him or her tothe list is quick and easy.The site allows you to rate yourcollege as a whole as well.After rating an instructor numerically,you may post commentsabout him.The site has quite a few regulationsabout what can be posted,and it makes sense for makinga better site. For example, youcannot slander, threaten or makecomments regarding race, gender,sexuality, etc. Also, you can postonly on instructors from whomyou have actually taken classes,and you can post only one review acourse a semester.Posts that are negative shouldnot be outright revenge sessionsand should have some form ofconstructive criticism. Posts thatdo not fit these guidelines may besubject to deletion.With these guidelines in mind,whether you are rating yourprofessor online, or on an officialcourse critique, you should behonest and constructive if must benegative.If you never show up to class orturn assignments on time and youfail, it is not fair to trash on yourinstructor because you were toolazy to put forth the proper effortto be successful in class.Of course, most students willhave no problem spotting this typeof feedback and can dismiss it