We figured it would be safe to spend two weeks on the water in July. But the skies have been gray for two days, and even at noon the temperature’s only up to 58 degrees today. Over the weekend we may break 70 again, but then they’re predicting clouds, rain, and chilly temperatures for the rest of the week.
Blech.
It’s cold and damp and I’m feeling quite out of sorts. If we have to be in transition for a month, was it so much to ask that the transtional period be enjoyable? The first week was dominated by illness and far too much driving (I went back to Seattle again yesterday to drop off two of four kids, and with ferry wait times added in it took nearly 8 hours round trip). Now that we’re inching towards a better healthy adult to child ratio, the weather turns rotten.
Okay, that’s the end of my self-pitying rant. I’m sure it will get better. We have books and movies and music and computers. There are far worse places to be stuck inside. I just wish I’d brought more sweatshirts and fewer sleeveless tops.
I see from the wiki for BarCampRochester that someone has proposed a session to talk about the online professor rating system. I wish I could go. I’d love to ask some hard questions about these systems generally.
For example, would the people who champion these systems be just as enthusiastic about a publicly accessible “student rating system” that let professors share their opinions about students?
I’m really torn about these rating systems. I understand the desire and the need for them. I remember using a print version of them when I was an undergrad at Michigan. But too often the systems I’ve seen on the web turn into the worst example of online character assassination. I may not be the best professor there is, but how helpful is it to have a system that lets people write (as I found on one site several years ago) “She should be chasing chickens on a farm, not teaching information technology.” Yes, I can laugh at the absurdity of it. But I’ve seen some that were far worse and more damaging than that. Comments about people’s sexual preferences, their physical appearance, and more.
As soon as you allow anonymous free-text commenting, you get the worst of what people have to offer. And unlike in-class evaluations, where you get a full sample of student views—good, bad, and indifferent—on these opt-in systems you tend to get comments only from people with the strongest of opinions, skewing the accuracy.
If these professor rating systems are inevitable, what checks and balances can be put in place to keep them from being overrun with personal attacks? Is it realistic to have content editors? To limit to a preset list of comments? It’s not reasonable, I think, to put the burden on the professor to police his or her own evaluations.
What if it were turned around? What if professors could warn each other about problem students—the ones who regularly fall asleep in class, the ones who consistently cause discord in group projects, the ones whose grandmothers have died at least six times since their freshman year? And what if these systems were as publicly available as the professor rating systems? Is that somehow worse? If so, why? (I can think of some reasons, but I think it’s a valuable exercise to discuss this.)
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