sey091

    Here is a portrait of the poor professor—and by implication, the good professor--as seen by students, at least as noted on some 100+ professors as rated by students on RateMyProfessor. My method was simple: I examined the comments on some 100+ professors at random. I simply plugged in a school—some colleges and some universities, some public institutions and some private or religious--and selected names, some male and some female—at random. Nothing terribly scientific but reasonably fair, it seems. I then grouped the comments into general categories, though, as you’ll see, there is considerable over-lapping. The portrait of the professor who is not well liked that emerges is amazingly clear. Students regularly note similar traits and behaviors that they consider “poor teaching.” Here are ten characteristics that seem to be identified over and over again. These also suggest—to my mind at least--that students’ expectations for professors are realistic, reasonable, and achie...