Shouldn't students be allowed to grade their teachers?

Students should be allowed to give feedback to their teachers after a course has been completed.
This feedback should be given in the form of a questionairre and should have only a 25% say on the effectiveness of a teacher and whether they are accountable for the success or non success of their students in that cl@ss.
Students should be allowed to give their teachers feedback because:

1- Nothing helps a teacher more than to know what is working and not working in the cl@ssroom.
2- Students should be allowed a voice when it comes to ineffective teachers.
3- Students should voice their opinions especially if they are positive because it definitely keeps good teachers in the cl@ssroom.
4- Teachers are not above praise or negative criticism. We are just as vulnerable to positive and negative comments about our effectiveness and knowing what impacts we are making helps renew our want to be there for the students.

Really, all of my reasons are essentially the same. What are your thoughts?

No, most kids are too stupid or a-holes and that would skew the results

They already do. Well in college. Our professors had to had out a grading sheet for themselves and leave the room while we will it out and put them into a envolope so nobody could see the others results.AutoPilotOn

The problem comes when students have a bias against a teacher. For example, a bad teacher could be well liked by students because they don't push the students at all so they will rate that teacher highly because they didn't give them any work while a good teacher that pushes students to do their best and gives them a hefty load of work might not be liked by students and will be poorly rated.

I do agree that students should be able to grade their teachers, but the ratings shouldn't really decide much.

YES, but you gotta take in account that you have students who are naive and will grade poorly, or just because they don't like them or gave them an D on their last report ect. So students grading their teacher could end in a fail.

But i think it should be a responsibility from the teacher to find out what they doing wrong and change it or fit with how one student learns. With that said Some of my teachers in high school always got together each class last week or so of school and asked what they liked or didn't like what should they change ect. This happen in every grade with me.

In high school and below, people simply aren't mature enough. GodofBigMacs

It's done at college. Below that level however, I am not particularly inclined to think that student input would be valuable.

I thought that was what the site Rate Your Professor was for. Sure, there are some ratings on there with just haters getting a bad grade. Still, some of the reviews I read I actually agreed with. Ah, well I don't do it for my teachers now at my college.MistressMinako

I thought that was what the site Rate Your Professor was for. Sure, there are some ratings on there with just haters getting a bad grade. Still, some of the reviews I read I actually agreed with. Ah, well I don't do it for my teachers now at my college.MistressMinako

They do that in college all the time. My biology teacher refused to pass them out to people that were getting less that 2.0s, because they would just give low scores out of bitterness.

We do that in college, but i'm sure if it does jack.

Wont work from Highschool and below

We do in my uni. Not sure if it does anything though.

I thought this was common practice in high school and college. They honestly don't mean much mainly because students are almost always biased.

I thought this was common practice in high school and college. They honestly don't mean much mainly because students are almost always biased.

ExoticAnimal

[QUOTE="ExoticAnimal"]

I thought this was common practice in high school and college. They honestly don't mean much mainly because students are almost always biased.

Theokhoth

It's required by our University for the teachers to pass out evaluation papers but by no means are students have to complete them. They do it like half way during class towards the end of the quarter so it kinda enforces the students to participate in filling out the paper.

I think pretty much all colleges do. I don't think they do it at the High School level because you would probably have people complaining about absurd things.

ummm, we do. At least in CA we do, what do you think those scantrons are you fill out at the end of each year/quarter/semester are asking to "rate your teacher's ability to_____" from 1 to 5

some of my high school teachers did that
and its optional were i go to collage

I recall having to do teacher evaluations in college. Personally, I thought it was sort of pointless and just took away fromclass time. If 5 was the highest score for each question, I'd simply randomly assign a bunch of 4's and 5's, and then maybe give one or two 3's just to make it look like I wasn't just randomnly giving out high marks.

Make no mistake...if I had a problem with the tweacher, I'd have said something and made complaints long before having to do a pointless anonymous teacher evaluation.

Someone I know would love to do that. They take an honours class and the teacher has a Twilight poster hanging at the front of the class. I deem that a bit strange. That's not all, however.

We do at my college. Its manditory, its also pretty serious at my school we had a couple of teachers get fired because students were giving them poor grades.

But i wish they had something like that when i was in high school. They probaly do in some high schools but not at mine.

Yes, but the problem is that there are so many immature students that would probably rate their teacher a 0 just because they thought he was being mean to them. Or they might give a teacher a 100 just because they are good-looking.

I think pretty much all colleges do. I don't think they do it at the High School level because you would probably have people complaining about absurd things.

Zilch90

I do grade my teachers when they pass out self evalutation sheets, but only a select few do that, plus I go on rate my professor too and leave comments there as well.

We do that in college. Trust me, after a while, you're just going to put the same answers for everything, and not care anymore.

I know it's common in college. It's good the way it is since all the stupid kids can't even get into college.

No, absolutely not. You do not want the lazy, stupid morons that make up half the school population getting a say.

it would never work below university and college level.

they tried it in high school - one of the teachers left a student teacher in charge for a couple days and when she came back she had us all make out report cards for the poor thing.

she had no experience and had been lost at first.

when she started reading the reports cards the students wrote she began to cry