Musings Of A Marketer

It’s a very interesting – logically sound and a fun – idea. After years of being judged and rated by their students, professors now have a chance to “strike back” – responding to some of the comments (I don’t know if it is them or the project owners choose the comments) in short movies with the help of MTVU guys.

One should have expected this sort of a strike back. What kind of a Web 2.0 experience would it have been otherwise? J And, though not directly on the rating site Ratemyprofessors.com, the communication is now transferring into a true dialogue.

What do we get from it? We come to understanding that professors are far from being boring – their wit and sense of humour give away really intelligent and nice people who have been often judged by losers who flunk their exams for no other reason but their own laziness or foolishness (to put is soft). Some, though, are exactly the way they are described by the students. Although the rating sites are perceived mostly as a joke, professors are not just having fun filming the movies. There happens to be a well-grounded criticism from the students, and the teachers have a chance to view themselves from their point of view. Some take the chance to apologize if they find the criticism well-argued.

However, the majority of the professors state that they do not normally check the rating and comments. To me, this seems wrong – among the boundless (if there are so many) comments from the whining students there will appear a couple of useful comments that are worth thinking about. Therefore, this strike-back project seems a tool to attract those pedagogues to the site more often, and respond accordingly – not necessarily through a movie but through educational process.

I hope, the films will continue, and the parties will have a chance to communicate to each other the points that they, for that reason or the other, cannot (or just don’t) discuss in class.