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"I wouldn't say she's the worst professor I've ever had, just not terribly inspiring," writes one student on RateMyProfessors.com's UK website. Others describe various individual lecturers as: "patronising and not very bright", "nice person, but worthless teacher", "supremely egotistical", "mad as a box of badgers", and simply "awful, awful man".
Never before have students had such opportunities to let off steam when they feel their university teaching has failed to come up to scratch, and never before have lecturers been so publicly at their mercy. RateMyProfessors, used in the US for the last 12 years, started soliciting comments from UK students five years ago and covers well over 1,000 UK lecturers, rating them for easiness, helpfulness, clarity, interest, and whether or not they are "hot". Then there is the National Student Survey, which for the last seven years has asked final-year students to rate qualities such as teaching, feedback and organisation on their course. This year's annual report from the Office of the Independent Adjudicator, set up in 2004 to handle student complaints, showed that these had risen by a third in the last year, and predicted that they were likely to rise even more sharply following next year's increase in tuition fees.
The government's white paper, "Students at the Heart of the System", also seems to envisage students speaking out if they are unhappy with their learning. In a Guardian online chat last week, the universities minister, David Willetts, urged students to raise concerns about practical aspects such as getting work back and contact time. He predicted: "Our finance changes will strengthen the student voice on these issues."
The Student-Led Teaching Awards, organised jointly by the Higher Education Academy and National Union of Students, is an award scheme run entirely by students, based on a Scottish pilot. When the pilot began two years ago, eight institutions were involved. Last year, this had grown to 13, with students making more than 11,000 nominations.
Individual student unions decide on different criteria for assessing their lecturers – from "most organised module" to "best 21st-century teaching". They then encourage students to nominate teachers, and to explain exactly why they think the teacher they have picked is so good. A student committee assesses the nominations, noting not only the number an individual lecturer receives, but also their quality, and there is an annual "Oscars" award ceremony.
Elizabeth Bomberg, a senior lecturer in politics, who won Edinburgh University Student Association's first Overall High Performer Award in 2009, says: "Students like feedback, but so do staff. To receive that constructive feedback – there's nothing to match that in terms of encouraging good teaching. I was thrilled."
She says it has made herself and her colleagues more aware of the criteria for which her award was made – enthusiasm, feedback and the ability to prompt questions and critical thinking. "Sometimes in the rush to deliver our teaching and get work done we forget that it's really about interaction with students," she says.
Helen Thomas, head of teacher excellence at the HEA, says: "The demand for good teaching is on the political and student agenda. These awards help students to recognise what good teaching is so they know what to ask for and they also know that teaching is felt to be important because it is being rewarded."
Simon Bates, professor of physics education at Edinburgh, who won an award for innovative teaching last year, says: "It's always nice to get any kind of recognition in your professional life but from students it's particularly gratifying because they're the reason why you teach in the way you do."
At Edinburgh, the awards ceremony is followed by an Inspiring Teaching conference, in which winners are invited to give workshops to share their ideas. Heriot-Watt University Student Union has found comments made in the nominations so useful that it plans to categorise them to show what students appreciate about specific aspects of teaching.
Its president, Mike Ross, says that it is a way of students being able to influence their own learning. Whereas the National Student Survey only allows students to comment once their course is over, this gives them the chance to influence teaching methods while they are still studying.
Both students and staff insist that it is not a popularity contest and often staff who most challenge their students receive most nominations. And in tough economic times it is a way of giving academics the kind of boost anyone would get from a heartfelt nomination such as this: "Through her genuine care for her students and passion for the subject, she has inspired many … In her classroom we are academics, not students. Her support in identifying the help I need has made the difference between me dropping out and staying on." [24]
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