E-Valuating Learning: Rate My Professors and Public Rhetorics of Pedagogy

The Rate My Professors (RMP) online student discourse community shapes and defines current public rhetorics of pedagogy. RMP is a cultural phenomenon indicative of a larger movement in extra-institutional discourse toward ranking and assessing people and products. More important than the postings on RMP, however, or their measurable accuracy, is how RMP reflects the increasingly convergent interests of consumer culture and academic culture, shaping the ways that pedagogy is valued and assessed by students within the public domain. Faculty therefore must consider RMP's effect on public discourse about pedagogy in order to help students understand evaluation as a tool for civic exchange.