Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Educators question RateMyProfessor annual college rankings

More than 1 million professors are rated on RateMyProfessor.

Can 10 million college students be wrong? The popular site RateMyProfessor released its 2010-11 rankings April 26 – naming the top university and professors – as many in higher education remain skeptical of the site and said students shouldn’t base their school choices on RateMyProfessor’s reviews.

Students on RateMyProfessor, which compiles anonymous student ratings and written reviews of more than 1 million professors and instructors on 6,500 campuses, named Brigham Young University (BYU) the nation’s top school.

Florida State University, the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, and the University of California Berkeley rounded out the website’s top-five ranking for the 2010-11 academic year.…Read More

Job outlook brightens for new grads–just barely

To get a sense of the job market new college graduates face, consider the latest crop of nurses from Santa Rosa Junior College. Just eight of the 55 students are leaving with job offers–and that’s considered good news, the Associated Press reports. Last year, no graduates of the California community college’s associate degree nursing program had a job in hand. “We’re excited that finally something is happening,” said Sharon Johnson, the program director. This year’s slightly better performance is one of many signs around the country that 2010 is a better year than 2009 for landing that first job out of college–but not by much. New nurses are looking for something–anything–as the down economy has slowed retirements in their otherwise promising field. Teachers also face intense competition for positions that in their case have been made scarce by state and local budget cuts…

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