Course Evaluations -- University of Utah
8/29/06 3:10 PM
course evaluations
University of Utah
Course and Instructor Evaluation Written Comments Report
Summer 2006
College/School:
College of Science
Instructor:
PRESZLER,JASON ISAAC;
Subject:
Mathematics
Ode's And Lin Alg
Course:
Print Date:
Course #:
2250 - 002
Enrollment:
Evaluations processed:
29-Aug-06
48
41
List two things about the course content, materials or design that were effective for your learning, or make
constructive suggestions for improvement.
Lectures were good, but it would've been nice to have more homework and fewer quizzes. Maple Labs were interesting, but didn't
really help me to understand the math any more than I already did.
--The examples done during class and the review sessions before the exam were a big help
Doing fine.
He followed the book very thoroughly but added his own methods which made the class easy to follow.
Quizzes everyweek were helpful to understand expectations. The suggested homework should be more carefully selected to match
what is emphasized in the course.
Need More example to learn from.
need real examples
I thought that quizzes and homework helped me prepare for the exams. I felt like if I completed all of the homework problems and
reviewed the concepts I would be able to do well on the exam, and this was the case.
I enjoyed the maple labs, matrices, and matrix applications
I greatly disliked our textbook, it was rather unclear (as mathbooks tend to be) as it failed to obviousally set aside the final useful form
of eqations so as to distinguish them from their proofs (I'm an enginneer, I'll look at and learn the proof once or twice, but once I'm
studying, I'd like to be able to just flip through the book and write down all the boxed equations). To make matters worse, its
symbology and methods were different that the ones demonstrated in class. This is no real problem in general, but if one missed a
day or two, it made it that much harder to catch back up. My suggestion: find a more user-friendly textbook.
The course content was very good, but in my opinion, more stress needs to be put on more examples to show some common tricks of
solving some complex problems. I think this can help improve a students ability to work some extra questions indepndently.
It was nice to know what to expect on the tests. Sometimes in other math classes, teachers try to trick the student by putting obscure
things on the exam. Not so with this class - we had to demonstrate that we knew the material, but there weren't any absurd tricks on
the test. Thanks for that!
I did not put in the work and should have not taken this course this summer.
https://www.acs.utah.edu/prod/evaluations/evaluation-report?cmd=FREE_TEXT_REPORT&term=1066&classNbr=2907&emplid=00006752
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Course Evaluations -- University of Utah
8/29/06 3:10 PM
Good knowledge of matrices. Needed more practice exams, etc.
I would like to see more examples given in class. We went over a lot of theorems, but I learn better when I can see a couple of
examples that demonstrate the theorem instead of just writing down and trying to memorize the theorem. There were some examples
given, but I would have liked to have had more.
I learned a great deal overall, but I found the lectures to be ineffective at times. Too often, theorems and definitions were simply
copied and rewritten on the board while no examples were worked out. I would have found the attending lectures to be much more
advantageous if they had been highlighted with examples to help illustrate the concepts in the book.
1. I like his style of teaching it was very informative. 2. The homework and tests were a very fair representation of what was taught.
clearly taught and easy to follow.
PRESZLER,JASON ISAAC: List two things about this instructor that were effective for your learning, or make
constructive suggestions for improvement.
Very personable, willing to answer questions, and explained things well.
--Very helpful teacher - always available to students.
Thank you professor. You were always accommodating to my dual-schedule situation. This was most appreciated. Also, it was neat
that you learned the names of the students in your class. That reflected your concern for my personal success, and made it not so
intimidating to talk to you in your office! Thanks! You're a great professor!
Just be more clear on questions for exams
It would be helpful if you would put the homework up on your website before you teach it or soon after. It's hard to keep up with
homework when you don't know what the assignment is until a day later. Take home quizes are not your specality. If they could be a
bit more reasonable that would be good. Just because we can take it home doesn't mean we should spend 5 times as much time on
completing it. It's difficult do a quiz and homework from a separate chapter at the same time. I appriecate that you don't talk too fast
and your in class quizes are reasonable.
teaching from the book exactly isnt effective. when you write exactly whats in the book there is no reason to come to class.
I thought that the teacher did a good job of summarizing the material that we needed to know in lecture. His quizzes and homeworks
helped me to prepare myself in order to be able to do well on the exam. The only thing I would have liked to see more of is more
example problems done in class. Instead of writting a ton of equations and theorems down, I would have liked to see more of how
these equations and theorems are used in a specific problem.
His exams and quizzes were fair. There were no nasty surpises.
Preszler was great. He has neat handwriting to boot. Sounds funny, but that helps more than you might expect.
Obviously Jason knew the stuff well, but he didn't communicate it very well, especially considering that he had a class full of
engineers, not mathematicians. He spent way too much time on theorums and definitions and never enough actually showing us how
to work through a problem. I largely noticed this prbloem when we had a substitute teacher for a week. He spent the whole time
explaining the steps to solve problems, and then backed it up well with many examples of all kinds. Jason did a good job of
explaining the math itself, but not of how to do it.
Instead of covering abstract theorems in class, it would have been more helpful to go over specific examples. Half of the time, I had
no idea what we were talking about in lecture, and only when I looked at the book later would I realize what we were talking about.
Definitions/theorems are nice, but they don't help when it comes to solving problems. Also, several times during the semester,
students asked the instructor to work a problem in class that had been assigned for our homework, and the instructor couldn't solve it.
If he doesn't even know how to solve the problems, we shouldn't be expected to do them for homework. (This was mainly the applied
physics/population problems in Chapters 1, 2, 5, and 7).
Confusing at times, especially with math jargon. Good availability to students.
See the previous comments, they reflected how he taught which was very good.
helped with questions and clearly had what was needed.
Stating theorems in class doesn't help anyone understand the material. Using the theorems in class in a lot more useful. It seems as
if the instructor simply restated what the book stated. I would rather be required to read the section ahead of time, and spend class
time doing problems and applying the concepts in theorems to actual examples.
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