So I'm looking at the class schedule for Diffeq so as to not get Dr. Insall, and I've come to realize that all the instructors for all the math classes are listed as "staff." At first I thought it was because they didn't know for sure who was teaching, but now my sources tell me they do so students can't avoid crappy professors. I think this practice is ridiculous. Why should instructors be cut any slack for shitty teaching? Especially profs in math, something essential to all other engineering disciplines. They can't possibly create that much research money anyway.

On a side note, I looked at the schedule for this semester, and while other sections have 1-5 open seats, Insall's has 28. I guess I'm not the only one who jumped ship.

Maybe they haven't designated a teacher to teach the class?

For ALL the math classes?

Most of the "who teaches what" has gone down. Look at the course offerings for other departments, etc.
http://campus.umr.edu/registrar/classof ... erings.pdf

It's worth noting that some Math professors are (presumably) opting to be listed, such as Akers and Bohner.

I avoided Insall like the rest, but suspect that the rumors about him being the devil reborn are a little unrealistic. For example, a quick Google yields...
http://web.umr.edu/~insall/Grades/
... which look reasonable to me. I think a lot of the hatred is centered around the fear of "writing papers in a math class", especially ones with detailed (even pedantic) requirements.

That said, isn't Real Life (TM) like this? Say you hand your superiors/coworkers a set of magic equations. How likely are they to trust them if you can't sufficiently explain their derivation? Furthermore, isn't it likely that your company/corporation/organization is going to have some (possibly strict) requirements for you to detail how you used those magical equations to design say, a system that business (or perhaps human life) depends upon?

Now, I hear Insall forces students to write papers in Linear Algebra. That seems silly to me... shouldn't a low-level math course focus on teaching students the mathematics (i.e. not improve their technical/creative writing skills... or ability to follow directions)?

You are right that the grades seem reasonable...but that's just the people that made it to end without dropping or being dropped. Isn't it the policy of the math dept to drop people with D's or below at midterm or somesuch? Also, I think I was as worried about the essays so much as the lack of teaching the material...

In reference to the original question, I recall the same situation last semester. I'm pretty sure the class offerings were updated periodically and most of those blanks were eventually filled by the time of registration. The only classes that still said "staff" were taught by grad students, I believe.



Absolutely correct. I have Insall for linear algebra this semester and he's not that bad. I definitely wouldn't say his class is difficult. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that his grading is pretty lenient as long as you follow his requirements (which, admittedly, are fairly pedantic). Grading is much harsher in a real English class in my experience. And we're all required to take some amount English, right? So anyone should be able to do it.

The only other thing is that his tests are in "essay" format, which basically just means that you write a sentence or two before your work and then a sentence or two for the conclusion after your work is shown.

Take Insall if you're a math major. Seriously. He'll help you prepare for your higher level math courses. If you're not a math major, you can try to get someone else, but if you end up with Insall anyway, don't drop the course just based on that. It may not be your favorite class of the semester, but you do have the ability to get a good grade in it.

I liked Insall's class... I was about to drop his class based on the "writing papers in a math class" bit, but decided not to. His papers are definitely not bad, and if you follow his requirements things work out (and his requirements are no harder than CS53 commenting requirements ;-).

--sea

I was seeing how difficult it is to take a class if don't meet all the prerequisites?? Can you talk your way into the class or is it pretty difficult to do??

Depends on the department and professor. There's no quick and dirty answer, but if you're an ME, good luck...you'll most likely need it.

You need to win the heart and mind of your advisor and the professor teaching the class. I would start with the person teaching the section you intend to take. Tell them why your background warrants you not needing the prereq. If they think you can handle it, go chat with your advisor.

The whole deal with that kinda pisses me off, there are specific teachers who I really like, and would like to have a certain class with, but with no teacher postings, I could quite easily wind up with a teacher who cant teach, or who at least doesnt match my learning style.

That's okay... one of the profs in the Math department told me "So you think you know how you learn better than we do?" ... really pissed me off.

--sea

My reply would have to be "yes", then supress a strong desire to knock him the fuck out.

updated, according to Dr. Nisbett, he doesnt list the teachers because if he did, there could be as high as a 30% error in the listings. He waits to see who enrolls where, then rearranges the teachers according to classes he needs to open or close.

My reply was that if I have a 70% chance of getting a particular teacher, I would much take that over guessing in the dark.

It turned out that most of the teachers (for diffeq) were listed before I had to register, so it wasn't so bad.