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Robbins, Marian

Cumulative GPA: 2.41/4.00 with 29 evaluations
Presents Material Clearly: 2.21
Recognizes Student Difficulties: 2.48

Mathematics Department, Cal Poly, SLO
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MATH 244 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 11:21 am, Dec 12, 2012 Report Evaluation		Never have I seen such vigor in a math professor! She definitely brought an energy to class and seemed to really care about the material. It didn't always bring the class to clarity however. Expect a lot of writing of words rather than equations, and a lot of time spent on her trying to think of the right way to convey something that would be much easier to describe with an example. Grades were based on Reading Reflections, Homework/Quizzes, 2 Midterms, and the Final Exam. Either homework is due every other day, or there's a quiz, but we only ever had two or three quizzes. She was definitely willing to help students with their problems, but that usually led to 30 minutes of review and then 20 on the new material. Overall, I'd recommend her over other teachers, and her energy was a welcome change.

MATH 412 Graduate Student Grade Earned: A Elective 11:58 am, Dec 9, 2012 Report Evaluation		Professor Robbins was great at explaining the more difficult concepts in Analysis. However, sometimes I wished she wasn't quite as patient with her students. I would do the readings and come to class prepared, and then we would spend the whole class going over things we were supposed to already know. I also wish she had had more challenging problems on the two midterms. They were extremely easy, and then on the final she nailed us. Almost noone correctly answered problems 5-8. (Which is basically half the final.)

MATH 143 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 11:05 pm, Jun 28, 2012 Report Evaluation		Robbins is a an okay professor. She's not bad but not the best. She can confuse students in her lectures. Her quizzes are straightforward and easy but her midterms are pretty challenging. There's only a few questions so if you miss half of a question twice, you're already at a B-/C+. She is helpful in office hours and very flexible. Overall, if you can find a better professor, find him/her. But if you take Robbins, it's not the worst thing ever.

MATH 206 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 7:04 pm, Apr 3, 2012 Report Evaluation		I was not going to rate until I read the comment preceding mine. I don't think that Robbins deserves quite the bashing that you gave her. Yes, homework is required and graded for completion and that might be a bummer to some of the lazier students, but it's also important for learning the material. Honestly, what math class doesn't have homework that's graded? I've had a bunch of upper division classes where I do all the problems to the best of my ability yet still get no higher than a C. At least in Robbin's class effort is recognized and rewarded. And as for the tests, they're fair. Understand that this teacher won't be a cakewalk and expect to work on your own and her class will work for you. As for her lectures, she's not necessarily perfect, but the pace of her class is adjusted based on the students understanding. I would describe her as a diamond in the rough teacher, you only understand the value retrospectively once you are using the skills you thought you never learned from her in later math classes. I say that she's a good teacher to experience on one of your lighter quarters.

MATH 244 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 10:29 am, Mar 20, 2012 Report Evaluation		To be very honest about Marian Robbins..She is a horrible teacher. She's like a walking, talking math book and the only benefit you get from coming to class is hearing her read to you the literal definitions from all of the linear book. Class was always very boring, and unless you knew exactly what was going on, you would be lost for the entire hour. Her grading policy was by the far the most frustrating part, however. The homework's were assigned every day and collected twice a week. She said that half the time homework will be collected, and the other half there will be a quiz, but our class only had two quizzes the entire quarter. With the homework, the problems she assigned were always way more then needed to be, and you never had enough time to finish them. I literally had to to copy cramster almost every day homework was collected. Oh and the homework was out of 100 points. If there were 20 questions assigned and you didn't do just one, you lost 15 points. No matter what. Her tests weren't too bad, but like the homework she is merciless with partial credit. I had a B going into the final, walked out of it feeling pretty good, and ended up with a C in the class. So I had a feeling she just docked an extreme amount of points on every problem for no reason. I would not advise taking her. It was not an enjoyable quarter and I put in a decent amount of work to feel pretty pissed about the grade I received. Marian Robbins, I hope you read this. You really need some change.

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 3:45 pm, Feb 6, 2012 Report Evaluation		Not a great teacher but definitely not the worst either. She assigns only the hardest homework problems which only serves to confuse you and then puts some hard ones on the tests too. I would pick a different teacher if I could.

MATH 206 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 12:33 am, Nov 22, 2011 Report Evaluation		Dr. Robbins is highly intelligent and knowledgable about Linear Algebra. Personally, I was very challenged with her techniques because she likes to get students to guess at how to do a lot of problems and how to understand theorems. I still don't know whether I was confused because of how she taught the material, or because it was just confusing regardless. Somehow I managed to get an A throughout the portion of the quarter where she was my teacher (she had to take a leave of absence half way through). Now that I've given my criticism, I have to give credit where it is due. Dr. Robbins is extremely kind, helpful in office hours, and funny. She makes coming to class a joy because of her radiant personality. Lastly she is a stone cold fox. One of those women where you just can't guess her age. Take her, but be prepared to study a lot on your own.



MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 10:51 pm, Apr 20, 2011 Report Evaluation		Hey! she's a nice lady... However she doesn't present the material well and just hands out worksheets and expects you to kinda figure out the material on your own. In order to do well you pretty much have to teach yourself which isn't impossible. When she does present the material it is easy to understand. This really isn't that hard of a class. You just have to make sure your a beast at integration and keep up with the homework and do a lot more on top of that.

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: D Required (Support) 10:57 pm, Apr 6, 2011 Report Evaluation		proff robbins is so nice, but that is about the only thing good i can say about her; i consider myself a good student and i got a D in her class; she does NOT present the information clearly, i was in her office hours more than class trying to get clarification on well everything, if her office hours are busy then they are truly a waste of time and effort, she doesn't explain things well to a group because she wont go in depth and will pretty much repeat what she said the first time. and the homework she assigns does not match up to the material she tests on, she rarely ever went over examples that were at the same difficulty level as what she put on tests. like i said, i spent more time in that class, her office hours, in the math learning center, and studying than doing anything else and in result my other grades suffered. like i said she's really nice, but thats it.

MATH 344 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 11:23 pm, Mar 26, 2011 Report Evaluation		Robbins is awesome, this class was a breeze. If the material gets tough she will spend as much time as needed to make sure you understand SO ASK QUESTIONS. Best math class I have taken at poly so far

MATH 143 Sophomore Grade Earned: D Required (Major) 2:20 pm, Feb 22, 2011 Report Evaluation		she collects homework every tuesday and friday, which is kinda different, but it was usually easy homework. in class she never did many examples and it didnt seem she knew how to present the material well, although she seemed to know it... examples would have made it way better. there is nothing too terrible to say about her, but there is defiantly nothing great to say either. the best thing i could think of to say for robbins is that i can tell she cares, and in her office hours she is always willing to try and help you understand...

MATH 143 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 2:17 pm, Feb 22, 2011 Report Evaluation		very nice woman but could not get her point across to the students. it didn't help taking it with a class full of genius freshman who tested straight into calc 3. they were still reviewing material which made her go faster than the other students could handle. all in all calc 3 was tough and she didn't make it any easier.

MATH 143 Junior Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 7:08 pm, Feb 4, 2011 Report Evaluation		Nice gal. One of the easier math teachers. Homework takes up a lot of time, but is not usually too difficult.



MATH 143 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 8:31 am, Jan 5, 2011 Report Evaluation		Pro: -tests and quizzes were easy even if you couldn't do every single homework problem on your own -usually helpful during office hours Con: -lectures felt rushed and I would walk out of class feeling more confused. you have to teach yourself from the book -Collects homework and checks random problems. (homework can be tough and she can't even solve some of them on her own. why collect it?) -She loves proofs.But I'm the kind of person who didn't really care for long, elaborate proofs on every little thing. -more comments- When I took Math 143, Dr. Robbins had just come back from sabbatical leave where she took a break from teaching for a year. Maybe because of that, she would often get confused with her own example problems in lectures and would begin to frantically erase and rewrite and make even more mistakes. When you ask questions at the beginning of class on a homework problem, often times she would just go at it and the math became ugly and unmanageable yet she kept going and it confused the class. After spending about 15 minutes of the class on a question that got out of hand, she would just say something like, "well, the integral for this problem is listed on the back of the book so we probably should have used that to help us"... or "you just know that so-and-so is this way" and start doing stuff with her arms trying to describe how we should finish up the problem. I'm pretty sure she can solve the problems if she had a lot of time on her own, but her brute force tactic doesn't work well in a classroom environment

MATH 143 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Major) 4:58 pm, Dec 22, 2010 Report Evaluation		I thought Dr. Robbins was an excellent Calc teacher. She\'s very helpful during office hours. I was in there once for the full hour because I was just slow on learning some of the concepts, and she didn\'t get tired of me or kick me out. Sometimes she had trouble answering questions students had in class, but overall I found her to be a very good teacher. Tests were pretty easy as well.

MATH 143 Sophomore Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 9:13 am, Nov 30, 2010 Report Evaluation		Robbins is an extremely nice person...but horrible teacher. Luckily since I had a kickass BC teacher and knew most of the material i got by this class. I couldn\'t say the same for others though, because robbins teaches her lessons straight out of the book and doesn\'t know anything besides the given example from the book. If you\'re easily annoyed by teachers making mistakes when they teach Robbins is not for you. She will make a mistake almost everyday and some student will have to correct her. She doesn\'t know the material and therefore cannot teach it. She doesn\'t take roll but has homework collections or quizzes on Tuesdays and Fridays. If there is a quiz that week then the homework is no collected. Take this professor if you know everything about parametric, polar, series, and vectors and want an east grade. If you have no prior knowledge stay far away from robbins.

MATH 244 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 3:15 pm, Mar 21, 2009 Report Evaluation		Professor Robbins present material in class in a very clean manner. She knows what parts are difficult and what parts are easy and spends an appropriate amount of time on every subject as needed for the class to understand it. Her homework policy, 50% quiz, 50% collect, never telling which one it'll be, works fine, though it can be frustrating when you spent hours on homework only not to have it collected... but she does warn you about that eminent frustration on the first day of class. If you take Math 244 with Professor Robbins, you won't be disappointed. (Just don't sleep through class 2 times a week)

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 4:59 pm, Jan 12, 2009 Report Evaluation		I have to admit, I was pretty worried about having this professor after reading her PolyRatings. However, I found that she presents the material very clearly and answers homework questions in a very nice and systematic way. The test questions were about the same level of difficulty as the homework problems, so if you do the homework (correctly, and without copying the solutions manual), then you will do just fine. Be sure to memorize formulas in this class as it will be essential to doing well on the exams. I hope that I get this professor again in my future math courses.

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 10:33 am, Jan 5, 2009 Report Evaluation		I agree with the last guy, you can't say anything bad, but when I try to think of good things, its just as hard. She effectively taught the class, but nothing special. Ok here are some good things: she is very nice and helpful during office hours. She grades easily and curves. That's all I can think of, but don't get me wrong, I'd take her class again.



MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: C Required (Support) 2:06 pm, Jan 4, 2009 Report Evaluation		It's hard to say anything bad about Mrs. Robbins, but it's just as difficult to say something good about her as well. She's an average, run-of-the-mill math teacher. Nothing about the class or her teaching style makes it particularly interesting, but she grades fairly and gives lots of partial credit.

MATH 142 Sophomore Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 12:29 am, Nov 18, 2008 Report Evaluation		Dr. Robbins is ok. She's not terrible but she's not great either. She's not a great lecturer but the fact that she's super willing to help you out in office hours makes up ground for it. She even scheduled extra office hours with me to work out some problems I was having. Very nice lady. She is helpful, however, sometimes reluctant to spell out answers because I think she generally teachers higher math where a higher level of self reliance is expected. She either collects homework on Fridays or gives a quiz. You don't know until the day of which is helpful. She gives 3 midterms. And she requires that you have ALL EQUATIONS MEMORIZED! This sucks. Nice, understanding, helpful but not the greatest.

MATH 244 Freshman Grade Earned: F Required (Major) 5:20 pm, Aug 27, 2008 Report Evaluation		Robbins is not the best teacher, but not the worst at Cal Poly. I just hated going to MATH 244 at 8AM in the morning so I failed. This class is hard and she doesn't make in any easier to understand. However I'm not the most reliable source since I stopped showing up the second half of the quarter because I was totally confused and didn't seem to learn any more information showing up then just using the book. My advice try to take another teacher, if not oh well there is worst.

MATH 244 Sophomore Grade Earned: A Required (Support) 10:47 pm, Aug 3, 2008 Report Evaluation		Robbins isn't bad at all. The material in 244 isn't that hard to begin with and her quizzes and tests aren't too tough either. You just need to do the homework and make sure you have the formulas/methods memorized for the tests. She can get a bit lost in lecture sometimes, but with average effort outside of class you should be fine.

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: D Required (Support) 10:45 pm, Jun 15, 2008 Report Evaluation		She is nice, but take her during a later class period. I took her at 7am and she made some serious mistakes sometimes during lecture. She would fix it, but it was hard to follow sometimes. She is a tough teacher, and 142 is a tough part in calc to get through, but you can do it! there is no need to avoid this teacher, but she is tough.

MATH 206 Graduate Student Grade Earned: C Elective 10:11 pm, Feb 19, 2008 Report Evaluation		She means well, she really does. She gets the material herself but isn't the best as conveying it to the class sometimes. There are small mistakes here and there that sort of throw you off when you're just learning something. Also has a habit of going a bit fast and rushing. As one evaluator has previously stated, likes to put proofs on her tests. I can't say I was a fan of the proofs, but I guess that's how it goes.



MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: B Required (Support) 7:20 pm, Feb 8, 2008 Report Evaluation		Dr. Robbins was an average professor and an average workload for a standard math class. She didn't expect more than what she should have. Assigned about 20 problems a night collected after a week and friday quizes on hw assigned. Three tests. Other than that go to office hours for help and she'll explain it to you more in depth. You have to be the student for her to be the teacher.

MATH 142 Freshman Grade Earned: N/A Required (Support) 9:59 am, Jan 20, 2008 Report Evaluation		I took this teacher without being rated on poly ratings and that was a mistake. She is extremely nice but does not present material clearly. Her homework problems are too easy but the problems she gives on tests are not at the level she'd been giving us. Also, she doesnt grade on a curve, so the grade you get on the test is the grade. Just do not take this teacher!

MATH 206 Sophomore Grade Earned: C Required (Major) 12:17 pm, Dec 5, 2007 Report Evaluation		Robbins is probably the worst math teacher I've had at poly yet. Believe me, this is comparing her to a teacher who came from connecticut for a quarter, wore big bowties, and said is this fine every 4 words. To begin with, she knows the information herself but is absolutely terrible at relaying it to her students. She includes proofs on her linear algebra midterms and finals. No teacher does that(well I guess she does), but my friends who have had other teachers for this class said they didn't even have to consider a proof. I mean come on, Methods of Proof is 248 not 206. Unless you are absoulutely screwed with your priority. DO NOT TAKE THIS TEACHER. And this is being nice to her.

MATH 248 Junior Grade Earned: N/A Required (Major) 7:37 pm, Dec 15, 2006 Report Evaluation		Dr. Robbins is nice, and means well, however; it doesn't seem she actually looks at the assignments given, and when we asked questions about our homework in class there were numerous times where she took the whole class time, and still didn't finish...somewhat annoying...I�m not sure my grade in the class yet as our final was today...Perhaps for another class she'd be fine, but not methods of proof.

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