Yoshinobu, Stan Taira  

Had this amazing man as a professor. My roommate and I are obsessed with him.

Professor Yoshinobu is as quality as it gets. I am pretty average at calculus, I took regular calc in high school and found his class to bd a good challenge. He does a fabulous job at your average teacher duties like making himself available outside of class, being helpful in office hours, explaining material clearly in class etc. What separates him from so many other teachers is his passion to help you become the best student you can be. He really wants you to learn more than calculus. Everyday in class he pushes us to work together to problem solve, use our university resources, eliminate the stress of getting bad grades through practice, practice and more practice so your only option is to succeed. A true professional who I respect and recommend to anyone.

Mr. Y is an excellent professor. The thing I love about him is how passionate he really is about mathematics! He's a bit of a nerd and cracks math jokes in class, sometimes nobody laughs and I love it haha. He pushes us to work as a team and to "learn by doing", he really tries to get his students to understand the deep concepts instead of just going through the motions and solving problems. A GREAT professor in my opinion. Lectures move pretty fast so don't be afraid to ask a question or for help before he moves on, because sometimes he does go pretty fast. I highly recommend Stan Yoshinobu, he will help you if you want to put in the work!

Prof Y is an extremely good calculus teacher. He is very understanding of student difficulties. He encourages you to be "Stuck" on math problems and be confused. It's a natural part of learning. Easy class, but you learn a lot at the same time.

Dr. Y is a huge fan of student based learning. Besides having us do Calc in this class, we read about learning styles in a non-calc book. I can tell he has very strong opinions on teaching methods, which can be good or bad depending on whether you agree with him. To be honest, I believe that if you disagree with his beliefs and mention that to him, it would be a big mistake. He will argue and argue with you, and I suspect will hold it against you secretly. If you are a fan of group work, take this class. If you want to see more material, avoid him. The thing with group work is that it can cause the class to move slower than molasses, which can definitely be irritating if you are more independent. All in all, proceed with caution.

This class is all about productive failure. Before starting problems, we prove the concept we are about to work on and he encourages us to get stuck. The concepts are fairly simple (it's only Calc I), but boy will you understand them by the end of the quarter. Yes, the class is easy, and it does not move very fast. And there are many group assignments (he wants everyone to work together and communicate while they work, as you would in the workforce). I learned so much from this class. Professor Yoshinobu is abundantly clear when he lectures, and everything he asks us to do has a meaningful purpose. If you really apply yourself to the learning methods that he preaches, you may find that this class will benefit you in the long run.

Stan is my favorite teacher at Cal Poly so far!!!!! (I've only had 4 others, but still) For Math 141, he doesn't give homework quizzes, and homework assignments are all due by the end of the week. They aren't too many problems and he only assigns odd numbers so we can check our answers. The class has two midterms and a final, but the final grade replaces your lowest mid term. The worst part about ol' Yosh is the Learn By Doing Assignments. We had one due almost every Monday and most of them required you read out of a book and write paragraphs/pages on what you had learned. At most they took 15-20 minutes to complete, so even though they sucked to do, it wasn't actually that bad. The classroom is pretty teamwork oriented. He split us into groups on the first day of class (groups changed every 2 weeks or so) and as he lectured, we would work through the example problems as a group. We had a couple Group Assignments that required us to meet outside of class and work through a packet of 3/4 problems which took some planning, but not a large time commitment overall.

This is not a typical math learning style/lecture. I only did well because I took Calc last year and knew the material. His teaching style did not mesh with my learning style. I feel like he did not teach us the concepts. We had to teach ourselves. I would sit stuck because on multiple problems because he did not clearly explain how the formula worked in the first place. When I asked him for help he would rarely actually help in finding the solution because he thinks is okay to be stuck. Which it is just I would like to eventually find the answer. He is a great guy and super passionate about what he is teaching but how he taught did not help me learn.

I love Professor Y!! I don't even know where to begin. He was an amazing professor for a tough subject like calculus. Professor Y could just do his job and merely teach what he's supposed to-- calculus, but he has the heart and passion to help students learn HOW TO LEARN! He got me to realize that being stuck on material doesn't mean that I'm "dumb," but that it's all part of a process to become a better and stronger student. I especially appreciated that he offered several study sessions before exams, and that he understands material is hard and is much more than willing to help students whenever they need it. (Ex: I went to his office hours on a day he didn't schedule it, but he offered to have a "mobile office hours" as we both were on our way to the lib.) Also, if you get a kick out of dad jokes, he is the professor for you. I've never been the type of student to talk to teachers outside of class/get to know them personally. But it was really easy for me to do so with Stan the Man because he's so personable! I walked out of the final almost shedding a tear as he gave me a firm handshake, congratulating my hard work throughout the quarter. YOU WILL NOT REGRET TAKING HIS CLASS!

Stan Yoshinobu is an astounding performance of a man, his life, his work. Studying under the expansive breadth of his ethereal wings elevated me to the zenith of mathematics. I flew to the sun and beyond. Numbers, I learned, were like the stars. And as Stan and I whirled past them, hurtling into the unknown, a light shone upon it, filling my bosom with the viscous juices of knowledge. "Failure is success," it chanted, "failure is success!"

Yoshinobu is really a great guy, and would be a solid professor if u put in the work. I failed the course because i never did the homework, lol. I wont say he was a bad professor but he didnt exactly teach in a way that i learned it.