Olvera, Dianne  

Dr. Olvera is a nice upbeat person, however, she should not be teaching a grammar course. Her overheads and powerpoint slides are full of grammatical errors. Further, when teaching from our text she only was able to explain half of what we covered. When a few students questioned her on an area she did not know she tried to give a half-ass answer. Sometimes she was honest and admitted her ignorance. Her class requires a lot of busy mundane work. The only fun part of the class is the group project, where you can interact with other classmates. Dr. Olvera does say her classes become a family by the end of the quarter -- I'll sort of give her that. I feel like I made some friends in my group. The best part of this class is the 5:1 girl to guy ratio. In this class we have better odds at Poly :). I did learn a few things about grammatical rules and whatnot. If you have to take this class then take it. Otherwise, find another class to waste your time.

Dr. Olvera was the worst teacher that I hae ever had in my life. She is completely un-organized and does not seem to have any knowledge what so ever about grammar or English. To prepare for class, she simply photo copies the book, puts it on a scantron and reads it to the class. She acts like she is so brilliant and that she is such a great teacher when in fact I learned absolutely nothing from her class. I found her to be manipulative and offensiven as well. She made fun of people that were mentally ill(by impersonating them with a weird voice and walk and acted like she was druling), which I found awful since she has her degree in Special ed. She leads the class to beleive that she is not concerned about grades, just that we learn the info then in the end she screws you. Most of us got A's on everything that we did in her class, but we all got B's because she gave us all 70% for participation. How are we supposed to participate when she just reads from her scantron? Well as you can see I am very bitter about this class and I would advize you to do what ever it takes to not take her as a teacher, she will make you think she is great in the beggining but beware!

I don't really know what the first person's experience involved, but I took the same exact class and had a wonderful experience. And no, it's not because I just received an "A" in the class. I found her to be an excellent teacher. She presented the class material (some interesting stuff, but mainly dull in nature) very well and actually made it fun to be in class. She often encouraged the class to be an open discussion, and really made the class into a "community" feeling where we all felt very comfortable with each other. She is very easy to talk to and get along with. While I did occasionally get confused by her instructions, she is more than happy to clarify. The tests were not exactly easy, but if you do the reading and pay attention, then they are not hard. Her midterm for the class is a take home grammar test. This test can be very hard for people who are not strong in grammar, but she is very very very willing to help students one on one. There is also a research project at the end of the course, which I strongly advise not to wait until the last minute to complete. Overall, she is a delight to be around, and I have been recommending her to all of my friends. Oh, and one side note, this class is aimed towards future teachers, so if you're wondering why the research project needs to be related to teaching or why her lectures involve teaching concepts, that's why.

During this entire quarter all I could think about was how this professor reminded me of that small little dog that runs through the back of scene 23 in The Incredibles by Pixar. Seriously, if you look it up you will only be able to see it...