Professor
Arlene Russell
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2017 - This seminar was probably the highlight of my quarter this year. Just as a heads up, Dr. Russell does not actually teach this class at all. The teacher I had, and as it would seem many future students will have, is Anne Yi. She is a middle school science teacher that has a PhD in Education and went to UCLA many years ago. She is really great. Honestly the seminar was fantastic as was the fieldwork experience. I learned a lot about myself and future career goals by taking this class and that is exactly the point of this seminar. Enjoy it. Anne creates great lesson plans that teaches you a lot about the behavior of kids, science standards in California, and the education system in general. I learned a ton in this class and a lot of my perspectives on some education issues have become more defined, particularly since I was in the teachers chair. As for the fieldwork itself, it depends a lot on who the teacher is and what times you go. The program coordinators, Janice and Arlene, are super flexible and will help you go. Ideally you go 3 hours a week so that it totals up to 24 hours throughout the quarter. Anne has required reflections for you to do as does the official CA Teach website where you write additional reflections and log your hours. Honestly I just copy pasted Anne's reflections into the CA Teach one. At the end of the quarter you will need to design your own lesson plan and then make a presentation on it that you show to the class, although we ran out of time and didn't get to everyone. Have fun with this class and go in with an open mind. It's only about 6-8 hours of your week at most, including travel time. Figure out who is going to the middle school that you are so you can carpool potentially. I couldn't wake up early enough to make it to the bus stop. It's a breath of fresh air away from major classes which was greatly appreciated, although it still is another thing to juggle on top of everything else, so don't pretend like it's nothing.
Fall 2017 - This seminar was probably the highlight of my quarter this year. Just as a heads up, Dr. Russell does not actually teach this class at all. The teacher I had, and as it would seem many future students will have, is Anne Yi. She is a middle school science teacher that has a PhD in Education and went to UCLA many years ago. She is really great. Honestly the seminar was fantastic as was the fieldwork experience. I learned a lot about myself and future career goals by taking this class and that is exactly the point of this seminar. Enjoy it. Anne creates great lesson plans that teaches you a lot about the behavior of kids, science standards in California, and the education system in general. I learned a ton in this class and a lot of my perspectives on some education issues have become more defined, particularly since I was in the teachers chair. As for the fieldwork itself, it depends a lot on who the teacher is and what times you go. The program coordinators, Janice and Arlene, are super flexible and will help you go. Ideally you go 3 hours a week so that it totals up to 24 hours throughout the quarter. Anne has required reflections for you to do as does the official CA Teach website where you write additional reflections and log your hours. Honestly I just copy pasted Anne's reflections into the CA Teach one. At the end of the quarter you will need to design your own lesson plan and then make a presentation on it that you show to the class, although we ran out of time and didn't get to everyone. Have fun with this class and go in with an open mind. It's only about 6-8 hours of your week at most, including travel time. Figure out who is going to the middle school that you are so you can carpool potentially. I couldn't wake up early enough to make it to the bus stop. It's a breath of fresh air away from major classes which was greatly appreciated, although it still is another thing to juggle on top of everything else, so don't pretend like it's nothing.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Want to spend your nights trying to teach yourself your entire course with a professor who is uncommunicative and unhelpful in every aspect? Do you like non-stimulating slow lectures that don't have 2x speed and have absolutely no direction for any info needed to learn/do well in the class? Take Russell. She has all that & more. Her TAs are kept in the dark and have no idea what she wants (even though these TAs are trying their best), she has an unorganized website that is unnavigable, and her final exam and midterm answer key practice tests are wrong and she doesn't reply to emails, and she uses this class as an opportunity to promote her lab manual from 1992. $53.67? I think not. So how is she still employed, you ask? She's tenured.
Fall 2020 - Want to spend your nights trying to teach yourself your entire course with a professor who is uncommunicative and unhelpful in every aspect? Do you like non-stimulating slow lectures that don't have 2x speed and have absolutely no direction for any info needed to learn/do well in the class? Take Russell. She has all that & more. Her TAs are kept in the dark and have no idea what she wants (even though these TAs are trying their best), she has an unorganized website that is unnavigable, and her final exam and midterm answer key practice tests are wrong and she doesn't reply to emails, and she uses this class as an opportunity to promote her lab manual from 1992. $53.67? I think not. So how is she still employed, you ask? She's tenured.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - I think that the transition to the online lab format was a bit too much for Prof. Russell. The CCLE was incredibly disorganised, the only reason I was able to keep up with the seemingly random due dates was because of my TA (shoutout to Kat lol), and the lectures just weren't very engaging. I stopped going to the lectures after about week 2 and just did the assignments by looking up the assignment topics, and they were straightforward enough that I was able to do well on them (although I was taking chem 20B at the same time so I think that may have helped as well, so maybe take that with a grain of salt). The final was very straightforward as well, however the multiple-choice format for the midterm was not great (hopefully that was just because the class was online). Overall, I think Prof. Russell wasn't a great lecturer, had rather arbitrary due dates, and gave us a lot of loosely related busywork (those calibrated peer reviews were such a pain) but she listened to student concerns, especially at the end of the quarter. Maybe this class will be better when we're actually able to take the class on campus (rip)
Spring 2020 - I think that the transition to the online lab format was a bit too much for Prof. Russell. The CCLE was incredibly disorganised, the only reason I was able to keep up with the seemingly random due dates was because of my TA (shoutout to Kat lol), and the lectures just weren't very engaging. I stopped going to the lectures after about week 2 and just did the assignments by looking up the assignment topics, and they were straightforward enough that I was able to do well on them (although I was taking chem 20B at the same time so I think that may have helped as well, so maybe take that with a grain of salt). The final was very straightforward as well, however the multiple-choice format for the midterm was not great (hopefully that was just because the class was online). Overall, I think Prof. Russell wasn't a great lecturer, had rather arbitrary due dates, and gave us a lot of loosely related busywork (those calibrated peer reviews were such a pain) but she listened to student concerns, especially at the end of the quarter. Maybe this class will be better when we're actually able to take the class on campus (rip)
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Arlene is a dense lecturer. Her rubric isn’t clear and her instructions are beyond unhelpful. She would take off points for every single assignment for her class and require so much out of her students. Midterm was difficult not because it was hard material, but because she did not teach us the majority of what was given. I have taken both 30A and 30B and got A and A- but will most likely get a B for this lab class because of how Arlene teaches. I wouldn’t recommend taking her and taking Pang instead .
Winter 2021 - Arlene is a dense lecturer. Her rubric isn’t clear and her instructions are beyond unhelpful. She would take off points for every single assignment for her class and require so much out of her students. Midterm was difficult not because it was hard material, but because she did not teach us the majority of what was given. I have taken both 30A and 30B and got A and A- but will most likely get a B for this lab class because of how Arlene teaches. I wouldn’t recommend taking her and taking Pang instead .
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