Professor
Arthur Little
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Most Helpful Review
Summer 2019 - This was an online class taken over the Summer. Professor Little is an energetic professor that is clearly invested in Shakespeare. His lectures share his own critical perspectives on Shakespeare's major plays. The course itself is very poor. It's organized how you would expect for a summer course: video lectures, board discussions, quizzes, and essays. Though there isn't anything inherently wrong with it, the course is painfully plain. By far the largest issue with the course is the quizzes. Not only are the quizzes timed and monitored through Repondus lockdown browser + webcam à la Big Brother style, the quiz questions are nothing short of BS. According to our "course information" page on CCLE (a sham of a syllabus which this class doesn't have), our assigned readings are annotated versions of Shakespeare's plays. The questions asked on the quizzes, however, involve Shakespearian actor names and loosely related paintings that you might be able to answer correctly if you critically extrapolate from extremely minor and obscure details. Couple with that, the final exam is composed of these quiz questions and have a combined worth of 40% of your total grade. Almost half your grade is reliant on questions that feel less of an examination of your mastery over the subject matter and more of garbage trivia that you could probably look up in a second. All of this is overshadowed by your laptop's monitor and microphone turned on that stares you down making sure you don't cheat (Respondus has an eye tracker). Based on purely the quizzes alone, I cannot recommend this class to anybody.
Summer 2019 - This was an online class taken over the Summer. Professor Little is an energetic professor that is clearly invested in Shakespeare. His lectures share his own critical perspectives on Shakespeare's major plays. The course itself is very poor. It's organized how you would expect for a summer course: video lectures, board discussions, quizzes, and essays. Though there isn't anything inherently wrong with it, the course is painfully plain. By far the largest issue with the course is the quizzes. Not only are the quizzes timed and monitored through Repondus lockdown browser + webcam à la Big Brother style, the quiz questions are nothing short of BS. According to our "course information" page on CCLE (a sham of a syllabus which this class doesn't have), our assigned readings are annotated versions of Shakespeare's plays. The questions asked on the quizzes, however, involve Shakespearian actor names and loosely related paintings that you might be able to answer correctly if you critically extrapolate from extremely minor and obscure details. Couple with that, the final exam is composed of these quiz questions and have a combined worth of 40% of your total grade. Almost half your grade is reliant on questions that feel less of an examination of your mastery over the subject matter and more of garbage trivia that you could probably look up in a second. All of this is overshadowed by your laptop's monitor and microphone turned on that stares you down making sure you don't cheat (Respondus has an eye tracker). Based on purely the quizzes alone, I cannot recommend this class to anybody.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I have taken multiple classes with this professor. He is engaging and often expands the minds of his class. He is inspiring and enthusiastic. He assigns great and interesting works. His lectures are never boring. However, let's be clear: he does have favoritism. His favorites do receive perks like: exemption from the midterm and priority chances of participation. If you have your camera off or turn your camera off briefly you will automatically drop to the bottom of his list. Now this doesn't mean he is a bad person. He becomes passionate about some of connections he forms with particular students. This can lead to an unpleasant experience to anyone else in class who is trying very hard to connect with the class and him.
Winter 2021 - I have taken multiple classes with this professor. He is engaging and often expands the minds of his class. He is inspiring and enthusiastic. He assigns great and interesting works. His lectures are never boring. However, let's be clear: he does have favoritism. His favorites do receive perks like: exemption from the midterm and priority chances of participation. If you have your camera off or turn your camera off briefly you will automatically drop to the bottom of his list. Now this doesn't mean he is a bad person. He becomes passionate about some of connections he forms with particular students. This can lead to an unpleasant experience to anyone else in class who is trying very hard to connect with the class and him.
Most Helpful Review
Just finished taking 150C with him, which was on Shakespearian tragedy. He was an entertaining guy, and took extra effort to learn our names (there were about 25 of us), but it was a 2 hour lecture twice a week, and we spent a loooong time getting to the point. The class was discussion based, but we never seemed to get to the point until 10 mins left. We spent a lot of time just hearing what students thought and hardly any time looking at the plays themselves. When he did take over, point things out and write them on the board, I learned some interesting things, but that hardly ever happened, so I can't say I learned a lot in the long run. Overall I was disappointed in the class, because I was really hoping to learn a lot more than I did.
Just finished taking 150C with him, which was on Shakespearian tragedy. He was an entertaining guy, and took extra effort to learn our names (there were about 25 of us), but it was a 2 hour lecture twice a week, and we spent a loooong time getting to the point. The class was discussion based, but we never seemed to get to the point until 10 mins left. We spent a lot of time just hearing what students thought and hardly any time looking at the plays themselves. When he did take over, point things out and write them on the board, I learned some interesting things, but that hardly ever happened, so I can't say I learned a lot in the long run. Overall I was disappointed in the class, because I was really hoping to learn a lot more than I did.
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