Lecture, three hours. Prehistory of North American Indians; evolution of Indian societies from earliest times to (and including) contemporary Indians; approaches and methods of American archaeology. P/NP or letter grading.

Review Summary

Clarity
0.0 / 10
Organization
1.7 / 10
Time
0-5 hrs/week
Overall
0.0 / 10

Reviews

    Quarter Taken: Fall 2021 Online
    Grade: NP

    Since Dr. Nebauer's profile is not available on sites such as Bruinwalk or Rate My Professors, my motivation to actually submit a request on here is due to her mediocre lecturing, absolute disinterest, and lack of consideration of students' needs for an accessible and accommodating education.

    On the first day of class, she was 6-7 minutes late due to technical issues with Zoom. Of course, that was very understandable since technology can be out of our control sometimes. She posted a pre-recorded intro on Week 0 on CCLE, however during our 1st live class meeting, she immediately acknowledged the tech issues and went straight to lecturing at a significantly fast pace. There was no room for another short introduction or even acknowledging the students. Many students during her lecturing politely asked her to slow down by raising their hand to talk or typing in the chat. She seemed to forget about this, and continued at the same speed a couple of minutes after.

    Students have also asked whether her slides and recorded live Zoom meetings would be posted on the CCLE website. She was very hesitant in her response and I could immediately sensed that it would be another time-consuming inconvenience for her (which instructors were trained to do during the past 2 years). At that moment, I empathized with students who actually have disabilities and/or have trouble keeping up with the lectures that they need to review it again in order to better understand the concepts. Students incessantly had to ask her that she was lecturing too fast and that it would be very helpful to have a copy of the slides at hand and even the recorded lectures (which she still has not posted after the weekend).

    Students continue to voice their complaints of her teaching style; this course taught by Neubauer is not for the faint of heart. She assumes the students have a strong, background knowledge of archaeology (even though the field of anthropology encompasses several subfields and not all students are solely concentrating on archaeology). She makes no attempt to explain new terms unless someone asks. When someones *does* ask for clarification such as, "Is this also known as the ____?". I remember her being doubtful and replying with, "Yeah, I think so! Wait. What is that again?". There was no audio issues, and she clearly did not understand the term.

    At this very moment, I am writing this review during her class and I am highly considering dropping it and sticking with my other archaeology course with a much more professional and understanding instructor. Since my time here at the university, or even my academic career before transferring to UCLA, I have never been this disappointed and frankly insulted by another professor.

Course

Instructor
Fernanda Neubauer
Previously taught
23F 22F 21F

Grading Information

  • Has a group project

  • Attendance not required

  • No midterms

  • 10th week final

  • 100% recommend the textbook

Previous Grades

Grade distributions not available.