Mohammed R. Kafai

Kafai is not the worst Math teacher I had at State. But also, he's sure not the best. His lectures are somewhat helpful, but I found myself using the book more. His tests are somewhat difficult, but he does give you a chance to boost up your grade with quizes. My advice is to do all the quizzes, and that will really help your grade. His personality is a little weird. He can be funny at some times, but a total jerk at others. He also likes to make fun of students in class on occasion, so watch out!

Class starts off very easy, but don't let that fool you. Try to do good in the beginning so if you start to drop off towards the end you'll have that to carry you. The reason why I say that is towards the end, you have to juggle 4-5 pretty vague simulation programs that he throws at you along with quizes and the final, not to mentiion all your other classes. Other then that, class is pretty fair and stuctured. HWs assigned but not collected although it doesn't hurt to do them since they are easy and are what the weekly quizes are based on. Final and midterm similar; somewhat difficult but passable.

Kafai is wonderful. If needed, he spends a whole lecture on answering questions regarding the homework assignments. He is very enthusiastic and clear on his expectations and his exams are right from the homework.

Kafai is great if you're someone who needs lots of help with math questions. The only reason why I end up earning a "C" in his class was because I took advantage of how easy going the class was and slacked off.

Prof. Kafai is a great teacher for stats, though he is sarcastic. So, that could turn off a lot of students from asking questions in class. (But also makes lectures more entertaining.) If you can deal with that, then he is an excellent teacher. Knows and teaches much more than the book.

Have your Calc II (Integration by parts) ready for the 2nd half of the semester or you could be in trouble.

Quizzes are a random question straight from homework (10 minutes each). Given on any day of the week, they form a good percentage of your grade.

Material starts off slow and easy, but gets much harder as time goes on.

Warning, the first exam can screw you because questions are jumbled and hard to figure out which technique to use. (this isn't a poorly written exam, just the nature of the course.) Make sure to do practice exams off the webpage and do the homeworks.

Prof. Kafai is an excellent professor, very accessible and knowledgeable. His lectures were clear and to the point, his homework difficult but not impossible, and you learn a great deal in his course. Plus, he's a genuinely warm and funny guy.

Easily one of the top three professors in the Math department as far as I'm concerned.

Dr. Kafai is a good teacher overall. He assigns non-collected homework, and gives weekly quizes on the homework, the quizez are exact problems from the homework, so if you can do the homework, you basically are able to earn full credit for that portion of your grade (usually 30% of the final grade). one midterm and one final are not too hard. My experience is that DO all the homework before your exam and you will have NO problem getting thru the exam at all.

The projects are easy but you need more instructions to do it, once you understand the project, it can be done in a minute. But ususally it takes a lot longer just to understand what he is asking for from the projects. Try to ask him to explain clearly before you start the project, otherwise, you probably have to redo it due to the misunderstanding.

Overall, he is not a hard grader either. partial credits are given in the exams.

good luck!

YOU ARE WARNED!!! DON'T TAKE HIM. HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT HIS STUDENTS. I DID ALL MY HOMEWORK(HE GETS THE BEST OUT OF LIKE 12 OF 15) INCLUDING THE PROJECTS AND HE STILL DIDN'T PASS ME. I MEAN IT'LL BE A DIFFERENT STORY IF I DIDN'T GET ANYTHING FROM THAT CLASS BUT BECAUSE HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO TEACH ---I STUDIED ON MY OWN AND LEARNED THE STUFF ON MY OWN. COMPLETELY REDO YOUR SCHEDULE IF YOU (UNKNOWNINGLY) ENROLLED IN HIS CLASS. IM BETTER OFF REPEATING THE CLASS WITH SOMEONE WHO CAN ACTUALLY TEACH STATISTICS.

The professor has 12-14 quizzes in the semester. The quizzes are taken out of the homework assigned. He is willing to do and explain the homework problems, which are mostly straightforward. The exams are based on the homework, of course, but you still must be well acquainted with the subject. All the homework is essential, and don't ever hesitate to ask him to explain a homework problem that you don't understand, because he does explain in a concise way, even right before the quizzes. The computer projects, however, are not so easily understood: his instructions for them seem rather vague, but, at least, you could work with other students.

His handwriting is very difficult to read and very small. He assigned the projects without explaination. In order to do the projects, you have to know about the programming. Even though you are concurrently taking with C++, still you are not able to do the projects.During the lecture, he will confuse us and ask the students what have to do next instead of giving clear explaination. His pronounciation is very difficult to understand.I even confuse sometimes that he is speaking Indian or English. When you ask questions about the homework and the lecture for the exam that you don't understand, he will say, "repeat it next semester if you still confuse."

Beware! If you are not a 'natural' at math, this teacher is trouble. He has no sympathy for people who do not understand things during the first explanation. Although he asks if there are questions, he then limits the questions allowed. Kafai refused to do certain assigned homework problems on the board, because they were too complex. Inappropriate comments were made to the class, such as, "although I've already gone over that 400 times, I will do it again". Excuse me? But aren't you, like, a teacher?

The best prof I've had for math here at State. You should reschedule your classes so you can take Kafai! He gave weekly quizzes on the homework assigned but not collected and gave us just one mid-term. Still, with the homework and the quizzes, I thought he had more than enough information to base his grading on.

Dr. Kafai was wonderful. A very wry sense of humor, the ability to pull examples from real life that allows the student to knit his own understanding into the problems, Dr. Kafai showed himself to be an outstanding professor. Socially aware, he nevertheless took little time out of the class to educate us about the union issues discoloring the CSU system.

In other reviews discrimination was raised. I found nothing in his actions or character to warrant such accusations.

He was not a bad teacher, and he was not a great teacher also. However, what I still remembered about his class that he always gave the class a quiz every single week. You would do fine in the quizes if you do the homeworks any single time he assigns to class. He assigns a lot of problem assignments to class, but he doesn't collect them. The exams were basicly not too difficult, but please concentrate on the things he explain in class. He didn't explain so well in class about the materials in class. As I said before that you need to review those things he explains in class because those will be in the exams. However, to understand the materials more clearly, you need to read from the text book by yourself. Sometimes, he assigns us to do some computer simulation...It's really unclear and made a lot of confusion to the class. Most of the times, he never explained on how we should do them, and assumed that any single of us should be able to do those computer simulation by ourselves. Very BAD JUDGMENT by a Stats Teacher!

This class wasn't that hard, but you just have to keep up with the homework. He assigns homework but he does not collect it. But it is for your own good if you do it and ask questions. We had quizzes every friday that consisted of one problem from the homeworks, so if you did the homework then you'll get it right. He didn't really explain things too cleary. I actually taught myself by reading through the book.

I think, it's a great teacher. Everything he says is easy to understand, you just have to listen. We didnt have to read the book, because everything said in class was enough to pass the course. There were 5 projects that needed to be programmed in C++ or some other language. The programs were less then a page long. We also had to do 1 or projects using Minitab program, which is available in Math Lab. Overall, the class wasn't hard.