Gary Kaplan

Kaplan was a good professor. He knows this subject well. He was only covered the main topics in psy. When he expalained the topic. he liked to use some real stories that he knew. We knew how to apply hte theory to the real life situtaion.Moreover, students usually email questions and he replied on the next day. Exams were not hard but he wanted the explaination in full detail. I recommend everyone taking his class.

Kaplan was extremely intersting in his first few lectures, then he suddenly stopped teaching us anything! He clearly does not have a handle on statistics and was mostly unable to answer questions about anything beyond correlations and simple T-tests. I liked that he was critical of Psychology as a science/practice, but his sarcasm became tiring and redundant by the end of the semester.He put us in large groups for our research projects and basically expected us to fly solo. Our final grades were based on the group projects and little else, which is problematic if your group sucks! Kaplan is burned out as a teacher and should spend a lot more time on his boat.

Good grief! I'm in the middle of the road in my opinion of this man. He has the mental capacity to be one of the greats of the SFSU psychology department. He has the appreciation and enthusiasm about the world of psychology. Yet there is a hurdle you must leap over, and that is his stinging sarcasm and often disrespectful manner. His syllabus was very vague, and he made a big deal when announcing that it was "subject to change", which translated to, "I'll add/subtract as I see fit, and with this advance notification don't even think about protesting when I do" at the beginning of the course. What really, really sucked was the utilization of the text book. There were no assigned chapters, not even recommended readings. We were instructed to expand on our own outside of class on the topics from the lectures by using the index in the back of the book! Ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous. Buying the book for Motivation was like taking money and flushing it down the toilet. I have never in my life fallen asleep in a class, but I did once in this one. What to say about the exams? They're not entirely unfair, but difficult (essay) and very broadly organized. The final exam was deceptively easy, with seemingly easy questions, but the way they were graded was out of line. I attended class regularly, payed attention, attempted to take decent notes (you get maybe a few paragraphs of decent notes but that's usually it because the discussion usually flies off the topic) but I never once attempted to comment or ask a question. One of the main complaints of this class from myself and fellow classmates that I spoke to was the teacher's ability to cut your opinion down until you either felt idiotic or enraged. He often came off as condescending when responding to a comment or a critique, but he did seem genuinely pleased when people would dare to participate. It was annoying, however, that a particular girl in the class seemed to be on a mission to piss him off, and would often ask smart-ass questions as if to chide his anger. He didn't seem to mind though, because he could dish out 10 times of anything he received. This made taking the class very uncomfortable at times, and many of us would cringe when certain people would raise their hands because we anticipated some kind of scene. My advice? Take the class if trivial personality quirks don't bother you. The guts of the class, lectures, exams, etc., are standard. Nothing special, nothing horrible except for the stupid text book situation.

At first I was a bit skeptical about Kaplan's teaching methods but though he is hard he gets his point across. He doesn't assign a book in particular which is a problem but otherwise I haven't had a hard time understanding his lessons. As long as you go to every class and are serious and interested in the topic you will do fine. He tells you what will be on the midterm and that is exactly what he puts on it. No surprises. He is serious about wanting you to learn what he teaches and has a great interest in the topic unlike many other instructors on campus. I am enjoying his class because I find the topic and the way he teaches interesting even though it can be hard at times. I would take another class with him if the opportunity ever arose that I needed one of the classes he teaches in particular.

I have to say that this is truly the most frustrating and disappointing class I have taken here at SFSU. There is so much to desired in improving this class that I have no idea where to start!! First of all, our stats class met two times a week for 2 hours each class; we spent the first hour doing "group process" -- yes, group process in a stats class. During this hour, we talked about world issues, psych as a field, etc.-- a total waste of time. Second, he had no required book. He simply said that "stats is stats" and that any book would do. This was so confusing!! Everyone had different books, and some didn't cover everything that others did--it was a nightmare! Gary Kaplan even recommended a book -- "The Cartoon Guide to Statistics", yes, I'm serious, he really did. Granted, his intentions were probably good, but this book sucked and, at least in my case, was a hell of a lot more confusing than helpful. I could count on both hands how many times he actually wrote on the chalkboard!! Besides all of his areas of improvement as far as teaching skills, I'm sorry to say that he lacks even more in the area of social skills. He was very defensive when someone questioned him or offered constructive criticism and was quite rude and patronizing. On three occasions, he got rather hostile, raising his voice and even made one lady cry!! Well, I can honestly say that I got an "A" in this course and learned absolutely zilch about statistics--what a shame. There's a lot more I could say, but these are just a few reasons that you should AVOID THIS INSTRUCTOR!!!!!