Susann Novalis

Dr. Novalis puts alot into her teaching, which is appreciated. She works hard and expects her students to do the same. Her teaching style, however, was too aggresive and fast paced for my liking. She went over class material too quickly, so i found that i had to teach myself the material after class.

Professor Novalis has a good grasp on the subject matter and has shown herself (to me at least) to be a very competent instructor. Her tests are lengthy but if you do the homework and come to class you should do no worse than a B. One of her weaknesses, however, is that she does not allocate enough time to student questions in class. The questions on the homework are very similar to what you will find on the midterms, but you will also need to know a lot of the formulas and theorems verbatim.

Professor Novalis is one of the best mathematics instuctors that I have had! She assigns homework basically every class meeting. Her tests are pretty fair because she puts problems that are similar to the homework problems. Dr. Novalis is always prepared, and she comes to class on time! The fact that she gives you solutions to the homework problems is such a big plus. So, if you want an excellent calculus instructor, I urge to to choose Dr. Novalis!

She is a good teacher. She is strong and confident in mathematics, but her mid terms and homework are very long. You must do all the homework in order to get familiar with the formulars and prepare with the exams. she has 3 midterms and a comprehensive final.

Prof. Novalis is an outstanding instructor. You'll get a very strong command of the course material. However, a warning: her classes are not easy. Homework is long. Tests are *very* long; effective time management during tests is crucial to success.

Prof. Novalis is a very effective lecturer -- she covers all the material and manages classroom time very effectively. She is also diligent about returning homework on a timely basis, complete with a solution set, so the problem sets really do provide an opportunity to learn the material, learn from mistakes, etc.

Attend the lectures faithfully, do the homework, and you'll do fine.

Dr. Novalis is the calculus teacher you want to take if you are going to continue on in a Mathematics or Engineering platform. She has the ability of making a student understand what it is he/she will have to later know quicky by heart. Understanding helps with memory allocation. If you attend classes everyday and are a hard worker at studying, this is the class for you. How you perform in this class and her later classes will determine how your perfomance will be in a Mathemetics or Engineering Platform later on in your career. Her teachings encourage you to learn Calculus efficiently, while learning to better train yourself. Dr. Novalis's handouts with solutions are also very helpful as a training tool. Again if you want to learn Calulus, this is the teacher to take.

Novalis is really the best Math teacher I've ever come across. She is not warm or friendly. In fact, she is quite intimidating at first, but she knows her stuff, and deep down, she cares about her students. One of the best things about her is that she gives homework solutions and they really help when you study for her tests. She gives regular homework assignments, and if you do them regularly, you should be okay. The only problem is that she doesn't go over the homework-like problems before you do it, but I guess that's what the Math lab people are for. Really an amazing teacher. Very organized and CLEAR, and isn't that what we have been wanting in a Math teacher all along? Now if we could only get that from all of the Math department...

Dr. Novalis is an excellent lecturer, readily accepts dialogue in class, and maintains a very good pace of materials presented without being overwhelming. Although Dr. Novalis does not take class time to go over homework problems, she is available and willing to do so in the math lab as well as during her office hours. Additionally, each homework assignment comes with a solution sheet for every quetsion, so there is always an answer for the homework problems. Dr. Novalis has an extremely fair and unsurprising testing method, with the exam questions mirroring the homework very closely. I also appreciated that for the Tuesday/Thursday section she seemed to give a reaonable amount of homework for Tuesday and increased it for the Thursday assignment when there was more time to finish the assignment. I never felt that the assignments were too much, and I always felt prepared for the exams based on her assigned problems. I highly recommend Dr. Novalis if you are at all intimidated or reluctant to take math, because she will present the materials clearly.

This I can say is the HARDEST math teacher at SF State. One of things I like is that she hands out the homework solutions . This I found very very very helpful in understanding the topics. Her lectures are somewhat okay to understanding, but at times I found some of the materials very boring on the way she teaches it. Her test are very hard. I don't like the idea that we have to learn the terms and formulas on the test. I rather just deal with the problems, instead of knowing the formulas. And some problems barely relates to the homework problems. The good thing that especailly saved my ass is that she grades on a curve, so it should be that bad to sign up for her class. I rather take Prof. Aiyar instead.

I think she is a hard working teacher. She, not a TA, corrects your homework. I think it's pretty effective in assessing what you know and what your mistakes are. She deserves kudos. Only the beginning part of the class wasn't interesting because it was trig. review and things like that. But that's only me, since I don't enjoy trig that much.

Dr. Novalis is the toughest calculus teacher you'll ever love. She works you hard, but you *learn*. Her lectures are well-organized and well planned. You will do a lot of homework-- we had homework due every class session. No quizzes though, our grades were taken from two midterms, one final and the homework assignments. She has a strong background in physics so if you're an engineering or physics major, her class is worth seeking out. She adds the Schaum's Outline to the usual Calculus text, which turned out to be a handy resource for studying.

Although she is considered to be a good teacher by many from what the other reviews read, I was very disappointed. Here's why: -she went through the chapter assigned as homework, verbatim, without any detailed explanation, I found that after I read the chapter why should i go to class to have her repeat the book as though I had not read it, - she rarely went over homework problems, about three times total in the semester- I found this to be a poor teaching method because it was unoriginal, uncreative and unhelpful. We were not getting tested on the book, we were tested on the questions, so why not discuss them in class? She did not try to explain why a method was used, instead she regurgitated proofs from the textbook. Calculus 1 is not about deriving proofs, it is about learning Calculus, and then later learning proofs. If you do not want an 'A' then take Calc. from Novalis. her tests are hard but fair, if you understand how to do all the homework. Maybe if she spent more time on the Calculus problems a first time Calc student would be more interested and would probably want to continue his/her math education. She definately disappointed me. I know from friends in the math department there are better math profs at state than this one. Thanks for letting me write a review.

Professor Novalis explains topics in each chapter thoroughly. Although she explains each topic substantially well, you will need to understand all the topics covered because some questions on the tests contain complex questions that are not covered in the homework. These questions require you to use your knowledge of homework assignments in figuring out the problem. She has about 3 midterms and a final, all of which takes about the whole class period to finish. If you want to actually learn something in calculus, I recommend this teacher. If you want an A in Math 220, I suggest finding someone else.