I was initially super scared to take this course because of the past bruinwalk reviews and since it was my first quarter as a transfer (and it was an 8am).
However, I am really glad I decided to take it with Dr. Montoya. I really think she has improved whatever was going on with the past reviews because I did not experience that at all and neither did anyone else I talked to in the class.
The class was made up of weekly homework on the free bruinlearn integrated course textbook. You would have to read and do R coding exercises directly onto the textbook and it was only graded on completion.
There were also weekly quizzes based on the homework chapters. The quizzes were based on correctness, but you could retake it one time and earn a max of 50% of the points you missed. You could also work with the TAs and classmates on the quiz redo. Lowest 2 quizzes are dropped. I really didn't like how you don't get to see what you got wrong ever even when the quiz is closed (maybe you could ask the TAs during office hours idk I didn't try that).
Every week during discussion, you worked with your group on a coding notebook project (not too hard and lowest is dropped). The only annoying thing about the groups is that it's inside a lecture hall with that kind of seating, so it's kind of hard to work together when you are so spread out.
Attendance is graded through Iclicker. It was an 8am so that was kinda hard, and I didn't really stay focused during lectures. Might be the timeslot or the lectures themselves, probably both. I was able to get an A+ pretty easily through the quiz/hw/projects but I felt like I didn't actually learn much about stats so I really recommended actually learning from the lectures and hw even if you can get points from them anyway.
The course is really R coding focused which I think is not the norm for 100A, but as someone who was really interested in learning about CS I actually really appreciated the slight intro to coding part of the class. There's no exams at all unlike other 100A classes so that's also something to think about.
Also there was extra credit through SONA and course evaluations. The course also used campuswire for questions which helps a ton since you can see your classmates questions so you usually can find your questions already answered through that instead of asking yourself and waiting. (No EC for campuswire participation).
Now onto the only confusing part of the class (not bad tho). Dr. Montoya has this really complicated grading scheme for HW and attendance. Basically, if your overall HW score is 85% it will be rounded up to 100% (if you get like 79% I'm pretty sure it still gets rounded up to like 99%). For attendance, its the same but the cutoff is only 80%.
This caused a TON of tension and issues between students and Prof/TAs because at the start of the course the HW wasn't syncing with the gradebook very well so people who did all the HW were getting like 90-99% instead. This made everyone freak out because they were afraid that they could do a bunch of work and it might not count (UCLA moment lol). The TAs and prof basically told everyone to chill out and if its above 80 itll get rounded up anyway so it didn't matter. Some students posted campuswire stuff literally longer than this review (believe it or not) arguing that they should have had a better response to the situation. It all worked out in the end.
Sorry for the giant review, this class's reviews made me dread my life for only being able to get into this 100A class so I wanted to reassure anyone else stuck with this class that its not a super bad thing.

Used iclicker for attendance. Although the class was a bit tough for me because it was using r code for statistics, by being in a group, I feel like it definitely helped a lot. She gave a lot of opportunities to receive a higher grade on the weekly quizzes which was nice and you were able to collaborate on the retake quizzes which were online. I do think the first week or two were especially hard because she was having us cover like four chapters, but as time goes on it isn't too bad. She is also very open to feedback and took all of our opinions into consideration!

I really liked the professor, she's very understanding, flexible, and overall nice! She is engaging in her lectures and tries her best to make statistics interesting and relevant. The class can be a bit time-consuming as you have to dedicate many hours weekly to completing the textbook homework.

Due to Covid, I think this class was made a lot more manageable than it usually is. Homework is based on completion, weekly quizzes are open note (there are no big tests), and the final is a group project. The class material is hard, but it is not difficult to pass the class!

Professor Montoya is really good at accepting feedback, which is good because this class isn't great. The way that she explains things is mainly convoluted and she honestly makes things more confusing. This class is passable though, there's no final cause there's a group project instead which is helpful. You can imagine the pros and cons with that. There's a quiz every week which are okay and two are dropped. The class is not awful awful but I would think carefully.

My class was asynchronous aside from the discussion section, so I don't know if my feedback would apply to future students. I loved how the textbook has practice problems embedded so you get both credit for homework and extra practice! However, I would read the online textbook before watching the pre-recorded lectures, and when I felt confident that I understood the book, it feels like I unlearn everything I just grasped when I watch the videos. I know a lot of work went into the videos and slides, but I chose to not watch because I don't want to end up second-guessing myself.

Also, I like how we can retake quizzes to earn some points. But you do not know what you get right or wrong, so I second-guess myself and feel like I am not actually learning anything and it makes me feel less motivated to look back or even study. She claims that this is an effective learning strategy backed up by research. I could be wrong, but doesn't immediate feedback actually help learning?

This class was pretty easy for me given that I took AP stats in HS. If you haven't taken stats, I still think that prof. Montoya gives a really thorough intro to stats and connects the ideas well so that even if you know nothing about stats you can understand the material. it's really important to do the homework, which can be a lot of work per week, and start it ahead of time. I'd recommend splitting the homework between 2-3 sessions per week so that you're not doing psych homework for like 7 hours straight. The lectures were recorded video modules which was really good for me personally, and you can make up the discussion sections by filling out the weekly discussion worksheet on your own. The quizzes were also super easy, one quiz a week and it's basically what was on the homework. this prof also allows for a lot of leniency (ex. dropping lowest quiz grades, a lot of EC opportunities, etc). Lectures were very engaging with lots of relevant images. I only rank it lower on workload and easiness b/c the subject matter can be difficult if you haven't done stats before and the homework is quite time-consuming.

Textbook and homework on Canvas. PollEverywhere for in class participation like clicker. No need to install R Studio separately (use R sandbox)
Quizzes, midterm, and final are taken on a computer. Some quiz questions can be tricky. Most questions on the final were from previous quizzes, midterm, and homework problems.
Coding wasn't too difficult for a person with 0 coding experience (it can help to create your own cheatsheet on a word doc on how to generate certain outputs and graphs). 1 sided cheat sheet is allowed for all quizzes, midterm, and final (can be helpful but not necessary if you know the concepts well). R code cheatsheet is provided (but you might want some R code on your own 1 sided cheatsheet).
Statistics concepts weren't difficult to understand (but took Stats 13 before this class).
Lecture can be dry. No separate discussion section.

I hated this class. Nothing made sense no matter how hard I tried. I had to get a tutor to help me understand this class, and even then, I had no idea what was going on...neither did my tutor. Why did we have to learn R? I have no idea. If you can take this class with ANYONE else, just do it. Even if you have to wait another quarter. I must say however, Professor Montoya did hear us out and understood that the majority of her students were REALLY struggling which is why she curved the class up so extremely. This class in general is painful, but having a professor that can explain the content is essential.

For Professor Montoya's first time teaching this course and also my first time taking statistics, it was a great class. We used Canvas and learned how to code using R. You can tell that Professor Montoya cared about our learning as her lectures went deeper into the readings we did from Canvas. The quizzes were kind of tricky because they included some coding in it and was also a little nit picky with questions that came from our readings in Canvas but it was overall fair since the lowest quiz is dropped. The midterm was the same as our quizzes but just accumulated, same goes for the final. The grade breakdown was: HW=20%, In class activities=15%, Quizzes=20%, midterm=20%, final=25%.

Psych 100A really isn't that bad of a class, you have weekly online reading with some embedded questions that you just have to do for completion. There are quizzes at the end of the weekly reading that will help prepare you for the in class quizzes. Montoya allows cheat sheets on all of her exams and I recommend making them and copying stuff word for word from the readings. Montoya also offers one extra credit assignment if you need it. Lowest quiz is dropped. I recommend the course with Montoya, I didn't go to class much and still got an A, you have to go to lab on quiz days but not on the other days. Some other professors don't do class participation like Montoya, but it didn't negatively affect my grade.