Honestly just take anyone else. She dipped out on the final and won’t respond to emails probably because she knew everyone was going to be mad at how it was not at all how she claimed it would be like. I still some how came out with an A or A- depending on how I did on the Final but her class overall was very poorly structured and taught. She does not prepare you at all for her tests and quizzes everything is self taught practically. TAs were really nice though.

Montoya was cool, but you definitely had to use the book (online built into Canvas) and do the homework to know what was going on. If you like to learn from the person speaking to you, you probably won't get a lot out of lectures. If you do all the work from the book before going to class, her lectures help clarify things for sure.

One thing I liked is that she was super receptive to feedback. A lot of students were complaining about things like content difficulty, and she listened and in some cases changed what she was doing.

My opinion might not be the same as other students (who didn't like her), but I did, so here's my review:

Professor Montoya cared about helping her students learn psych stats using R. She was very responsive to the student concerns, giving us deadline extensions for homework and sending out emails to clarify her grading scheme. She also discussed everything related to the test during class so we wouldn't have concerns about what would be covered. I don't understand why other students don't like her; she actually tried to help us learn. Overall, she was a nice professor.

The textbook was free, and you need to use it to succeed in this course. Disclaimer, though, I might have had an easier time in this course because I knew a little bit of coding in other languages and got a 4 on the AP Stats exam 4 years ago in high school so I still had some stuff stashed in the back of my mind.

The textbook had problems and activities integrated into it, which I liked, because that way you could use what you learned as you learned it. It was free and online on Canvas.

Extra credit: the professor offered points for participating in psych studies and for filling out the course evaluations.

Emails: responsive. People in the class were freaking out because she said she would use 2 grading schemes based on our grades on the quizzes but after a couple students emailed her she sent out a mass email saying she will use whatever scheme gives us the highest grade. She also ended up giving 2 homework extensions.

Quizzes: lowest one dropped. I got A's on the first three quizzes and a B (85, lowkey fell asleep a little bit during that one) on the fourth, so it was dropped. Cheat sheet allowed and she gives you an R cheat sheet so no need to memorize codes.

Midterm: like the quizzes. Studied by reviewing past quizzes and textbook, cheat sheet allowed, got a 95.

In class: fell asleep most of the time (it was an 8am). Poll Everywhere questions used for participation, the website is free. 2 total group activities that were collected, they were simple worksheets. Kind of fun.

Discussion sections: fridays. Every other week we had a quiz, and the ones where we didn't were review sessions. Didn't attend last 3 review sessions because the 2nd one was kinda useless. Heard some drama went down during the 3rd review sessions because TA's couldn't solve midterm problems in 1 minute but students were expected to.

As of right now I have a 95. The final is next week, so we will see what my final grade is, but with extra credit it should hopefully stay as an A.

Overall: nice class, didn't understand why people thought so negatively of her, didn't attend office hours because I didn't need to. Her overall grade dist. was higher than the other professor's section for 100A. Take it with her if you can :)

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 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.

This class was entirely in-person and required attendance through iClicker. The first week was a slog to get through since we had to do four chapters of homework in a week (one chapter can take hours). There's no midterm or final. but weekly quizzes and a group final project. All in all, I didn't pay much attention and was able to get an A. There's a lot of leeway here since assignments get dropped/homeworked curved/extra credit.

I didn't have any experience with coding before coming into this class, but it was manageable. The class was asynchronous, and we had an "online" textbook linked through MyUCLA and module videos that would give us participation points. Instead of midterms and finals, we had weekly coding quizzes and a group final project. I believe she dropped the 2 lowest quizzes.

Overall, the quizzes were at first quite difficult, but as long as you understand the code from the textbook (I HIGHLY recommend taking notes on THE CODE and its output), you will do well on the quizzes. The quizzes often were just carbon-copies of codes, and you just had to know which was the correct code and output. The final project was alright; it really just depended on how collaborative your group was.

Overall, the class went fine, and it wasn't too difficult!

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.

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.

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?