Dr. Burke is an assistant adjunct professor who is applying for a permanent job for FALL 2014. The only problem associated with his teaching is that many people don’t realize, and as modest he is, he doesn’t realize himself, that HE IS A VERY EFFECTIVE professor even at a young age! I absolutely loved attending his lectures and I managed to get through the quarter without studying from the Jon Rogawski textbook. As an introductory statement to this review, Dr. Burke is extremely underrated and those who gave up on his lectures and just stopped attending them must have been oblivious to the effective structure that is always present.

Dr. Burke, I have to admit, started off rough in the first week and a half, and that might have scarred many students lol; lectures were slightly rushed, notation wasn’t formally introduced, and he was nervous in front of a class of 200- which is totally understandable. It was until week 2 that I identified and thus appreciated the effective structure of his lectures and started seeing great value in his class. Prior to stating a new theorem, which is basically what the 31B course is packed of, Dr. Burke would always introduce multiple examples and engage the class into working through the examples with him. By the time we could work an example by ourselves, he’d state the theorem and we’d fully absorb it. His lectures provide a pathway of thinking; the worked problems/examples in lecture are also of the same style as those that appear on his midterms and finals, which definitely adds value to lectures.

Dr. Burke assigns odd-number homework problems from the book after every lecture and if you can do these problems, you’d be able to follow lecture and stay on top of things; remember, answers to odd-number questions are also available at the back! Professor Burke writes very quickly on a board and is efficient when he teaches. He is also really funny when he occasionally drops a ‘math joke’. He knows the material well and he is also willing to help students individually. He really cares for his students and wants all of them to do well.

Overall, Professor Burke really deserves a permanent job in the math department and I hope many others start to appreciate his effort and effectiveness as these qualities may not be completely apparent from the surface. Hope this review helps!

Professor Burke was pretty nervous the first two weeks of class, but he did get a lot better the following weeks. Sometimes he got nervous when students asked him questions in class, but he always did follow up with an email of the correct answer when he wasn't sure. He went too fast most of the time, so I didn't learn much from lecture. I just mostly showed up to see what was being taught so I could learn it on my own with patrickjmt videos on youtube. I did some of my learning from TA office hours and review sessions also. Burke did sincerely cared that students understood the concepts in class and he wanted to help also. I never went to his office hours because of schedule conflicts, but I heard he was more helpful there with a small group rather than a 200 people lecture hall.

Quizzes were given in discussion, which were exactly the same as problems from the hw, but he gave out a lot of hw problems every day. I thought his midterms and final were pretty reasonable. The average was always around 65% for midterms and around 70% for the final.

I would recommend this class with Burke to those who don't mind putting extra effort out to understand concepts taught but also want the benefit of taking reasonable tests.