She's a bit foreign and is terrible at organization. She is a great teacher, but a large part of the grade is about online stuff which she doesnt grade correctly. Try to avoid her as a teacher

Donatella was incredible professor. Her class was so much fun, which made learning Italian much easier. Her concern for her students learning is very visible. She is willing to teach you, but its up you to do your work and work with her in learning Italian. As a native Italian, I feel that Donatella can provide you with a great opportunity to learn the language.

I had Donatella for Italian 1 and this is my second quarter with her. She is such a great teacher. She tries to make class as interesting and fun. This quarter we got to practice speaking more and we listened to some Italian music to get a sense of how different verb tenses are used. I have loved being her student because she always wants to help everyone do their best.

So far I have had her for Italian 1 and 2 and i can honestly tell you that she is great. I am now fluent enough to hold a conversation in Italian. Donatella is a great professor that some students tend to not like because she challenges one to work hard to learn the language. From my experiences I can say that Donatella is one of the best Italian professors on campus. She is also involved in the Italian club and is always motivating her students to join the club. Donatella is a great woman and an amazing professor whose main goal is to see her students succeed. Take her if you have the chance, but also if you are serious about learning Italian. The workload is ok, just make sure you do it and don't slack off.

Best instructors for Italian 1-6.

She is awesome. Great sense of humor, very understanding and very relaxed. She is open to questions and explains more if the students don't understand. I would take a class with her again!

Donatella is not a very good TA for Italian 3, if you can choose a different TA, I would highly advise it. Not hard to get an A, but the class is painful. Donatella is the most unorganized teacher I have ever had. She would pair us into groups, and basically say "Go." We would turn to each other and shrug because no one knew what we were supposed to be working on.

Everyone was so done with Donatella by the end of the quarter, and one of my classmates was in tears because of frustration with the class. You will not get very good Italian practice, either, because Donatella just rambles on for the majority of the hour. Once again, sign up for a different TA!!

People who complain about her tangents are only somewhat justified and are exaggerating highly. For someone to be in tears because of Donatella is an absolute joke. She is very concerned with students' learning and to say otherwise is beyond me. Yes, she rambles a bit, and yes, sometimes her sense of humor is a little hard to receive, but overall she really cares about her students and is a wonderful TA/instructor. I feel bad for her reading some of these reviews because to me they feel very undeserved. Like others said, she allows extra time on quizzes when it's needed/when she can afford to (sometimes she has another class right after). I took Italian 6 with her and she went out of her way to allow students to turn in late work for full credit without which I certainly wouldn't have gotten the A that I got with her.
Overall:
Very concerned with student learning, very available, very open and underneath the surface dry humor, a very kind heart.

I had Donatella for both Italian 3 and 6. While her class did go off on tangents at times, they were at least relative to Italian such that they talked about her Italian life and we were able to learn more about Italy that way. She was very concerned with our progress, especially since she always gave us extra time on papers and practically everything we had to do. She would even help us on tests by having us look over sections and check those answers. Usually, when she did this, that meant that there were some wrong answers in there and we could easily get more points by fixing them. As the quarter would end, she would review our assignments and let us know what we were missing so that we can possibly do it over, or check it again. She was always available when I dropped in for office hours and she was concerned with my absences as well. I have never had a bad instructor in the Italian department, but I'm assuming that it really depends on the student's enthusiasm to learn and understand the Italian culture. I really don't get the negative comments. If you do your work (which is not that hard) and you participate in class, there is nothing to worry about and you can pass either Italian 3 or 6 with an A

Donatella is a TERRIBLE TA. I had her for Italian 6. By this time I had a pretty good grasp on the Italian language, but she made me feel terrible. She would just ramble on very quickly in Italian so that none of us could understand her and then when we finally would get around to the grammar, if we didn't understand it she could never figure out why. Being a native Italian speaker, she just assumed that we could hear what sounded correct.

She belittled me to end when I tried to ask questions or attempt to have her do more than just read the grammar section from the book verbatim. I can read the book on my own. I needed her to actually teach me and have us apply it.

I also completely agree with everything the previous poster said. No organization, technologically challenged, wouldn't send us our homework due the next day until 5 pm that evening, and no concern about student learning.

Do not take her!