Reviews for McBlaine Michael Boyle
Average Rating:| Anonymous Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: A May 6, 2012, 12:10 pm | I liked Boyle; he wasn't a boring professor, and he tried to keep the class engaged by going around and asking people questions about the material during lectures. The content wasn't that difficult, but he doesn't always explain the concepts that well. Then he puts concept based questions on the test that are worth a lot of points with no partial credit. Over all though, I learned a lot and would definitely recommend taking this class with Boyle. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: B April 5, 2012, 9:43 pm | Boyle is the only teacher whose lectures make the material more confusing. I actually learned more for the first few months by reading the book for half an hour than by going to class. About halfway through the semester he realized he could be slightly entertaining so he would occassionally throw in a joke which did make the class non-worthless. |
| autonym Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: A+ January 12, 2012, 6:18 pm | If you're a math major or at least comfortable following logic throughout lecture, he's great. He is good at engaging the class, not out of touch like many. And he appreciates enthusiasm, is responsive to emails and answers extra questions after class. I have no complaints about Boyle. He does like his T/F, and sometimes asks them during class to keep you on your toes. He wants you to know the concepts well enough to be able to confidently apply logic to them; that's all. As for his handwriting, it's fine, don't listen to that guy. You try writing "diagonalizable" 5 times in chalk. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: A January 5, 2012, 12:19 pm | Was not the biggest fan of Boyle. Took 240 with him and I'm pretty sure I understood 3 of the lectures or something. He would be much better if he had a written plan of what he was going to talk about/write on the board and followed it exactly. I've always been pretty good at math, I'm a math major and have never gotten less than an A in a math class. Scraped by with an A in this one by like half a percent. He's a nice guy and is willing to answer questions during lecture. He definitely knows math well, just not great at teaching it. I pretty much learned out of the book for this class. If you have to take him, you'll be fine if you read the book before or after lecture and take notes on that. I still suggest going to lecture because he loves to test on proofs and true or false questions, many of which are taken from his lectures. The tests are very similar to his other ones on testbank, so study those. VERY important: if your TA gives hard quizzes, switch TA's. He does not curve by TA, and the TA's make their own quizzes so that can really screw you over. Highest grade in my section was like 90 or something, and highest grade in other sections was 97 or 98. Overall, if he's your best option go ahead and take him, but he's not the greatest. |
| Nathan Mendelsohn Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: B December 19, 2011, 5:18 pm | He definitely knows the material REALLY well, but he didn't do a very good job explaining it. It was quite hard to pay attention for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Also, the tests seemed much harder than they should have been given that he only ended up curving the final. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH411 Grade Expected: B November 2, 2011, 1:58 pm | He is really good at teaching, and thoroughly enjoys it. Even in an upper level class, no question was too basic, and the lectures were given at a reasonable pace with full explanation. In other words, all assumptions and previous assertions or connections to previous parts of the problem were made clear at each step. Homework was also very reasonable but helpful, and he strikes a nice balance between proofs and applications (i.e. USING the concepts). Lectures were very helpful, and focused on a lot of examples of methods used to prove and solve things. He is also very helpful (and always present) at office hours. I might say that the class is a little less rigorous than I remember 410 and being and than other 411 classes I've heard about, but he does a healthy amount of relating the material to topo and linear. I would definitely say that even a very introductory view of set theory/topo is extremely useful the first unit in his class. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: A May 20, 2011, 11:27 pm | he is a great professor. he prefer to test his student on definitions, which is good for students. b/c some of the teachers just show students how to solve the question, as the result, students can give formula and solve the question, but they have no idea why it's work. before the class he always give us true and false question. be careful on those question, it may on your test. every week, it will have quiz,I think different TA has different quiz. homework is easy, make sure to solve them. there are so many true and false questions in the test, thus, to do the old test will really helpful, especially, the question on true and false! Matlab is not so bad, very easy, it should not take so much time on those problems. He is the great one, and very kind, if you have question, just ask him, don't be afraid. good luck |
| Kevin Garcia Course: MATH240 Grade Expected: B April 25, 2011, 11:18 am | As others have noted, his lectures are very proof-based. If you're a math major interested in pure mathematics, take any course he's teaching. He's an above average professor that is very knowledgeable in the subject. One drawback is that his handwriting tends to be rather sloppy, so adjusting may be an issue. He rarely lectures with notes, so there many instances of long pauses as he tries to work out the next few sentences. His exams have a lot of True/False questions, which can be a double-edged sword. Make sure to know properties of proofs and definitions of terms. 240 isn't a difficult subject in general, as long as you do the HW problems. It's one of those courses that you'll kick yourself for not getting an A in. Overall, if Justin W-G or Grillakis are teaching 240, I'd take it with them (in that order) before Boyle. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH140H Grade Expected: December 17, 2010, 2:24 pm | Dr. Boyle is an extremely intelligent and nice guy. However, like they say, "those who can, CANT teach". Most of his teaching was by spending the whole class writing proofs on the board, with no one in the class having any idea what was going on. He did not take much time to simply explain the basic underlying idea of most concepts. Tests were sometimes challenging but reasonable, and he drops your lowest exam, and some quizzes/hw. I do not recommend taking this class with Boyle unless you've had calculus before and did well. Even with that, you may still struggle. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH140H Grade Expected: December 1, 2010, 7:50 am | Mike Boyle knows a lot about calculus . Mike Boyle knows nothing about how to teach calculus. Many times I would find myself confused in his lectures when he went off into tangents of yet ANOTHER proof , and then while doing the impossible homework problems find that he never actually taught us how to do the problem , only the theory behind the math. Many a times it was hard for everyone to stay awake, as his lectures can get very very boring very very fast. I often never understood his answers when I asked him a question and found his tests to be extraordinarily unfair. Out of our entire class there were only two A's. Good news is however he curves the class at the end. On another good note , he is very willing to help you out and is easily contactable. And every now and then he will crack a corny joke to keep you awake. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: January 29, 2010, 11:32 am | I'm sure he knew what he was talking about, but the way that he presented the material was not helpful at all. He'll put the equations on the board and the proofs, but doesn't take the time to explain them and make sure that you understand. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: C December 17, 2009, 10:29 am | Ok, I'm going to say this very bluntly. Don't take this class with Mike Boyle. Very smart man, terrrrrrrrible professor. Anything I learned that semester was from my TA. He goes on and on in lecture on the stupidest, most nuance-oriented problems on one specific topic, then his tests are ridiculously difficult and are not even on what we learned in lecture. This class sucked hard-core. Take it with anyone else, not Boyle. |
| jthompson Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: A December 15, 2009, 4:22 pm | Agree with previous reviewers on Boyle as a teacher, final was pretty tough, but the dropped test and quizzes helped with grades. Didn't do any of the written homework but kept up on webassign, go to the lectures and discussions |
| Anonymous Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: C December 9, 2009, 12:00 am | He knows the material, but prefers to focus on the history and proofs more than the actually formulas. For someone who likes to learn from their professor do not take his class. The only advantages are he drops several grades(in my class one test, two quizzes, and four homeworks)I think there are much better professors out there for MATH141 |
| rhunter1 Course: MATH141 Grade Expected: B November 3, 2009, 8:10 am | I'll start with this: Mike Boyle knows Calculus very well, and knows what he's talking about. So much, in fact, that we never learn in lecture what ends up being on the tests. I can't tell you how many times I left lecture knowing the proof of why an equation worked, and not how the equation worked. However, he is very easy to get in touch with, and he does make a few dry jokes here and there to keep you interested. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH461 Grade Expected: November 6, 2007, 1:34 pm | Took Linear Algebra with Boyle a few semesters ago, and he was a really great teacher. Broke the material down, and gave a bunch of examples. I would definitely suggest taking a class with him, he's pretty good. |