2.6
Quality4.0
Difficulty33%
Would Retake128
Reviews33%
Would Retake
128
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
25
4
21
3
19
2
12
1
51
What Students Say
“Horrible, that's all I can say”
MACM316 - 1.0 rating“Being difficult for no reason”
MACM316 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
43%
Textbook Required
58%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.09 avg changeRatings by Course
MATH380
5.0
(2)MATH302
5.0
(1)Math303
5.0
(1)MATH251
4.5
(2)MATH322
4.3
(3)Difficulty by Course
MACM316
4.1
MATH322
4.0
MATH314
4.0
MATH380
3.5
MATH251
3.5
Reviews (128)
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Awesome prof! Very clear and gives incredibly reasonable tests. Not easy, but definitely fair. I've read the tests from other profs, and they're just a bunch of tricks. Not Stockie's. His lectures are also very interesting. Take this course with Stockie. One word of warning though, he's a total jerk to people who ask the wrong questions.
Very excited at all time!! he is a very good instructor, never beats around the bush, always at the point. attend the lectures because his notes are awsome but he doesnt post them online.
The material is a bit dry. The homework assignments are tedious and the exams is said to be easy but is not. I think the average of the class is failing... :(
Worst math class ever. This prof made such a horrible class even worse. Don't bother talking to him for help as he just looks down on you. Just pray, if you have him as a prof, that you have good TAs otherwise you will not make it through the course without feeling violated.
Very good professor. Material was somewhat difficult but he did a very good job at explaining it clearly and thoroughly during lecture. Probably one of the best math profs I've ever had.
Lectures go VERY fast, so either read ahead or copy the notes from the text later. He can be a little condescending, but overall he tries to explain new material clearly. (If you ask about old material he will say, "That's just math 152, ok...") Exams were fair, but there are still tricky questions so study all examples and variations. Decent prof.
Hard exams and hw. If you are not really understand this guy, dont take his course
For the first half of the course he was a very good prof and explained things well, but in the latter half his explanations seemed to falter a little bit, especially in the taylor and laurent series sections. His tests were medium in difficulty but were fair. Overall, he was a good prof.
Midterm was fair, but final was really hard, with basically all conceptual questions. He started off the semester explaining things well, but realized he was going too slow, so at the end, he crammed everything. But the end of the course is really interesting when you combine everything together :).
Very helpful prof with very realistic expectations for his students. The midterm was very straightforward and is not about a bunch of tricks or gimmicks. The work load is just right, 6 assignments in total and no other projects. The material can get a little dry a times but that happens to almost every subject.
has little patience answering poorly stated questions, gets irritated by them. interesting lectures though, his explanations are clear, most times. only 6 assignments and 1 midterm. midterm was all right, but he likes MC questions which can be tricky and easy to lose marks on. I would take another class with him.
Fair midterm, 6 well spaced assignments. This is a mechanics/formula's course, so practice and study will be your friend. Good explanations during lecture, but has little patience for questions not directly related to the course material.
Textbook by Boyce isn't very good. Stockie doesn't scale his class at all. While you should not necessarily need scaling, it puts you at a disadvantage compared to if you were to take the course with someone else, regardless of how well you do. I wouldn't recommend him on this alone.
Great prof, but assignments and midterm are pain. You have to do matlab question in assignment, and you can stuck for days.
Avoid! He is terrible and ridiculously hard in his assignments and exams! Won't scale with a failing average.
oh my god, it is true that he is a good prof indeed, however, killer exams make such a difficult course even worse!His assignments is not relevant to exam. More than half of people failed exam, and he said he is not going to curve at all! This course requires you do series of matlab programming which will not appear on exam! but assignment need it!
avoid please, I find this class too hard. he wants you to be expert, and test questions were never asked in assignments. you dont need to study, you need prey. ho
you dont need to study, you need prey
no study guide, no review, tons of work needed to do. more than half student droped class after first midterm, and the other half average is not receving more than 50 percent. john, seriously..
He explains things very well, but he can be kind of mean and short tempered if you ask him a question he thinks is stupid. He gives very long and involved MATLAB assignments, which are worth a large portion of the grade. He also writes long difficult exams and only allows a half-page formula sheet for the final. Study hard.
midterm average 54%, some exam questions are not covered in lecture nor assignments.assignment is super super time consuming. average at least 6 hour per assignment with clear understanding. However, this prof has knowledge of the content. if you wanna be a math nerd u should go for him, otherwise, AVOID!!
Good lecturer. Assignments long and tedious. Fair tests, but very long.
he wont scale a failing avg, and i got D. it says all!
the worst prof i have ever seen. Avoid him!!
worst you can get, he hate student
one of the best profs at sfu. very enthusiastic about his subject, knows his material very well, responds to your e-mail asap. assignments are difficult but exam is fair
A very difficult professor. His assignments are very very long (20+ pages) and contain very little material, are very mechanical. Make sure you've taken MATH 232 and MATH 251. Lectures, Midterm solutions, and Assignment solutions are riddled with errors. You will get few to no part marks on the midterm, or finals exams.
Wouldn't recommend this prof to anyone. He doesn't scale for this course which is crazy considering it's a 300 lvl course and his assignments are brutal to complete. He's not that easy to approach to because he sounds really condescending when he talks to you but that's just my opinion. Either way if he's the prof for 310 just straight up avoid him
John's lectures are amazing! They are the reason I pull my ass out of my bed every morning. He really understands the topic and is passionate about teaching it. He also goes through many applications which is always interesting.
Comes across as condescending and is difficult to approach. Expects very detailed solutions to problems and makes extremely long assignments. Average for this course was a C, which is the lowest average I've ever seen. Would highly recommend avoiding this prof, you'll put in more work and effort into this course but come out with a lower mark
The midterm was too lengthy, just like the lectures. John tries to squeeze too much material in each lecture. The grading for the exams seemed to weigh the final answer more than the approach used. Assignments are bi-weekly, the math portion is of reasonable length and requires one to play with given Matlab codes. Be prepared to hear ARGH!! UGHH!!!
Best math teacher I've ever had! Love how he explains the motivation behind methods and concepts, rather than just stating what they are. He tends to drop hints about exams and assignments in lectures. Go to lectures for additional context about the material, but it should be possible to do well without attending every class.
Clearly very passionate about what he's teaching and does a fairly good job explaining concepts in depth in lectures. Discrete math is one of the harder subjects so you can't expect him to give easy marks.
He is definitely a responsible professor with full of passion to his class and lecture. You will feel his enthusiasm for mathematics. His midterm got some tricky but inspired questions. Pretty useful for you to understand the course material though! Also, his computing assignment is not too difficult with his provided code. Take it with him!
Very Passionate about numerical analysis and he seems like he genuinely enjoys teaching this course. His exams were very fair, but his computing assignments can be a bit challenging. Would take any course again with him!
Hes passionate about the course he teaches and his lectures are great. This term he started using iclickers for the first time but it was just for participation and didnt matter if you got the right answer or not. There's weekly quizzes and almost weekly assignments as well. Overall if you go to lectures and do homework you should be fine.
I am giving a poor rating due to the usage of iClicker Reef. There are free alternatives available. and I am unhappy paying for yet another cost.
Exams highly depend on the final answer as opposed to your work. Barely any time to upload submissions for quizzes. He can teach, but he can't assess students properly. Avoid at all costs.
Love this Prof
He is a really good teacher. I had heard some horrific stuff about MACM 316 but 316 with him has been a very good experience. If you have to take MACM 316 for your degree take it with him you won't regret it.
Great prof, decent lectures (iClickers reef for that 5%) I am just terrible at the material. I got 33% on my midterm and 42% on my final. I still passed. *insert john stockie laugh*
I would say the ingredients to this course is 80% - john stockie laugh, and 20% - theory isnt as hard as expected even if u havent taken math in a while, 1000% time crunch stress, and 4000% online covid structure stress. I am aware these dont add up to 100 but its probably cus of machine epsilon
I've had many proffs online, but He's probably one of the best, he keeps lectures more interesting and interactive than others. I actually wanted to study the material and I found a lot of it pretty interesting, and he played a part in that. His explanation of the material is clear and quizzes and exams are based on the examples in class
John is probably the best math teacher I've ever had. His class is funny and easily to understand. He prepared carefully before each class and patiently answered questions raised by every student.I can say MACM316 is one of my favourite classes I have ever taken because my professor is John Stockie.
MACM316 is known as a hard class, however with John "ACADEMIC COMBACK" Stockie, this class was much more bearable than intended. Lectures are clear and concise with mandatory IClickers throughout the weeks, very light hearted and hilarious guy. John always has methods to get "free marks". 5/5 Prof.
An amazing prof. I would highly recommend taking MACM 316 with John.
Amazing professor. The lectures were clear, fair exams. I learned a lot in his macm 316 class.
John is a very knowledgeable professor and it shows in his lectures. My only compliant is that he isn't very approachable. Whenever questions were asked in class, he would cut off the person asking to provide a condescending half-answer. I also found some of the quiz marking to be questionable, however this was not the case for the midterm or final
Professor Stockie is very enthusiastic about the course topic and knows the material very well. He is willing to help you with assignments during his office hours and responds quickly to emails. Grading is on the strict side, but the exam is very fair.
Engaging lectures, with relevance to the real world.
Horrible, that's all I can say.
Being difficult for no reason
Homework problems are designed to waste your time as majority of it never shows on the quiz. Problems assigned are sometimes not even relevant to what is being tested in the course. Quizzes are designed to lower your mark in the class since he doesn't curve or scale
he'll explain coding or computers, but ends up telling us the wrong information, and when someone questions him on it, he says "i don't actually know, i'm not a computer scientist." he often makes huge mistakes, and ends up re-explaining and saying "ignore everything i just said" which is such a waste of time. answers questions very condescendingly
If I got a dollar for each time John Stockie gives a question that is not related to the homework I would be rich.
Half of the things in the lectures are useless and are never tested, makes errors often, confusing students. When the class did bad on a quiz, he blames the class for not understanding the material. But guess who is the one that failed to teach the material?
Avoid this professor at all cost for this course. Confusions and errors during the lecture and yet, challenges us with difficult quizzes and midterm. Come on the quiz is only worth 1.5% each and not necessarily to make it hard and long which often needs more than 10 mins to complete it correctly.
Puts a bunch of trick questions in the midterm's multiple choice and then blames us for doing badly on them.
Multiple choice questions are structured to screw you over. The questions are very vague and he expects you to know thats the answer he wants even if there were also other correct answers. Note the question did not say "Pick the best answer" or anything like that. He blames us for not doing well.Wonder if the instructor made the questions "well" 🖕
I just feel sad because I worked so hard I studied for the midterm countless hours and the midterm was unfair. Its not right to have trick multiple choice questions each worth 2 points out of a 30 point total exam. Each had multiple correct answers, I'm under time pressure I can't spent years on your mind games. I usually do well in midterms. Sad.
This professor had to reverse the solutions that he had for quiz and midterm after student challenged his solutions. If the professor made questions that he himself couldn't answer it correctly then those questions should be removed. His accuses of overlooked and blah...totally no accepted. Shame! My advice, do not take this course with him.
Tough quiz and midterm, and expect the same for final exam. There are >50 students failed midterm. Yet, professor Stockie said he is not going to curve. Not curving in 3rd level course is unacceptable especially when he put unreasonable or tricky questions on the test. Steven Ruuth who taught this class did curve. So unfair, we didn't get curve.
Take it with Steven Ruuth, last semester his class midterm average was over 70% and eventhough final's average was a little over 40% but he curved 2 letter grades. Stockie midterm average 50% and maybe final's average will be even lower, and he is not curving. Does not make sense! Stockie, your test questions aren't make sense either.
Absolutely terrible, don't know why he is still teaching. I would not take this class in general if it was not required for my computer science degree.
Other than putting trick questions where students have to argue for points, marking scheme is terrible especially at 2 marks per multiple choice question, where almost every single one is tricky or ambiguous. He puts a 3 mark coding question and gives 0 part marks, this does not make sense at all. Making the question worth 1 mark would be more fair
This class is frustrating. Professor gives tricky and time consuming question in a 10 minutes quiz. In such a time constraints, careless mistakes is unavoidable when students have to rush to finish. TA took marks off instantly when the answer is wrong. No part marks for doing everything right except wrong answers coz of careless mistakes.
The quiz are unreasonably difficult and he wastes a lot of time in class teaching about stuff that doesn't matter or is not covered in the course. There is no material to prepare for exams and his homework questions to prepare for the quiz are useless, as most of the time they are too difficult to solve by hand and need code.
This professor grades extremely harshly. Even if you use the right method, one small algebra mistake can make you lose almost all marks. The marking feels unfair and discouraging. They also make several mistakes during lectures, which adds to the confusion. Overall, it's a frustrating and demotivating experience.
The TAs grade computing assignments terribly. Even when you clearly include everything required, they still claim it's missing. It's frustrating and unfair because the expectations are written clearly, but the marking never matches. The feedback feels inconsistent and makes it hard to know what they actually want.
This professor marks super harshly, even if you mostly get the question right. One small mistake and you lose almost everything. It's really discouraging, especially when the professor makes multiple mistakes during lectures. Like, why are we graded so strictly when the teaching isn't even consistent? It just doesn't feel fair.
John's computing assignments are graded really unfairly. Even when you follow all the instructions and include everything required, the TAs or John still say parts are missing. It's frustrating because the expectations are clear, yet the marking doesn't match. The feedback feels inconsistent and honestly makes the course stressful.
Doesnt't know how to properly grade assignments, too much marks taken off for nothing
Forces attendance with iClickers. Doesn't post notes, so if you're sick you either miss content or risk spreading illness (or worse come healthy and get sick). Weekly quizzes make people show up sick (lectures felt like a clinic). His “generous” policy lets you miss 1 of 11 quizzes, any more is your problem. After midterm, less than half attended.
Yet again today he gives a quiz with heavy amounts of questions where it is newrly Impossible to complete properly within a 10 minute time frame. F#%^* you John.
His quizzes are always stressful, rushing to finish in 10 mins. I knew how to do them but did not have enough time to complete, so sad. Hoping to get more marks from the quizzes but my hope is down to the drain. Thanks Stockie for giving quiz questions that require more than 10 mins to finish. I worked so hard and didn't get what I hope for. SAD!!
Had to drop this course, absolutley awful professor, gave an impossible quiz which absolutley NOBODY finished. This guy just wants to see his students suffer and doesn't care about them at all, dropped this course I'm outta here and going to work at Mcdonald's rather than listen to his yap and deal with his BS.
He criticizes people for not doing the homework to prepare for the quizzes, yet he throws in random quiz questions that weren't even covered on the homework. He wastes your time by giving you useless textbook questions to do, where half of them can't even be quizzed because they would require you to run Matlab code on a computer. Super unfair.
Avoid this prof at all costs. The most stressful course with unfair marking, misleading instructions for Quiz/midterm questions which he keeps revising the answers for. He does not share his annotated notes, blames students for not understanding. It's almost like he wants you to suffer and fail the course. The most demotivating class I've taken.
He's a nice guy, but his style of teaching is not right. Lecture attendance is mandatory because he does live clicker questions, and he also doesn't post the filled in lecture slides and writes a load of unreadable equations on them and goes through them quickly. Hw/quizzes are not fair or fairly graded. Homework is often irrelevant to exams.
Absolutely ridiculous class, his lowest quiz average was the most recent one with 39% average. Never taken Math classes with such a low quiz failing average. We all know who has to be blamed for such poor results. Nothing much we can do, just pray hard for the final exam. I worked hard, Prof Stockie, I did HW, result still bad.
Not recommended to take this course with this professor. Better off with other professors!! Hope that helps!
Dont bother reading all the reviews down this message, its just basically the same opinion which ill conclude in this message. This prof expects student to solve a quiz that is no way possible to be solved in 10 mins. The Format of exams is super unfair. The assignment takes time and at the end its graded unfairly. People literally failing with him
The quizzes are way too hard. Nothing is related to the homework he gives, he proceeds to gaslight us that it comes from the homework. How many opps you really got? I mean, it's too many options I'm finna pass on this body, I'm John Stockton. Take with another prof.
John: "Guys it's your fault for failing the quiz you should have done the homework." The homework: "What's similar between Gaussian elimination and the ancient Chinese technique developed by Liu Hui in his book Jiu Zhang Suan Shu?"
You know something is about to turn sour when quiz marks get released too fast or too late. It is always the class average is low.
He's just a really poor teacher. This guy cannot educate.
Let me just put a quiz that's not possible to solve in 10 minutes. In addition, let me make a MT matching question that had 0 indication to explain your answer and deduct -1 point for all students. Oh, and also let me make a quiz that says 'circle one answer per question' but needed 3 correct answers to get full marks which also wasn't indicated.
John please let me pass macm 316
His lectures are engaging and go into depth about the topic. He does not upload lecture notes and quiz's are based on the concepts not the homework questions. If you work to understand the material in the slides none of the asessments feels unfair; however the quiz time limits are much too short .Other than that he is great.
Final exam, no calculator, had multiple long answer questions with fraction/decimal calculations taking up time while you still had to do 25 MC questions, each worth 2 (no part marks), some also requiring full-on formula setups and fraction calculations. Few people could have realistically completed this in time and correctly, he wants you to fail.
The marking on the exams are unreasonable, just look at previous comments. The final exam written was absolutely brutal today, h(x) = 1 + (x-1)^2 / (1+6x^4) derivative + a decimal input? PLU matrix + gauss-siedel matrix iteration? Yeah, okay.
Final exam was brutal, written section was much more advanced compared to the lecture notes and quizzes. Multiple choice supposedly came from a “clicker bank” which was never shared by John. Looks like we are being punished for something outside of our control!
The final exam was not difficult concept wise, but for a non calculator exam, he sure put alot of floating point numbers and fractions. Furthermore, he doesn't provide any sample exams and the textbook questions are useless to practice for his exam format. Would not recommend!
Really passionate and enthusiastic prof. Go to the first lecture and see if you like the way he thinks/teaches. The material is pretty straightforward and strongly related to the weekly quizzes and the midterm/final. If you can get 10/10 on the quizzes, you'll be golden for both MT/FINAL.
The most fun course I've ever taken!
Worst part is his assessments and grading. Hw given is hardly related to his weekly quizzes. There is no clear rubric for the assignments worth 25%, losing marks for the smallest details. Blames students for quiz/midterms for terrible averages. His actual lectures, however, are more engaging/interesting than average, relative to SFU's CS profs.
Not the worst prof I've ever had, but definitely not good either. His lectures are above average, you can tell he cares about the material. Mandatory iClicker for lectures aren't a problem, weekly quizzes get pretty difficult but represent test material. Final was 17 longer than usual pages (so like 23), midterm was fair. Overall very mid prof.
John is not so bad after all, he made the final exam out of 95 instead of 100 and he also boosted everyone's grade. I thought I was getting a C- but got a C.
We were way too harsh towards John earlier in the semester. He really does care about students and made our grade higher! Good professor!!
Great Lecturer, sub-par examiner. His lectures are very in-depth, and you learn a lot. His weekly quizzes and exams weren't overly fair, with no real way to practice and MCQ was half of your grade. If you can't do basic calculus and fractions without a calculator, he's definitely not the prof for you.
Great professor! Not the worst and not the very best but he is nice and gave everyone a bonus letter grade
I am the one who got 95 on the final exam
John isn't a bad professor after all! He understands that it is a hard class. His final was fine (Glad most of his MC were just clicker stuff and concepts). Written could have been more reasonable given no calculators were allowed.
John curved even when he said he would not. This is a christmas miracle!
And John he the GOAT! I be ducking all the pigs. I turn up at my shows
Happy to say that I have finally passed MACM 316 with John on my retake! Bless you John!
Wasn't even so bad at all. John made the class hard and tricky but he compensated us with a 1 letter grade curve. Take with John if you want to succeed.
I know his rating is low, but he's genuinely not that bad. He clearly loves the topic, clearly knows what he's talking about, and the lectures are actually useful. Attend every lecture and you'll be good.
I was supposed to receive an A+ but only got an A. John did not curve me up, why is everyone lying.
To be fair, John isn't the worst at SFU. He does make mistakes during lectures but it is understandable he is getting old but very passionate about teaching.
Had a fun and engaging semester with John. His quizzes sometimes can be a lot at times. Computing assignments are chill as long as you start early. Class avg was a C+ and he also gave bonus marks.
Curved letter grade doesn't excuse all the BS we faced. Useless homework that didn't prepare you for the weekly quizzes with trick questions. Computing assignments marked out of 10 where you lose marks for not explaining things PERFECTLY. Final exam's paper size was taller to cram in more questions. Not worth damaging your mental health over.
To be honest, he isn't as bad as he seems. It was a rough semester with tricky multiple choice questions, long weekly quizzes that are not reasonable for a 10 minute time period. Midterm was long but was alright. Final multiple choice wasn't so tricky but written was unreasonably hard (not because of the content) but because of the numbers provided
Nice guy after all, he is very passionate about teaching this class. Would recommend to take if you want to actually learn something. Put in minimal effort and still passed. Used chatGPT for all my computing assignments and averaged out to 75%.
Marks very strictly on computing assignments and quizzes are too long for 10 mins and very tricky. Midterm mc was tricky written was fine. Final mc was extremely fair and written was a lot for a no calculator exam. Overall he isn't the best but its clear he likes what he is teaching. He also curved us up a grade which was nice given how tough it is
The homework is so useless and too difficult. None of the homework really gets tested anyways. Just focus on the lecture notes and clickers. I did so bad on the final exam because I didn't know there was an iClicker bank with lots of questions word by word on the final exam.
John is the best!!
Other people are saying he "curved us up a letter grade" I would like to confirm this wasn't the case for most people as he curved 1-2% only so it didnt change most people's grades. He is good at teaching and smart, take the course with him if you care about macm but don't take the course if you want a good grade.
Had a really great semester with John. Sometimes he pulls tricks out of nowhere which is annoying but none the less he is a good lecturer and really loves teaching
He is really passionate about teaching and a great lecturer. This course is just pretty hard and time consuming. Weekly quizzes keep you on top of the content but are a pretty hard for 10 minutes. Avg of class was a C+. All things considered he's a good prof for macm316!
Not the best, not the worst. Lectures are very good, but he often gives tricky questions with multiple correct answers when only one is acceptable and sometimes tested us on material not covered in the lectures/homework. Somewhat nice, but also blamed us multiple times for not getting "easy" questions correct and didn't take accountability.
Straight forward points: 1. Probably your best option for MACM316 2. HW not mandatory but kinda is if you want to do well on quizzes / exams 3. Fair tests but also time-consuming (e.g., decimals, hard derivatives, etc) ALTHOUGH marking is questionable and read question very well before answring 4. Good lectures 5. No BS prof but strict on reasoning
I've sat in my friends' MACM316 lectures and classes before that isn't John and to be honest, after reflecting and being in pain in this class because it's hard, John is legitimately your best option in terms of fairness. This class is hard and I don't disagree with the other reviews and viewpoints, all valid.
Never enough time to finish quizzes. Strict grading on computing assignments. Makes you buy an iClicker subscription for participation marks. Also discourages questions mid-lecture and is condescending if you don't know something. Had to drop after midterm, otherwise he would have cooked my GPA
John was very enthusiastic, but he would also give trick questions on all multiple choice. He would state that they were “easy questions” that we have learned all semester, but purposely not state the conditions needed for it to be true, even though we spent all semester assuming the conditions were there. HW not needed. Quizzes WAY too long.
John is enthusiastic, but the course itself is difficult. Things to keep in mind: 1) Homework and Quiz: HW is not mandatory, but you MUST do it to perform well on the weekly quizzes - these are annoying, but helpful later on when revising. 2) Attendance is required (5%). 3) Fair exams - but PLEASE READ THE QUESTION CAREFULLY BEFORE ANSWERING
I think John is a good professor, the subject was simply not that interesting. Quiz and exam questions usually-ish reflected what was in the homework, but he made the multiple choice tricky. The grading criteria for the computing assignments was unclear and marks would be docked for missing things they didn't even include in the description.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
43%
Textbook Required
58%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.09 avg changeRatings by Course
MATH380
5.0
(2)MATH302
5.0
(1)Math303
5.0
(1)MATH251
4.5
(2)MATH322
4.3
(3)Difficulty by Course
MACM316
4.1
MATH322
4.0
MATH314
4.0
MATH380
3.5
MATH251
3.5