Formerly known as Baker the A maker , he lost all credibility when he spent lectures discussing math philosophy and the war in Afghanistan, rather than calculus, but still gave long homeworks and difficult tests.

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He is not very good at teaching. Very disorganized. He seems like a smart enough person, but I don't feel he should be in the classroom. He would make a good researcher.

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easy to get an A, but absolutely horrible teacher.

He's the worst math teacher I have ever had. He simply cannot teach. Makes you feel stupid for attempting a question in class. The tests are easy, homework is extremely difficult, partly because he doesn't teach you anything.

The worst math teacher I have ever had. Talks to the blackboard a lot. Rarely shows relevant examples on the board. Teaches more theory. Midterms are absolutely ridiculous. Does give extra credit for showing up to lecture and discussion. Hope for a good TA. Avoid him if possible. Only reason I am passing this class is because of prior calc in hs.

If you're looking to leave the classroom wondering "what really did I just learn?" Baker is for you. He is awful at getting the point across. Often makes mistakes on the board without catching them and is fairly disorganized. I would have failed without my TA. I'd suggest finding someone else.

GET OUT NOW. all i do in his lectures is go on fb twitter and online shop because taking notes would be pointless. he constantly makes mistakes and his midterms are mult choice no partial credit 8 questions. we spend the first 20 minutes listening to a political joke and everyday he wonders why he always runs out of time. thank god for my TA <3

His teaching is awful, makes just awful jokes, and the majority of the time during lecture I just feel uncomfortable. Graded on a curve of 8 multiple choice questions with the hardest one worth the most points. Basically, guessing is what separates an A+ from a B- on his tests..

I do not find him to be a good teacher at all. He's clearly very smart, but not good at teaching.

Like I was saying, Baker has insulted me as well as a number of other students in the class, using some crazy Ferrari reference to refer to us as slow. He reads lame jokes out of a math joke book. Baker typically says in each lecture, " Im not going to get into the details of this problem". The really unimportant items get "boxed" on the board.

Baker is useless. He is just to much into his research to care about teaching and he makes many errors when teaching material.

Just two words. Amazingly terrible.

Truly terrible professor. He does not respect his students. Will ignore raised hands. Class is curved, but tests are multiple choice with no partial credit, which is TERRIBLE for any math class. Questions are insanely difficult. Can use any amount of notes on tests.

Worst teacher in the world. Can't lecture at all

By far the worst teacher I have ever had. EVER. He spends his whole time in class correcting his notes and making stupid jokes. He is completely unapproachable if you have a question. The TA is who taught me most of what I learned. In class I would teach myself the lesson for the day rather than listen to him. Attendance becomes extra credit.

Baker is a good guy, but he cannot teach to save his life. If you didn't take Calc is high school, don't take his class. His lectures are confusing and his tests are multiple choice with only 8 questions. The hardest question is 20 points (out of 100) and no partial credit is given. Overall, hard to get a good grade.

he is awful and not helpful at all. worst jokes.

Prof Baker is my worst prof to date. He took a subject (calc) that i was excited and interested in and ruined it. His lectures are just notes and definitions straight from the textbook,and tests are 8 questions. Hw is graded by a mystery grader and was never told criteria for hw. If you take calc with him make sure to get a discussion as well.

Does not know how to teach.

Do not take a class with Baker. The only reason people come to lecture is because he gives attendance points. He reads off slides and doesn't really explain anything but rather just rambles and expects you to learn the material. Baker and his assistants are not approachable.

Avoid Baker at all costs. His reads off notes in lecture that are from years ago and most days he wastes class time. He's not clear on grading and his exams are multiple choice and very hard so no option of partial credit. TAs for this class were also unhelpful. I wish I would've listened to my peers and not taken it with him.

Avoid this teacher! Seriously! You cannot get his points. Example: he wrote a function and then said, " this general..." He stopped and you should guess what should be the "..." I am good at math, but I can only study by myself for this basic class. Unfortunately, I cannot drop it.

Most probably the worst professor I ever had so far. Reads notes rather than working out problems in class. He literally reads out the solutions from his notes. Hence I work on other subjects in his class because of attendance. And had to teach myself Calculus II

Baker is the worst instructor that I have had in my entire educational career from 3-day-a-week preschool through my junior year of college. You would literally be better off not listening to him ever because his lectures are just his own slick shortcuts that don't teach anything about calculus. Jean short game is tremendously strong, though.

It's a shame someone like Baker teaches calculus. He manages to take an interesting topic and completely ruin it with his awful jokes and barely legible slides. The test questions are ridiculous. He had a smoking hot teaching assistant though, so that helped.

So he's weird. His tests (AND THIS IS IMPORTANT) are multiple choice. Only 8 Qs. One of those will be worth double points and you probably wont know it, even if you do it's only 50 min exam time. No work is graded, solely based on the answer for the multiple choice. Most fail but he curves. Attendance and HW are worth points though.

This guy sucks. He used to be called "Baker the A-Maker," until CLAS told him to stop handing out so many A's. During lecture, he mumbles to himself and doesn't demonstrate key concepts. Every test is ONLY eight multiple choice questions, and they all have a "none of the above" option. Ruined my semester.

He is by far the worst teacher I have ever had. After 5 minutes of the first class I thought I was going to die. I have my first exam coming up and I've heard they are crazy hard with no partial credit. Don't know how he's still affiliated with the University

Richard baker is the worst. Condescending and dislikes when intelligent people participate in the discussion. Multiple choice tests with no partial credit that take weeks to get graded. Constantly interrupts his own lectures which are simply copies of text from the book in his own handwriting. Poor attitude, poor teaching style, poor professor.

Horrible teacher. Instead of teaching examples, he goes through proofs of theorems and equations in class, and constantly strays off topic. Tests are 8 multiple choice questions and even if you try your best kids can guess on all the problems and still get a better grade than you. My advice would be to never take a class with him.

Attendance is mandatory. Midterms are 8 multiple choice questions, two of which are nearly impossible. Also, the practice test is nothing compared to the actual exams...

Avoid at all cost if you must take him just hope for a good curve

so brofessor baker as he refers to himself is not the best teacher and tests are very hard. im talking with a 20 percent you can get a c an on exam. Only people that are actually good at math will get an A because his tests have two problems that are very hard, but its not hard because of the calculus, but because of mathematical communication.

He is the worst professor in Iowa. Scroll down and see what people say. Don't waste your time and money. I got an A on his Calculus 2, but I will avoid him at all cost, if I need to take another math course.

Bad teacher, makes me wanna sleep every single time. Always talk to himself during lecture. Nobody ever laughs at his jokes.

extremely difficult to follow

Hard to follow in class, makes awful jokes that are hard to listen to. Puts notes on the projector and then just rewrites all of that work on the chalk board. Always does the work wrong on the board, and mumbles while writing it down. Test are 8 multiple chose questions so if you guess right on the 20 point question, you can go from a C to an A.

Please do not take this professor. You will regret it. The tests do a terrible job of reflecting the standard problems that you practice. They are strange and worded very in a bizarre manner. All the questions are multiple choice and there is 8 of them so students will randomly get higher or lower scores.

Hes a very funny good guy but an awful professor. Makes no sense in lecture. Does not use a + or - scale and gives no partial credit on tests. Tests are multiple choice with a 20% question thats nearly impossible so 20% of your grade is based on a 1/5 guess. Says the curve will get rid of bad questions but thats doesnt work on multiple choice.

If I could give a 0 I would. He went too fast, I had to take pictures of his notes and copy them after class. You will have 8+ pages of notes every class. Doesn't explain when going through problems. He is kinda funny, and his TA was nice. Other than that, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR BAKER.

He's not a good professor. He reads off the hand-written notes from the board. The notes he uses are from 2013 (some are even from 2002). There are only two midterms (both 8 questions) and a final (10 questions). No partial credit for problems. The curve is the only thing that will save you so avoid his class at all cost because you won't learn.

Don't take his class if you're bad at math.

Actually lectures about 10% of the time. Spends the entire hour doing examples. So if you don't learn the concepts on your own outside of class then you won't understand his examples, making the entire &quot;lecture&quot; useless. Literally the only reasons to go to lecture are the attendance and to hear the exam dates because he puts NOTHING on ICON.

All he does in lecture is laugh at his own jokes and reads off his slides (from 2012). He just copies down the examples problems (with the wrong work). His tests are 8 questions and one is worth 20% of the whole test (but you don't know how to do it). Best part of class: the notebook we keep of his stupid quotes. Beware

I'm sure he's a great guy outside of the classroom, but he does a very very poor job at actually teaching. Most of the class is based around his awful jokes and the dated notes he puts on the board. I learned very little about calculus. Thank God this was my last math class. ever.

DO NOT HAVE THIS PROFESSOR. He was very disorganized, hard to read his handwriting, it was very difficult.

Would not recommend. He didn't post midterm grades until December. The practice problems he gave for the exams were super easy compared to the exam questions. His office hours were unclear, and he mostly wasn't available outside of class. Take a different professor or take the class online. TBH I mostly learned from the book.

Before going online due to COVID, I was already unhappy with this professor. No feedback on homework, boring lectures. After going online, I learned absolutely nothing. He did not teach. No homework, and &quot;lectures&quot; consisted of us reading his old handwritten notes. The final was take-home, and I got an A in the class but hardly learned anything.

Terrible, not one thing taught in lecture was reflected on the homework. He is completely lost in his own words the whole lecture and gives nothing even close to a clear understanding of the material. I promise you will regret taking this course with professor baker. Very upset that even after all the reviews hes been given, nothing has changed

Wow, never thought I would have a prof that gives 0 feedback and cant even get through his lectures. The class isn't hard, but Dr Baker makes it hard. Exams are take home which is a plus. Dr Baker seems cool, but online is not his specialty. Avoid online with Baker if you actually want to learn the material.

Before registering i read the reviews and said i'd manage. Yeah, I was wrong. Bakers lectures are awful. He just reads from old notes and struggles to explain the material, he rarely answers emails doesn't communicate exam dates until the week of. Taking this class with Baker is Basically the same as buying the textbook and trying to understand it.

Prof. Baker is completely oblivious to his inefficient teaching style. He reads directly off his notes which he wrote probably a decade ago, and it makes no sense to anyone who has never been exposed to the material. I paid however much this class cost to teach myself. Also, he won't respond to your emails, so don't bother.

Points in this class are almost entirely up to three eight-question take-home exams. Sounds good but the class is curved. The idea that everyone is cheating is terrifying to honorable students. Exams include problems unsolvable using calc1 methods. Completely inaccessible to students and my TA (even during the final).

He doesn&#39;t communicate at all. Homework has nothing to do with the lecture. He just reads off of notes and doesn&#39;t answer anything. I would not recommend and try avoiding taking a class with him.

I did not learn anything from him the entire semester and was forced to teach myself the material. We had three take home exams that poorly reflected the homework and his lecture notes. He also liked to put what he called "mystery questions" on exams that were completely above the classes and TAs skill level. Find another professor if possible!

I hate to write this because Prof. Baker does seem like a good person, but he makes Calc 1 so much harder than it needs to be. You learn nothing in lecture, the homework is very time consuming, and the test questions are beyond a Calc 1 level. My advice if you get stuck with Prof. Baker: Go to discussion and make YouTube math vids your best friend

Richard is a great guy, but teaching wise he's a little past his time. Paper handwritten notes from 10 years ago make lectures impossible to follow. Lectures started with 60 people on the first day that went down to 8 people (Literally). 3 take-home exams all multiple choice with half of them being near impossible to solve without the internet.

He didn't grade anything. Out of 3 midterms and 1 final exam, he only graded the first midterm. Each exam is also over 100 points and ONLY 8 QUESTIONS. It is impossible to get a good score/grade.

Baker is a nice guy, but he is an awful professor. His lectures are dreadful, and you can barely understand what he is saying. He gets off on irrelevant tangents often. His lectures aren't mandatory, so nearly no one goes. His lecture notes are uploaded on ICON; however, they are from 2012 and in messy unreadable cursive. The lectures are useless.

DONT TAKE: 1- exams/midterms are 8 multiple choice questions (so no particle credit & no room for error) 2- lectures are long/slow... he projects old hand-written notes in cursive on the board and reads them word for word 3- Baker isn't a bad man, just a bad professor 4- I took AP Calc in high school but this class is not it... avoid if possible

1. Most of my grade depended on the final. 2. His final is basically all "Frankenstein" (previous problems mushed together) problems on meth/coke. 3. Kind of funny but that is the last quality I want in a professor. If you are his student in Calc 1 (which was the course I was in), USE YOUR TA! I would consider him the worst professor I ever had.

He finds a way to make simple things very complicated. He's very hard to understand.

Dr. Baker seems like a nice man, but the way he runs his class is just not it. There were only 2 midterms and a final, which were all 8 MC questions. If you did bad on even one, it hurt your grade. Class average for all the tests was about 50%. He also posted final grades very late. Also, tons of homework which is mandatory, yet only worth 5%.

worst professor ive ever had, and takes forever to grade exams

Richard Baker is a nice person, who has good intentions. But, between the hand written in cursive lecture notes, and the final exam which was 45% of the total grade, I would encourage you heavily to find someone else. Grading is slow, and you have to hope you get a half decent TA, because you will not get much help at all from Prof. Baker.

Terrible and tests are impossible. Lectures are a joke.

Awful professor. His lectures don't cover anything you need for homework or exams. Makes attendance mandatory. His exams are bad and poorly written. Spends lecture talking about side tangents and telling stories rather than teaching. You will have to teach yourself if you have him. Avoid at all costs even if you have to wait to take a class.