1. Academic Calendar
Course Schedule
Grades
PACE Search
PACE Reports
Educational Effectiveness Committee
PACE Results
BackTracey Roberts LAW*540*21Viewing: FEDERAL INCOME TAX: UPR DIV* - 16/SP
General Comments
Overall the class was very enjoyable, and I found Prof. Roberts to be extremely knowledgeable. My one
complaint with the course is that, despite the class being 3 credits, the expectation seems to be that we know
and retain 4 credits worth of material. I was unable to make the majority of the optional weekly review sessions,
and it seems that these sessions were less of an optional refresher and more of a substitute class. Despite this
my overall impression of Prof. Roberts is that she is very capable and is able to explain complicated tax concepts
in a concise and cogent manner.
The professor did a really good job making dense and difficult material into something that was a lot easier to
digest. It was clear that professor Roberts put in the work to help improve the learning experience of the
students, and provided numerous resources and material to help achieve this. As someone with no tax or
financial background, I was extremely worried coming into this class, and I felt that my fears were a reality during
the first week of school. Thankfully, through the instruction and assistance of Professor Roberts, I was able to
overcome these nerves and actually come to enjoy the course. While I did not think I would like tax entering the
class (I took it because I thought it was foundational), it actually turned out to be a very informative and dare I
say interesting class, because of Professor Roberts.
It is obvious that Professor Roberts knows her material and cares about her students. She provides a variety of
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
1 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM

2. opportunities and materials outside of lecture to help us understand Federal Income Taxation. She may not be
the greatest lecturer, but what she lacks in lecturing skills she more than makes up for through care for her
students. You can drop by her office hours, attend her review sessions to get your questions answered. She is
an approachable professor which makes asking questions less intimidating. Overall, I would recommend her to
other students and take another class with her.
All the resources were great in helping understand the material. The outlines were exceptionally helpful in seeing
how things fit together. Might be better to have outlines or something else in the powerpoint slides for students to
make sure they got all the points that they needed to hit during readings. I had difficulty conceptualizing and
understanding certain units because there was so much going on. It would be nice to have a portion of class
each thing individually in each unit then tying them all together so I see how they work and don't conflate one
subject with another. Overall course was difficult but we made it through.
I find some of the regulations are hard to navigate therefore I hope the professor can probably give more
guidance on worksheet when we first approach the rules.
I am very appreciative of the HW assignments because it forced us to work with the material as we went. The
statutory worksheets were also very helpful. Professor Roberts was extremely accommodating and made herself
available for review sessions and office hours every week.
(1) Classroom Activities: Explanations, hypotheticals, slides, discussion, working through the statutory language
of the code and regs, working through the problems on the whiteboard. The explanations were clear, the
hypotheticals were useful because they directly mirrored the quality of question that appeared on the midterm
and will appear on the final. I really liked the pattern of looking at the statute or reg first, highlighting the important
part, then going to the casebook for law. I think there should be a set pattern, rather than trying to read the cases
first and then subsequently trying to reference the code. Working on the problems through the clicker would have
been fun. (2) Interactive Materials: Statutory worksheets, problem sets, additional practice problems, clicker
quizzes. The statutory worksheets should be mandatory. I kept forgetting to do them, because I would read the
assignment, work through the problems, tab my code, underline the statute, then forget to do the worksheet,
because it was sometimes unclear whether or how much of the worksheet we would go over in class. The
problems were helpful, but Prof. Roberts own problems in the slides were better; I like clicker quizzes and this
was only one of three classes where we did them all of law school. I prefer clicker quizzes that test points of
knowledge BAR -STYLE, rather than problem-based questions that take a lot of time to solve and then input an
answer. UNLESS the problems are the ones from the assignment, in which case it would be good to see how the
class is doing on the problems as a whole. (3) Supplemental Support: Additional practice problems, access to
past midterm and final exams and "best of" answers from prior classes, skeleton outline, regular review
sessions, access to recordings of classes and review sessions, office hours. past midterms were absolutely the
most helpful material. I would not have done as well on the midterm or in class or at review sessions without that
kind of help. The skeleton outlines are good, but they make me worry that the Prof accidentally or intentionally
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
2 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM

3. left something out and cause me to rely on what was included, rather than search for what was excluded. I
couldn't really make it to office hours or review sessions because of other commitments (externships, classes,
pro bono commitments). (4) Grading: Weekly homework, midterm, provision of your marked midterm exam with
the grading rubric for the midterm, class participation. The midterm was a good part of the class; when there's a
midterm, I start to outline for the class early, compartmentalize topics well before the final; when the final comes
along, I already have half the class outlined. Prof should have forced more participation from some of the class
who basically never talked, never had their books, never volunteered, never showed up. (5) Other: New Science
of Learning excerpts, information on how to optimize learning. <-- I don't have an opinion about this, but I think it
helped others.
The calculations performed on the board were hard to follow due to the projection screen covering the
whiteboard. If the calculations were clearly done step by step on powerpoint while clearly identifying what each
step entailed or done slowly on the board with the projection screen retracted it would have been much easier to
follow. The stat worksheets and outline were very helpful.
(1) Classroom Activities: Explanations, hypotheticals, slides, discussion, working through the statutory language
of the code and regs, working through the problems on the whiteboard. (2) Interactive Materials: Statutory
worksheets, problem sets, additional practice problems, clicker quizzes. -- The Classroom exeprience was
mixed, during the first half of the semester we spent a lot of time reading statues straight from the codebook
rather than engaging in discussion as a class, however, Professor Roberts asked us to complete a mid-semester
evaluation of her teaching abilities and responded to the class's overwhelming request to stop reading the
plain-text of the statute and begin working more problems. Since then, Professor Roberts has scheduled in-class
quizzes (which do not affect the grades of students) at the end of each week to allow the students to test their
knowledge of the material and if there is a common question that presents difficulty to the class, Professor
Roberts will cover the relevant legal issue in depth. Additionally she covered the homework problems in class
which were useful to me as I would review my answers over the answers provided in class to compare and
contrast my answers and identify areas of improvement. The worksheets were amazingly helpful and allowed the
reading to be guided instead of wondering what the relevant material in the pages of reading were. (3)
Supplemental Support: Additional practice problems, access to past midterm and final exams and "best of"
answers from prior classes, skeleton outline, regular review sessions, access to recordings of classes and
review sessions, office hours. (4) Grading: Weekly homework, midterm, provision of your marked midterm exam
with the grading rubric for the midterm, class participation. (5) Other: New Science of Learning excerpts,
information on how to optimize learnin
Would you recommend this class to a friend?
Yes. null
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
3 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM

4. Yes. null
Yes. null
Yes. null
Yes. Professor Roberts is a very nice person, but class was confusing. I did not like the organization of the class.
We were required to turn in homework before the material so I often had no idea what was going on when I did
the homework. The textbook is confusing in how it lays out material. I wish we had turned in homework after
going over the material, maybe Professor Roberts can post the solution keys so we don't take time from class to
go over the homework.
Yes. The amount of information the professor provides in addition to the main coursework is exceptional. At first I
was wary because I felt it might be overburdensome, but I realized that it helped improve my learning experience
by giving me a plethora of material to work with.
Yes. Professor did a lot of extra work to ensure material was learned by students. Above and beyond.
Yes. Professor Roberts provides a variety of opportunities and materials outside of lecture to help us understand
Federal Income Taxation. She hosts weekly review sessions, provides homework questions, and prior exam
questions with answers to help us understand the material.
Yes. She is an amazing professor. She goes above and beyond to help students learn a very difficult subject.
Unlike other law professors who do not care whether their students learn the material (and just lecture non-stop),
professor Roberts actually gives homework (which she goes over in class), has weekly review sessions, and
helps us outline the course. I think UC Hastings would be lucky to have more professors like her.
Yes. A lot of opportunities to practice with online resources, E&E corresponding pages, and weekly hw. Tax
reading was boring but professor made the subject very interesting.
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
4 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM

5. Yes. I think this is a very useful class particularly if you want to pursue corporate law.
Yes. Yes, made a subject I was not interested in originally very interesting.
Yes. Tax is much more important than I expected, and pertains directly to the work I did at a law firm as an intern.
I would recommend individual taxation w Professor Roberts because she is more clear and steady-paced than
other professors, and she doesn't go off on tangents that are unrelated or too complex for the purposes of the
class.
Yes. The amount of extra materials provided were very helpful but the lectures were hard to follow.
Yes. Professor Roberts is a great teacher and has made every effort to be transparent with students and make
the income tax code as clear as possible. My only issue with her in class teaching style is her difficulty
responding to comments that may be outside the scope of her lecture. However, Professor Roberts seems
aware of this fact and makes every effort to answer the same question by scheduling 4 hours of Office Hours
and is also willing to respond to questions by email. All in all, Professor Roberts is a good teacher who will
become more successful as she gains more experience.
Criteria Average & Std Dev
Overall Teaching Ability
Avg: 4.36 SD: 0.72
Quality of Materials
Avg: 4.67 SD: 0.60
Knowledge and Subject Mastery
Avg: 4.86 SD: 0.35
Organization and Clarity
Avg: 4.00 SD: 1.13
Use of Public Policy/Ethics
Avg: 4.40 SD: 0.71
Responsiveness/Respect for Ideas
Avg: 4.36 SD: 0.72
Professor's availability to students
Avg: 4.87 SD: 0.34
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
5 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM

6. Course Summary
Number of students: 17
Number of responses: 15
Participation rate: 88.24%
Semester Summary
Number of Student Evaluations: 2947
Number of Student Course Participants: 4576
Semester Participation Rate: 64.40%
kScope https://uchastings.force.com/UCH_Academics?currentpage=paceresults...
6 of 6 5/18/2016 12:16 PM