Student Commentaries

Prathna Lor | Teaching Portfolio — Student Commentary

"Professor Lor was really good at providing lectures which weaved the material with highever [sic] level ideas and applications of the texts, which really helped me to understand the implication and meaning behind these often challenging and dense (but enjoyable!) books."

"Lectures were approachable and relatable. Prathna offered very insightful, new ways of interpreting literature and the world which made my semester and experience in the class particularly exciting."

“[Prathna’s] techniques were extremely helpful for my learning style. [Prathna] did not repeat what happened in lecture, instead [Prathna] offered clarification when needed and introduced interesting and helpful new ideas to the table. I especially liked how [Prathna] encouraged us to participate and gave us many opportunities to contribute to the conversation but [Prathna] did not pressure us.”

"I love your class so much, I was planning to approach you closer to exams to say this, but I think I will let you know in this email instead.

I love your lectures so much; I will definitely miss them as I move forth with the new year. I have genuinely learned so much in your class and I have also taken your tips and realized that they have actually changed my life. Your class was definitely my favourite for this term.

For instance, I have started writing almost every day and I have just noticed that I am a happier person. Also, through tackling examples of writing pieces such as summaries or abstracts, I have learned how to become a better writer and a better reader. Examples in your class have helped me so much.

I love speaking and contributing during lectures as well, you have created such a comfortable environment and a safe place as well. I am certain future students will enjoy your class as much as I did in the future. It makes me extremely happy and over the moon that you read my articles in the school's paper - thank you!"

"Effective Writing was definitely a very useful course to have started off my academic career with. Not only was the writing advice you gave me crucial for making it this far in all the reading and writing intensive courses I have found myself in since, but the environment you created in your lecture hall was very important, especially for a first year, first semester class. You truly made us feel understood as students, and it definitely kept me from being intimidated by the new environment. Narrative was my favourite class in the second semester, and I truly looked forward to coming to class every day. Our discussions and the careful and interesting selection of reads made the class amazing. Aside from my inability to grasp poetry (which you made me feel much better about when I admitted that I was first daunted by the amount of poetry in the syllabus), doing readings for your class was enjoyable, and that was definitely a first for my university career. I want to thank you for those courses because I enjoyed them a lot."

"I really appreciated the amount of time and effort Prathna put into the comments after grading a paper. [Prathna] provided a lot of detail on what was done well and what could be improved. This feedback helped to point me in the right direction for my future papers and I did improve significantly throughout the course because of [their] feedback."

Professor Lor's lectures were greatly informative for me, and helped me understand course works much better. The structure of the lectures were flexible and greatly conducive to my learning. It was also great how Professor Lor always stressed the importance of students' mental health, and always encouraged us to try our hardest in this course and all our courses despite these unprecedented times.