Selected Teaching Evaluations: Introduction to Social Data Analysis Lab Course (Fall 2019; Spring 2020)

“Greer Mellon is one of the best instructors I’ve had across all my educational history. She is very knowledgeable about both statistical concepts and best practices in R… She cultivated an exceptional learning environment where students are encouraged and unafraid to ask questions, and always went above and beyond to provide a comprehensive answer. Interpersonally, she is amicable, good-humored, and attentive: a star of the department.”

“Greer is an exceptionally clear instructor. I found that she often boiled down the lecture content to its essential components, communicating it a form that made the ideas ‘click’ in a much more intuitive way. If I did not feel confident in my understanding of the material before lab, I left on much more stable footing.This is all to say: Greer is the best, and I feel very(!) fortunate to have had her as a teacher and mentor this year. I came into the statistics sequence without anticipating that l would have much personal interest in quantitative work, though I knew would find it useful. Now I am excited about building my quantitative skillset, and I plan to take more statistics classes in future semesters. Greer deserves much credit for my change in perspective over the course of the year.”

“Greer was simply brilliant. Not only was she highly competent in answering all our questions but she was also kind enough to make us feel comfortable in asking some of “stupid” questions.”

“Greer is masterful at summarizing and explaining tricky concepts comprehensively but concisely. I often arrived at lab with a somewhat shaky understanding of what happened during lecture, and always felt much greater clarity within minutes of Greer’s review of the material. Greer made lab a welcoming space, where all questions, ranging from minor coding issues to confusion about model assumptions, were answered with “that’s a great question!” Statistics has never felt so approachable. I felt able to come with all of my confusions and uncertainties, knowing I would leave with a stronger understanding. Greer seemed to have a strong knowledge of current practices and research in quantitative sociology, and it was great when she shared what she’s learned in her own research! It made the class material feel so much more relevant, and current. Assignments were always graded and returned in a timely way with detailed suggestions for improvement, which I feel has vastly improved the way I write about and present statistical research. I feel so grateful to have had Greer as our TA”

Selected Teaching Evaluations: Introduction to Social Data Analysis Lab Course (Fall 2018; Spring 2019)

“I can’t speak highly enough of Greer! Over the course of the semester, she’s been incredibly organized and dedicated to making sure we all got the support we needed to get the most out of the class. She created a new slide deck each week that very clearly and succinctly summarized information from the lecture that week and walked us through examples in Stata. (These are going to be incredible references for me in the future.) Greer is skilled at explaining difficult concepts. I appreciated that whenever she didn’t know the answer to any of our questions, she ALWAYS took the time to find the answer and follow-up with the class. This is just one of many examples of her commitment to teaching. She was very responsive to questions via e-mail and would often follow-up with a response within a few hours. In addition to a deep substantive knowledge of statistics and Stata, Greer was very helpful in providing guidance for our projects–whether that be helping us to trouble shoot data cleaning challenges, helping us find data, or giving feedback on considerations we should keep in mind as we move forward. She also always provided thorough and timely feedback on our problem sets and even adjusted her lectures to go back over concepts we seemed to miss as a class. Finally, I appreciated that Greer organized the lab in a way that not only made sure we knew how to use stata and how to apply these concepts, but also in a way that we could take these skills and use them to either read or write a quantitative paper. Overall, this lab portion of the course has been so critical for my growth as a quantitative sociologist, and I am so grateful to Greer for her organization, patience, and commitment.”

“Greer was excellent! She was able to break down the skills needed to conduct quant research to details and went through the math and logic behind the materials with us. I can’t think of ways that would improve her teaching!“

“Greer has extensive knowledge of the subject and makes it accessible to students. She gives helpful, relevant feedback on problem sets and in class. She also did a great job teaching some of the skills not traditionally covered in statistics courses, such as effective data visualization and data cleaning. She is very approachable and kind to students, no matter how simple or complex the question.”

“Greer is super approachable and at the same time, very methodical, thorough and effective in her teaching. I think her teaching style really shines in a class like this where people have questions they’re afraid might seem naive but are in fact on everyone’s mind. I felt very comfortable asking any questions to her, which is certainly not the case in other classes.”