[dj_money]

Hey everyone!

I can say with full confidence that this course will be the worst course I will have taken over my four years at McMaster (and I am just going to be entering my second year in September '08). While I agree that there were students who absolutely enjoyed this course, I was certainly wasn't one of them.

This course, like its predecessor (Biology 1A03), was taught by four professors:

- Dr. Hayward
- Dr. Dudley
- Dr. Dushoff
- Dr. Kajuira

I would suggest that whoever is reading this should refer to the Professor reviews, where I will be talking about each of the four professors.

Back to this course... I found that only the material taught by Dr. Hayward (which was all about Darwin and evolution) to be related to what I had learned in Grade 12 biology. However, I had friends who felt that a lot of the material learned in this course was review of Grade 12. So, I guess it really depends on what school you came from.

I mentioned that one of the topics taught in this course if Darwin and evolution. Apart from that, this course also discusses the different plant and animal kingdoms. Dr. Kajuira had asked us to know the specific scientific names of each of the species we had been taught (and yes, a few of them were asked on the second midterm and the final exam).

This course features the big PBL group project, which is worth 10% of the final mark. This project aactually spans the majority of the term, culminating in group presentations. All the topics revolved around some ongoing issue in Hamtilon. My group and I were researching on improving the quality of water entering the Hamilton Harbour. Another topic was researching ways to improve the air quality in Hamilton. For this project, students meet with their group weekly (varying per group) and with a project TA biweekly. The project TA would assess the group during the meetings (based on preparedness, progress, etc.). Also, some of the project TAs were responsible for evaluating the group reports handed in (one TA would evaluate all the reports handed in for one topic, while another would mark all reports for another topic).

Apart from the PBL project, there were two midterms and one exam. The midterms consisted of multiple choice questions and short-answer questions. I found the multiple choices questions on the midterms to be tricky. Usually, it would be my mark on the short-answer section that would boost my overall test mark. The exam was a hundred multiple choice questions (yes, it gets quite tiring after you get to about 70 questions) that were based on all topics covered in the course. Most of the questions were general, however there were some questions (by Dr. Kajuira) that were specific (like the scientific name of a certain species).

There are also labs to hand in, which are relatively easy and should help your final mark. With the labs and tests, there were also pre-lab and pre-test quizzes. These quizzes were timed, but students were given multipled tries to get the highest mark possible.

This course, like Biology 1A03, featured a Lab Test. Personally, I hated the labs and didn't bother staying for the entire 3 hours (I would leave about 1 hour in the labs) which costed me when it came time for the lab test. This test, which was open book, tested students on information collection during their time in the labs and they were specific! I still remember one question on the test was: How many eyes does Rita have? As soon as I read it, I was like "what in the world...?" It turns out that Rita was a spider!! Well anyways, the lab test was about 40 multiple choice questions and can be a real mark booster if one prepares for it thoroughly.

There is also a newspaper assignment, where students have to read a journal article and summarize its findings in a limited amount of words. Depending on which TA marks it (it will not be you lab TA), it can be a mark booster or not.

This course also featured tutorials. In my opinion, the tutorials were very helpful, especially for Dr. Dudley's materials (because I wasn't really taking notes during her lectures). The tutorials were able to cover the important concepts and summarize them in a way students would understand. The tutorials are led by senior students, who were all once enrolled in this course. So, they know and understand which concepts give students the most trouble and accordingly, they focus on them the most.

Overall, I really hated this course. With all due respect to Ecology/Evolution majors, I cannot think of anything worse to study. But, that is just my opinion. If you are the type that enjoys learning about plants and animals, this course will be a blast for you!

Good luck to everyone!

I took this course back in 06/07, so I had different professors.

Dr. Quinn taught the first portion and he was very interesting. I really nejoyed listening to hime and his slide show picture of the different animals. I even still rmb siting ther eany being really amazed by his stories and research. However, his exam questions were very difficult. It might be just the material or something. He is a good lecturer with good stories to tell, but hard questions.

Then it was Dr. Dudley.. OMG i would sit there in class, and try to not fall asleep! i'd hae my friends poke me or we'd poke each other to stay awake.. she has a really boring voice and don't really understand anything she says. Apparently, she is suppose to be better in the plant bio class in second year. Her questions were normal, nothing that bad, but still boring boring boring.

Kajiura was the same as 1a03 style. However, the material she was teaching was obviously things we have to memorize. I don't really blame her because it is all names of the different organism classes. It was teadious to memorize it, but what isn't. I dont' blame her. but her exam questions were a bit difficult. really know your stuff!

Labs. This was the worse part of the entire course. The labs with the rooms and we had to write down everything for our lab test. Alot of peopel gave up and decided to just leave the lab and not stay. I for one, was not like that. I decided to stay and write down everything because I was paranoid and scared of the lab test. Seriously, if you wnated to write down everything, you will definatley need to say longer than 3 hours. Unless you write super fast. I guess in the end it paid off cause I got only 2 questions wrong on the lab test but still... they make it too hard for the students. and the lab is also very pointless and boring. should give more interesting labs!

In general, not as fun as bio1a03 in my opinion and was harder than it too. so work harder and don't slack off as much.

Originally Posted by dj_money

I can say with full confidence that this course will be the worst course I will have taken over my four years at McMaster (and I am just going to be entering my second year in September '08)

Amen. Incoming first year life sciences students are very fortunate not to have to take this class.

Organization
Biology 1AA3 is just a poorly ran course. Biology's instructional assistants (the people you need to email if you have an administrative inquiry) are very slow in returning emails, despite being a team of 3 people. I remember sending them an email about my PBL and receiving a vague response a week later with absolutely no follow through. You can argue that they have to manage and service 1200 students, but first year chemistry had to deal with 1500 and still did a much better job communicating with their students. Furthermore, bio has a lecture TA that attends all of the lectures, takes notes and can answer students' questions during his office hours. His office hours ran wednesdays and fridays from 2:30-3:30 (basically 1 hour a week) which is completely insufficient to cater to 1200 students in a course where some of the content can get tricky. To make things even more complicared, the lecture TA was also one of the intrustional assistants, and if you had an administrative question instead of an academic one, you'd still have to visit him during his lecture-related office hours (which got very busy, especially during exams).

Labs
When I was writing this review, I was hesistant about even calling those three hour long walkabouts labs. This is hands down the worst part of the course. You basically go around taking pages full of irrelevant notes on scientific articles and sketching random animal and plant phyla. Labs are suppose to give you hands on experience to techniques and applications pertinent to the course content. Instead, they made us count beans from a jar and tried to fill a lab slot with the PBL presentation. It seems like the course coordinators did not put any effort in the labs whatsoever. I felt like my high school ecology labs were a lot more useful than these ones.

PBL (Problem Based Learning) Project
Good concept, very poor execution. They tried introducing us to important environmental problems plaguing the Hamilton area by having us research a specific topic in groups, write a solution to it and present it to your lab section. My issue with the PBL was, well, the PBL model itself. It seemed like we were just googling both the problem and solution, instead of learning the solution by researching the problem. Additionally, while the role of the Project TA was to guide the groups during the project, it seems like (from my experience) the sole purpose of the project TA was to create an unnecessary formality to ensure students were meeting with their groups; which would be acceptable, if we were in grade school. I remember being especially frustrated by the lack of guidance from our Project TA when we received our report back and ended up losing marks in areas where our TA said we were doing fine. For a world renowned model that is suppose to be the epitome of the McMaster medical school, I was very disappointed by the PBL model.

Professors and Lectures
Because this class is taught by four different professors (Hayward, Kajiura, Dushoff and Dudley when I took it) with four very different teaching styles, it's hard to generalize the effectiveness of the lectures for the entire course. I found that Hayward's lectures where charismatic yet overly simplified, while Dudley's lectures were informative yet really, really boring.

Overall, Biology 1AA3's biggest weakness is the course administration. The course content isn't hard at all, but with most University courses, you'll need to put in a decent amount of work to get a good grade in this class.

Hopefully Biology 1M03 works out better for future students.

I agree with the above!