Dude. This class is so annoying. There are hours of pre-lecture material due before every class that is just regurgitated during class time. The professors act nice but then don't even include their emails and only use CampusWire where they only answer a few people and have really delayed responses. This whole class is basically a social experiment. There are no grades (A/F scale), weird pod groups where you have to go over some topics that sometimes have no relation to class material, and just really weird ways to earn points to pass this class. They believe that by eliminating grades they are actually allowing us to learn better and have less work. But it is actually the opposite as you are constantly bogged down with tons of work and constantly worried if you are doing enough to pass as there is so much to do and very little communication from the professors. The material is pretty easy as I took AP Bio in high school and its like the same stuff but these professors are insanely ignorant to how a class should be structured and how people learn.

Pretty hard class. Very annoying exams. i feel like it tested how well exam could be taken and not how much I had learned. Dr.Maloy is a very nice person, but this class is not my favorite, simply because of how exams are structured.

I took this class Fall 2020. Maloy was a great professor. He was accommodating and understanding. He posted the slides before class time, so, you were able to review them. He does have clicker questions during class, but they are not graded based on accuracy; they're based on completion. I think as long as you did 70% of them you would get full points. In the quarter I took him, he offered 12 points of extra credit. The homework was on launchpad. Some weeks there was a lot of reading, some weeks it wasn't too bad. We had 2 midterms and a final exam. Maloy hosted 2-3 review sessions before each exam and they were very helpful. I would take him again.

I enjoyed this class and would definitely recommend that you take it with Dr. Maloy. Maloy does his best to help each student learn the material and always makes himself available to answer questions and help clarify the material. He emphasizes group work and has his students participate in after class group activities and group phases of exams (which usually help your grade). On top of this, for my class he collaborated with Dr. Braybrook to host pre-exam review sessions and in order to help answer questions in the chat. Overall, you definitely have to put in some effort to do well in this class, but more than enough resources are provided for you to do so.

Enthusiastic and helpful professor. He will answer the questions. However, I don't like the flipped classroom. You have to tons of reading of the textbook after class, and during the class, you are supposed to know everything and should start to solve problems. Not funny. Also, this professor can really zheng huo, meaning he creates various assignments for you to finish and submit. Learning pod, discussion worksheet, iclicker question (if you are at a different time zone, you need to do the makeup questions), Launchpad assignments. Launchpad quizzes... Just too many things. Easy to miss one or two (it's ok to miss only one or two tho).
I should also say you should definitely not try to choose LS7A to fulfill your GE requirement if you did not take AP Bio or AP Chem or something like that.

Professor Maloy is the best. I frickin' love this man. He teaches this class super well and really gives students opportunities to succeed. His lectures are engaging and definitely help you prepare for the exam. Whenever you are confused, going to his office hours will definitely help you in your studies. I will say that launchpad, the book we read, is fairly tedious and kinda annoying to read, but definitely read as he might not mention everything in the reading during class. As for the content, think of it as AP bio but buff as in it is AP biology that goes into a little more detail on certain cell processes, but not too much detail. Studying advice: don't reread launchpad. Instead, look at the clicker questions, questions we answer during class and attend problem solving sessions, sessions where he reviews questions that will be similar to ones on the final. I should also mention that this class is super application based. Memorizing every little detail will only get you so far, so you need to be able to apply the knowledge that you learn during class to certain situations. The most common example is, "if one part of a cellular process stops working, what will happen to another cellular process?" Overall, would 100% recommend taking LS 7A with Professor Maloy, no matter what! (Note: this class for me was taken online because COVID was a thing)

Maloy is one of the sweetest professors I've had. His class is not too difficult and his lectures are very participation heavy so it's hard to fall behind. We used iClicker (an app and website) to replace actual clickers and we still use Launchpad. I found the Launchpad assignments to be mainly busy work but there is a lot of information in the book. The exams were really easy because of the format Maloy used. Exams would have two phases: the individual phase for the first 24 hours and the group phase for 2 days after that. During the group phase, we're free to work with people Maloy assigned into our group and can change as many answers as we want (but we have to give written responses as to why we're changing them). Because of this, the exams were really easy to get high A's on. Overall, this class is pretty chill in the online format and has mild problems with busywork (Launchpad).

Maloy is an absolute king. Not only did he adapt well to online learning because of COVID, he also was super lenient to us because of all the hectic stuff going on in the country. Like this guy seriously empathizes with his students and understands.
As for the class itself, I am an engineering student and was told by other engineering students that this class was going to be easy and basically a GPA boost, and they were right. If you had good teachers in high school for AP Bio, this class is basically just a review of everything you did there, and it's a breeze. The only homework is launchpad assignments, which everyone complains about, but I really did not think they were that bad. We had launchpad due two times a week, Tuesday and Thursday, and each assignment literally only took me an hour. On rare occasions maybe like an hour and a half, but also sometimes less than an hour. (I also never took notes on the launchpad material, I know some people do). The tests are not too bad, either; sometimes he puts in some really tricky questions, but even after getting those wrong you can still get an A / high B. I did not study for any of the tests.
Discussion sections and lecture are both mandatory. Both give you grades for participation, and they try to make everything super collaborative. So it's super easy to make friends.

Launchpad was pretty worthless I started just skimming through it later in the class. Clicker questions are important but every time he asks one he makes us talk to our neighbors which wastes so much class time.

Launchpad SUCKS! They really need to get rid of the system because I, like a lot of students who don't benefit from the study methods forced on us by launchpad, end up having to redo the material again on my own time. Did pretty terribly on a midterm and the final as well but somehow the curve managed to save me. The TAs are really helpful and so are the problem solving sessions. If you want to succeed in this class, master how to answer these questions and not the content itself. Its a twisted system but that's what it is.