Maloy is a very kind, helpful, and welcoming professor. As long as you know that the studying also falls on you, and if you know the right questions to ask, you can and will be very successful in this class. Furthermore, Maloy incorporates a group phase for the exams that are not only wonderful grade boosters but also wonderful opportunities for students to review and correct the mistakes they made on their midterms/final.

IMPORTANT: The content in lecture slides is far more important than LaunchPad material, so focus on that. It is far likelier that you will encounter a problem or a concept that was reviewed during lecture slides rather than a trivial fact or question in the LaunchPad textbook. Hopefully, this helps you prioritize what you plan on studying, so that you can study efficiently and save lots of time.

Maloy is one of the best professors I've ever had! His lectures were always so fun and engaging, and he's really great at explaining concepts. Reversed classroom is difficult to adapt to at first, but once you get the hang of his format, this class is very straightforward.
People love to hate on Launchpad, but I think it's important to at least read through to get a general background on the information. However, it is a waste to re-read the book to prepare for exams. The exams in this class are mostly application MC questions. The best way to study for this is by a) going to the CLC sessions (these are SO helpful and very similar to exam questions), b) reviewing clicker questions, c) attending Maloy's exam review sessions, and d) reviewing learning objectives if you have time. That will set you up to ace your exams in this class! Good luck (:

*COVID Edition*

Dr. Maloy and Dr. Braybrook taught the course together. Dr. Maloy gave the first half of the lectures while Dr. B would respond to questions in the chat, and vice versa during the second half. Both are wonderful, kind, and bright, professors and people in general. There are A LOT of moving parts in this class. As you've probably already heard or read, Launchpad is the worst, but it doesn't seem like much can be done about it, so you just have to power through it. I started skimming through Launchpad towards the end of the course and found that lectures, office hours, discussion sections, and CLC Problem-Solving Sessions were way more worth your time. Lectures are mandatory because iClicker Reef is utilized. There are 2 midterms and a final, both of which had an individual phase and a group phase. The exams were almost purely application-based rather than memorization, so working through clicker questions, CLC worksheets, discussion worksheets, PEQs, and creating similar practice problems from those help greatly. Practice is KEY. Form virtual study groups if you can! Collaborating with classmates was really helpful in understanding concepts. There is some leeway for points if you miss a couple of assignments (but trust me, do your best to keep up and write down due dates somewhere), and there are also opportunities for extra credit (which you should take!). I personally did not enjoy this class, but it was manageable and I got through it. The professors and learning team are really supportive, and I found it comforting that I was not the only one struggling! My TA was Maddie Zuercher, and she was nice!

I absolutely enjoyed my first quarter with Professor Maloy. He was a great lecturer and so understanding when it came to technical difficulties (especially with COVID-19). I truly learned a lot in this class and I think it was due to the flipped classroom style. It definitely is more challenging, but you get more out of it. That being said, I did do Launchpad before each lecture and did my best not to skim, although a lot of people just overlook it. I do agree it's pretty time-consuming, but it did help my understanding of the material. There's room for mistakes in the grading, which I really appreciate, so you can miss a few points on practice exam questions, discussion worksheets, clicker questions, etc. and still get a great grade in the class. Definitely go to office hours as much as possible, as Prof. Maloy cleared up much confusion on harder topics as well. These professors really want you to succeed, and they do so via their office hours, problem-solving sessions, and PEQs. I really recommend this class.

Pretty organized, medium workload, an overwhelming variety of resources to study from but office hours and problem-solving sessions are particularly helpful for exams.

As someone who doesn't have too strong of a background in biology, I'm glad I took this course with Dr. Maloy. He is very qualified and always explains important concepts thoroughly and clearly. His slides are well organized and he provides the necessary study tools to succeed on exams (iclicker questions, slides, exam review sessions, office hours, etc.). The exams and grading of the course were fair in my opinion.

Course Breakdown:

-Midterm 1- 90 points
(2 stages: Closed book individual stage and then open book group phase with 3 randomly assigned peers. Your score is the average of your individual phase and group phase.)
-Midterm 2- 120 points (2 stages)
-Final Exam- 200 points (2 stages)
-Reflection assignments- 10 points (easy free points)
-Discussion section participation- 72 points (Worksheet with your TA and discussion group. Based on accuracy as well as participation)
-Lecture participation- 68 points (up to 4 points each lecture, can get full credit for clicking into 75% of the questions that day)
-Launchpad assignments- 45 points (Busy work in my opinion, didn't help me for exams)
-Weekly pre-class review questions- 45 points (still busy work from launchpad)
- Weekly practice exam questions- 45 points (graded on accuracy)
- Total: 695 points without EC

The exams were manageable because of the two stage system. Additionally, as long as you understand concepts and diagrams, you should be able to answer the questions without memorizing anything because he provides the relevant diagrams on the exams. I used lecture slides and iclicker questions to study and went to the exam review sessions and got A's on all the exams. (Launchpad was too time consuming and didn't help me.) The launchpad assignments, lecture participation, and discussion participation all have a little leeway (ex. you can miss one lecture and still get full credit in lecture participation). This quarter, there were probably about 10 points of extra credit offered, but since there were a total of 695 points, the EC made a minimal difference in the end. The only new thing this quarter was learning pods, where you're grouped with five peers from your discussion section. We met twice a week for about 15 minutes after each lecture to work on some ungraded problems he assigned us. Learning pods didn't really help me for exams, but it was nice to meet people at least.

Overall: Highly recommend this professor for this course.

This class was definitely a challenging start, especially being online, but overall was a very good experience. The launchpad sometimes was a little bit obnoxious but what I actually found most helpful is just reading through and not taking notes. Before the first midterm I spent hours going through launchpad and taking notes but by the time the final had come around I had started just reading through launchpad and taking notes during lecture which I recommend. The exams are all about application so while it is important to know the information, focusing on the LA worksheets and clicker questions is the most helpful. All exams were averaged between an individual and a group score which was a godsend as well as the I believe 10 possible extra credit points.
I did not find office hours helpful because the zoom would have 50 people in it so most of the time my questions wouldn't be answered, but it was helpful to hear the answers of other people's questions. Overall I LOVED Maloy and Braybrook and would highly recommend this class with these professors.

I took this class online during COVID, so it was hard to really learn the material. Maloy is great and tried his best to help everyone as much as he could. Launchpad is worthless, don't spend too much time on it. If you finish all your assignments and study for the midterms and final you should do well, and Maloy is a great professor. I definitely recommend.

I think Maloy does a pretty good job explaining topics and content. He also provided a ton of resources and opportunities to get help in the class, and he is easily approachable. I didn't like the flipped classroom set-up too much because personally I didn't have enough motivation to learn all the material thoroughly before the lecture and the LaunchPad was a decent amount of work, but his lectures are engaging and very helpful in learning the material. He held review sessions before the midterms, and gave useful assignments too. He cares about his students, and was very understanding/accommodating of the various issues that came up during these past few months.

Professor Maloy is god's gift to UCLA. He is an amazing lecturer who makes the more difficult concepts covered quite simple. One thing I recommend is to focus more on his lectures than the Launchpad, as the tests in the class are the concepts covered on the lectures. The Launchpad seems kind of excessive with the information it contains. Other than that, I really appreciate the individual/group testing and the various LA learning sessions that were provided. Just make sure to understand the concepts in lectures through clicker questions and you'll do fine!