Professor Gilbert is definitely a nice person, but do I want her teaching a class I don't know anything about? Never. Her lectures do nothing in terms of enriching your knowledge and sometimes even confuse you because of her convoluted explanation. Everyone that did well in this class did not do well because of her lectures, but because of his/her own knowledge of ecology and self-studying on Launchpad. The material is easy enough, but Gilbert will swoop in with an hour-long lecture (that we were ALWAYS behind schedule on, by the way) and spend half of that time doing only one of two clicker questions. I completely understand the reasoning behind group learning and peer discussion, but it sometimes seemed repetitive and a waste of time. The TA's however, are all extremely skilled in the subject and walk around the lecture hall to explain difficult concepts.

I'll keep this short and simple. Professor Gilbert is a sweet and kind person, but she would often get flustered trying to explain the material. You're better off teaching yourself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Princess is sweet, but her TA's are better off teaching the class. The whole quarter I felt like she should've been doing the Launchpad assignments too.

Just like all of the 7 series, the professor doesn't matter too much. But I'll be honest, Professor Gilbert was really sweet but not the best at explaining clicker questions. I tried to pay attention at the beginning of the quarter but totally gave up around week 4 or so. The tests, aside from already being convoluted (thanks to 7 series lol), had typos and were sometimes really hard to understand.
Do clicker questions, understand learning objectives, skim Launchpad. I thought 7B was better than 7A.

Dr. Gilbert is really, really nice. Just not a great professor in terms of teaching lectures. She definitely tries to get people to listen, but isn't usually successful. If you take the class with her, though, don't worry. Just go to all the lectures (even if you don't take notes) and study the Launchpad, lecture notes, and clicker questions a LOT. Take notes on your own time, do practice stuff, go to all the labs, do all your homework (try not to miss points on Launchpad or labs) and you'll be fine! I would also recommend the Q&A sessions Dr. Gilbert does; she's very generous with her time (they would be 2-3 hours long, not a lot of people go) and a great resource... outside of class.

let me just start this by saying that princess is a really nice person and she tries her absolute best to help everyone as much as she can. she really really cares about her students and the progression of their learning and will try a million different ways to explain it to you if you don’t understand. however, she’s just not a very good teacher most of the time. she explains the wrong answer as right and then struggles to explain why the correct answer is correct, often it was hard to tell if she was even speaking to the whole class or just one student, she contradicts herself all the time, and she just doesn’t understand the way that the 7 series exams are structured like the other teachers do. if you can pinpoint exactly what you’re confused on, she’s great at helping you grasp it better, but if not, find a good TA and glom onto them. the good news is that your teacher really doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of the 7 series. personally, the material in 7B was easier, but I scored far better on exams in 7A because the questions were more straightforward in 7A. the first midterm was incredibly easy because it was a cool 76% Punnet squares and pedigrees, but the second one was all vague true or false that threw me off; it wasn’t hard though, just harder compared to the others. I had Pires before Gilbert and reflecting back, Pires-while condescending-is absolutely a better teacher and because she created the series can teach it better. the point breakdown was very similar to 7A:
Midterm 1: 120
Midterm 2: 120
Clickers: 75
Launchpad Activities: 50
Launchpad End of Week Q’s: 50
Launchpad Reading Q’s: 50
Final: 200
Labs: 150
Gilbert was very nice when grading, and if you got somewhere close to like 90% on launchpad stuff she just rounded it up to 100% and there’s some small extra credit throughout. overall just stick to clicker questions and halfsheets for studying and you’ll be more than fine. the labs are tedious and annoying but super easy, however grading does depend on how nice your TA is. you also have to wear PPE to play with freaking legos in case you didn’t know just how pretentious the 7 series is sometimes.

I enjoyed learning the material in this class (in part because it was more interesting but also because it was conceptually more clear/easier than a class like 7A or 7C was to me). But to confirm others' experiences, there have been times when the professor doesn't know the answer to the clicker questions and/or takes long periods of time to explain them, even if it might not be right. I was definitely "physically present, mentally absent" especially for the second half of the quarter and went solely for clicker participation points. She is definitely a really nice and compassionate person, and I'm sure she is qualified to teach the class. But, I also feel she may need to familiarize herself with the specific course material a little more and develop clear and concise explanations for everything.

I had Leon as a T.A., and I'd definitely recommend as he's really chill and will explain things to you if you ask. But speaking to the "labs" and activities we had to do in general, I'd say some of them were honestly pretty useless and time-wasting like the simulations.

And then just generally to do well, like in other classes in the LS7 series, you need to maximize the easy points on Launchpad/clicker/labs, study learning objectives and clicker questions, and don't screw up too much on exams.

Very nice but isn't good at explaining things

Princess would often get confused when answering questions, most of the time the TAs would have to help/correct her. I don't feel like she understood the material much herself so trying to communicate it to the class is even harder. I had to teach myself.

Princess Gilbert, like many of the other reviews, is a great person but not the best professor. Wait for a different professor to teach this class if you can.