Launchpad takes SO LONG. Also, I came in with solid AP Bio knowledge, but still found the exams quite tricky because of wording--I still managed to get an A on the midterms and final though. Your exam grades are an average of your individual attempt and when you take the exam again after discussing your answers with your group, which really helps your grade. My advice would be to go to office hours because his office hours are very helpful, DEFINITELY go to review sessions before the exams because the same questions show up on exams, and study the clicker questions (!) and PEQs because similar ones show up on the exams. Also, don't spend too much time on launchpad because the relevant stuff will show up on lecture slides.

Professor Maloy is a great professor and explains things thoroughly. I think the way that the class is formatted, which I think is the general format of the LS7A classes regardless of the teacher, gave a lot of room for you to have bad grades on a few assignments while still maintaining an overall good grade. The exams have a group portion which really helped raise my test grades, and you're allowed to miss a week's worth of content in every category so that makes up for any days where you had a bad score on a certain assignment category. After my first test, I realized that it was much more analytical and required more critical thinking than I thought. It was definitely doable, but a bit challenging because I focused more on memorizing concepts like I did in previous biology classes. However, for these tests, you need to practice using critical thinking by studying the clicker questions, LA worksheets, making up your own questions about how certain processes would be affected if something was changed etc., in order to actually practice going through the thought process behind answering a question, not just skimming over facts. Also, don't just read the questions and their corresponding answers when you're studying and actually try to figure out the answer on your own so that it won't be as difficult to answer questions on the exams. The LA workshops were also extremely helpful because the problems are more challenging and it was helpful working with other classmates together in breakout rooms to solve problems together. Launchpad was an easy way to get points, but the readings could be somewhat tedious. Make sure you don't study or read Launchpad readings to heavily, since all you need to know is in the lectures and the tests focus more on analysis than memorizing facts. Discussion worksheets were pretty easy since the TA's give you the answers at the end even though it's based on accuracy.

Professor Maloy is great. He always makes it his mission that his students are familiar with the content at hand. That being said, the entire LS7 Series is all standardized to the point where It does not matter what professor you get when it comes to the content, grading, and exams. The LS 7 Series is structured horribly in my opinion, the upside down classroom is very frustrating to deal with and is not ideal. The exams are also unnecessarily tricky when it comes to wording and objective. The series basically tests you on how well you can take an exam rather than how well you know the content of the exam. TLDR: Professor Maloy is amazing, the LS7 Series sucks.

I DO NOT blame Dr. Maloy for my low grade in this class at all. Maloy was very engaging, kind, understanding, and helpful, I just didn't take advantage of the resources available to me. However, I did not find the textbook very helpful at all. It was vague, difficult to understand, and briefly touched on subjects discussed in lecture and covered on exams. My only method of studying was to use the textbook (my bad haha), and I failed every exam. I do believe it would have been much more beneficial to have attended more of Maloy's office hours, as he workshopped difficult problems that would be covered on exams, dove deeper into abstract concepts discussed in class, and clarified any questions about the material. That being said, I would 100% advise someone to take this class, but please, please, please do not rely on the textbook to prepare! Take advantage of the numerous resources Maloy provides you!

Maloy explained things so well and was such a good professor online. He was always so excited about everything and is super passionate about teaching.

Dr. Maloy is a great professor! Because LS7A is an intro class, he gives lots of opportunities for extra credit. The way he teaches shows that he cares a lot about student learning and is very accommodating to student needs, especially those in the international time zones. Midterms (2 of them) and the final had 2 phases: individual and a group phase. The individual phase is where you take the exam by yourself with no notes. The group phase is where you are assigned a group and you discuss any answers that are confusing to you and/or are different from your peers'. This phase allows you to use your notes and resources and lets you change your answers as long as you provide some reasoning. The group phase helps a lot in boosting your exam grades because Dr. Maloy takes the average of the two phases as your grade for the exam. He's very funny, engaging, and kindhearted. I really recommend taking his class if you're not great at bio like me!

Professor Maloy is an absolute king. The material is easy and straightforward, but the exams are sometimes tricky and ambiguous. Make sure to understand the clicker questions, learning objectives, launchpad PEQ's, workshop worksheets, and discussion sections!

Prof Maloy has a super cute dog named Toby, which doesn't tell you anything about the class but is vital information. Class itself isn't bad either- definitely go to lecture, as there's required clickers and he clears up a lot of the weird launchpad stuff. Personally, while I found launchpad to be helpful for getting content overview, the clickers were by far the most useful things to review for exams.
Grading is pretty fair- Launchpad PEQS are really cursed but I did super mediocre/bad on all of them and still got that A. Plenty of places to earn points. Exams have two portions, the individual portion and then the group phase. They're all application based questions, which I personally liked but I know a lot of my group didn't. But with the group phase you have a chance to review your answers and resubmit so that can be a huge help if you aren't the best test-taker. Coordinating with your test group can be a pain though.
I found Maloy super engaging and overall a cool dude who actually likes teaching, so I do recommend him, especially if you're worried about the tests.

Dr. Maloy is one of the best professors/teachers I've had in my life. He is extremely engaging and passionate. He definitely cares a lot about his students' success and understanding, and he makes taking LS 7A a great experience.

Maloy is a decent professor. He is very passionate about learning styles and the "flipped classroom" format. Everyone definitely hates Launchpad, but if you stay on top of it this class isn't too bad conceptually. The tests were straightforward multiple-choice. Grading schema was very friendly.