Professor
Michelle Rensel
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2017 - I'm a Human Biology and Society major, so I thoroughly enjoyed the content of this class. Other people took it as an upper div science or society GE, and I can't speak for them, but I thought the class was pretty easy. 30% of your grade is from discussion (10% attendance, 10% showing up on time, 10% participating). The discussion sections are incredibly engaging due to the format of it (lots of group discussions about controversial topics) so most people spoke every single class. Lectures itself were extremely interesting most of the time; we had a new guest lecturer for most classes, which brought interesting perspectives on everything that we're learning. Rensel herself is very caring and helpful too; I'd take another class with her if given the chance. I believe the rest of the grade is distributed by 25% midterm and 35% final, which are predominantly multiple choice with a few short answer sections based upon what we covered in class. The last 10% are weekly online quizzes on CCLE that cover lecture/book material (tbh I only skimmed a few chapters of the book and got 100% in this category) and you get multiple tries for these quizzes. You can get a great score on the exams just by attending lecture and discussion, and doing the learning outcomes that she posts after each class. Overall I'd highly recommend this course.
Spring 2017 - I'm a Human Biology and Society major, so I thoroughly enjoyed the content of this class. Other people took it as an upper div science or society GE, and I can't speak for them, but I thought the class was pretty easy. 30% of your grade is from discussion (10% attendance, 10% showing up on time, 10% participating). The discussion sections are incredibly engaging due to the format of it (lots of group discussions about controversial topics) so most people spoke every single class. Lectures itself were extremely interesting most of the time; we had a new guest lecturer for most classes, which brought interesting perspectives on everything that we're learning. Rensel herself is very caring and helpful too; I'd take another class with her if given the chance. I believe the rest of the grade is distributed by 25% midterm and 35% final, which are predominantly multiple choice with a few short answer sections based upon what we covered in class. The last 10% are weekly online quizzes on CCLE that cover lecture/book material (tbh I only skimmed a few chapters of the book and got 100% in this category) and you get multiple tries for these quizzes. You can get a great score on the exams just by attending lecture and discussion, and doing the learning outcomes that she posts after each class. Overall I'd highly recommend this course.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Rensel once again was an amazing professor. She constructed this class very well and made it very fair. This class is basically just setting up for a large group project that was worth around 50% of the grade. But she broke down the steps in the project to make the actual final group project to be worth only 16% of the grade. The rest of our grade came from annotations on Pearsall and participation. I am not sure if this is normal or if it was just because I took the class online during the COVID-19 lockdown
Fall 2020 - Professor Rensel once again was an amazing professor. She constructed this class very well and made it very fair. This class is basically just setting up for a large group project that was worth around 50% of the grade. But she broke down the steps in the project to make the actual final group project to be worth only 16% of the grade. The rest of our grade came from annotations on Pearsall and participation. I am not sure if this is normal or if it was just because I took the class online during the COVID-19 lockdown
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - This review is for all 3 classes that I have taken with Professor Rensel. Rensel is an amazing professor who takes the time to get to know her students. I took her stress and society course M144 and learned so much about public health that I did not know about before. I also took Socgen M102 with her and learned an immense amount. Finally, I took M140 with her. It was the first time that she taught that course, but she did a wonderful job at making it interesting and engaging. She is understanding of student struggles and makes sure to be as reasonable as possible. I adored her as a professor. Truly lucky to have been able to take 3 courses with her.
Winter 2020 - This review is for all 3 classes that I have taken with Professor Rensel. Rensel is an amazing professor who takes the time to get to know her students. I took her stress and society course M144 and learned so much about public health that I did not know about before. I also took Socgen M102 with her and learned an immense amount. Finally, I took M140 with her. It was the first time that she taught that course, but she did a wonderful job at making it interesting and engaging. She is understanding of student struggles and makes sure to be as reasonable as possible. I adored her as a professor. Truly lucky to have been able to take 3 courses with her.
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