She's fine. LS7A is flipped classroom so the professor isn't as important in learning than in most classes.

Really enjoyed her personality and her way of explaining information. Helped get through the denser material during lectures and made you feel glad for coming to lectures. She is generous on extra credit, which helps, and her "hard" test problems are those she explicitly goes over during clicker questions during class or those that we are given the answers to during discussion. Was a great class. Hope I can take another class with her later in the LS series.

I felt this class was pretty difficult being a first-year University student. A lot of the material was jam-packed and went through so quickly that it became difficult to understand at times. That being said there were extra credit points for doing pre-class assignments and points for doing the readings so you definitely had some wiggle room on the midterms. I also feel like her office hours were somewhat helpful but only if you want further information.... she won't explain a whole concept to you. I learned a lot of the information needed for this class from being in a PLF and from my TA who was amazing!! Overall this class was difficult if you had no previous AP biology experience and just having taken a regular class in high school is not going to help you.

Dr. Pires is a very interactive professor. She provides everything a student may need to succeed in this class -- extra credit assignments, small homework assignments that can boost your grade, and review sessions before midterms and finals. You read and complete worksheets before class so that you have some knowledge of the material before the actual lecture. The lectures are also bruincast.

That being said, LS7A squeezes a lot of information into a short time period, and so it can be easy to become overwhelmed or fall behind. I would recommend not only going to her office hours, but going to your TA's office hours for a more in-depth explanation on confusing topics. I would also recommend forming study groups early on; they really help when midterms come around.

This class was pretty tough because the exams are true and false which require you to understand the concepts at an insane level. I don't agree with the previous reviews regarding the "easy" level of the exams.

LS 7A with Deb was my favorite class Fall quarter. She was a funny and engaging lecturer, and always posted slides and lectures online that were helpful for studying for exams. Reading and completing the pre-class assignments took little time and were necessary for lecture. The midterms and finals were fairly easy, and she offers pre-class worksheets as extra credit. When taking LS 7A, definitely choose Deb!

I think this was a class that if you put time into studying you got back the grade you deserved. The assigned readings and practice exams, as well as the clicker questions, are a good review for the test and Deb gives you a lot of material to prepare for the midterms and finals. I would say that your TA matters and that you spend your discussions completing graded worksheets under their supervision and with their help. Deb and your TA's are there for you and at least my TA was always happy to answer my questions.

Debbie is a really engaging professor and like the other reviews say, her class is a "flipped classroom". You purchase the textbook online and read all your material before class and take review quizzes. The amount of material varies, but it usually took about 1 hour to read and annotate everything. After each week, you get online practice exam questions, which are what I think was the hardest part of the class. The textbook is also used for LS 7B and 7C, so it's worth purchasing for an entire year.
She doesn't use a curve to grade, so every point you get matters, but you do get 10 easy extra credit points by doing a pre-class worksheet, which is honestly really helpful for reviewing. She said that she does curve however, if the class average is below 75%, so in this case, a curve will only help you.
Another thing that might affect this class is which TA you have. Each week, there's an 8 point discussion worksheet that needs to be filled out during discussion. It can be helpful to have a nice TA, otherwise you could lose points that were otherwise easy to get.
Other than that, this class is very manageable and the professor is very helpful and approachable.

The curriculum is taught in a flipped structure, which means you are expected to self-teach yourself the material before lecture (same for Roth-Johnson). During lecture, Deb briefly reviews the materials, but focuses mainly on clicker questions to reinforce the topics taught. The clicker questions count towards in-class participation and attendance.

The required materials are an iClicker (doesn't matter which model), and access to Biology: How Life Works on LaunchPad. This is ~$95 for 24 months access (I think 7B and 7C uses the same text). This is the online textbook to learn the materials and answer homework questions/practice quizzes/tests. Homework load isn't bad if you don't procrastinate.

Extra credit is earned by completing the Pre-Class Worksheet before each lecture and submit it online to CCLE. This helped a lot, considering it was worth an extra 10 pts each week.

Discussion is mandatory and the worksheets and activities completed during section counts toward overall grades.

There are two midterms and one final. The questions are mostly all True/False questions, which makes it very tricky. Make sure you not only understand the concepts, but make connections to other topics and know how to apply it. Pure memorization does not help a lot during the tests, since almost all of the questions are applications.

Deb is an extremely nice professor who is there to help her students during lecture and office hours. If you put in effort in pre-class assignments, this class should be easy!

This class (no matter which professor you take) is run as a "flipped classroom." This means that the majority of how well you learn the material is on you. During lecture, Deb spends most of her time asking us clicker questions, meaning it is pretty much expected of you to read the material and understand it by the time class starts. That being said, she still gives a brief lecture on the material you should've read previously.
There is extra credit, and the extra credit is SUPER easy. Although it doesn't add up to much (10 points total), it doesn't hurt to do it. The extra credit assignments go along with the textbook readings and are helpful to do and go over before midterms and finals.
To me, Deb's tests were tricky at first. There are a lot of true/false questions and her tests contain the type of questions that really apply the concepts you have read and learned about into different situations. What I mean by this is, this is not a class you'll do well in if you're just gonna memorize everything. You really need to UNDERSTAND the concepts well in order to do well on the tests.
But, you get used to the tests and the class isn't so bad! Deb is an extremely nice professor and is there to help her students. If you try and put in effort into your homework assignments and discussion section worksheets, you should be just fine.