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 (:

The LS7 series is very standardized, so regardless of who you have as a professor, the objective difficulty of the exams will be basically the same since they pull from a standardized test bank across all of the 7A/B/C professors. On top of that, the class is a flipped classroom format meaning that you are expected to do the Launchpad readings (long and annoying busywork tbh) and learn the material on your own ahead of class. In class, Maloy will explain the information in a deeper context and will give you practice questions called clicker questions (these are graded on live completion and you need to answer 75% of the questions each day for full participation credit). Differences in exams between professors will typically be in a structural change rather than a question change (for example, Maloy may give you a two-part midterm where one is individual and one is group and take the average of the two parts for your overall midterm score while another professor may only give an individual portion but will allow for the exam to be open note).

That being said, while the class is standardized, if you are strong in biology when you enter this class, you most likely will observe very little difference in the difficulty of the class between professors. The quality of the professors and how well they explain concepts will only be of considerable concern to you if you find yourself confused or struggling in the class (at which point you'd better hope your professor can properly explain things. Fortunately, Maloy can explain very well). I did not have to attend his office hours or get extra help, so your mileage may vary compared to my review.

Maloy is a sweet professor who really encourages collaboration (so much so that he will assign you a peer group for the quarter to work with after class). You can tell that he really cares about teaching and that he wants to give you a fair and proper lesson every class. He never skimps on the quality of his lectures and will take any questions you have. You will enjoy having him as a professor. As a consequence however, since Maloy teaches at a slower pace in order to fairly accommodate everyone's learning speeds, the class may feel excessively slow to some (that's me. I'm some). Regardless, if you pay attention in class, you will learn the material more than well enough to do well on the exams. If you do not pay attention, you better be confident in yourself.

Dr. Maloy is super nice and really accommodating! I switched into this class right before the week 2 add/drop deadline and he was really nice about helping me get caught up. I think he really put a lot of effort into trying to facilitate small groups and problem solving sessions to get us to interact with each other, which I really appreciated.

That being said, I still didn't like this class. Launchpad is a nightmare and felt like a waste of time because it's so much harder to skim for important information on an online textbook where you actually have to click through the pages, and anything important was always surrounded by entire paragraphs of useless information. The content covered in this quarter was mostly a repeat of AP Bio but funnily enough I feel like I actively forgot things I learned in AP Bio over the course of this class. However, the stuff we covered this quarter also happened to be the stuff I've never liked even in AP Bio so that could've contributed to my lack of interest in this class's content.

Honestly I don't think this class is that difficult to get an A in as long as you 1) join on time and 2) stay on top of things. I literally forgot to do the entire last week of PEQs because I didn't know they were closing early... don't be like me. Midterms + final were really nice because you have an individual phase and then a group phase, which was just repeating the entire individual phase except with your group and access to notes/internet/etc. Lots of extra credit offered too.

I don't think he rounds grades up... I got a 92.8 and emailed him asking to round me up to a solid A and never got a response back (rip). You can ask for assignments to be regraded if it'll change your grade though, so I don't know if that would've made a difference for me.

One last thing: there are quite a few 'growth mindset' activities that were unrelated to the course content. Basically free points and pretty easy to complete but really annoying to have to sit through, especially when it was like "an external locus of control, which is bad, is when you attribute your difficulties to your circumstances" during a pandemic... felt a little callous, but that might just be me.

Professor Maloy is a great professor. I enjoyed his lectures and is interactive with the iClicker program. Because the class is relatively large, he mutes everyone and lectures aren't that interactive in terms of communicating with the professor or with other students. He tries to answer students' questions whether that is through the Raise Your Hand Zoom function but rarely the chat function. If you have a quick question, other students can answer you in the chat.
There was a lot of content to go over in the online textbook, Launchpad, but I learned a lot from it. He offers a good amount of extra credit which served me well! The midterms and final can be a little bit tricky when considering the specific wording. The class was also grouped into groups of 6 from discussion sections and because I took this course online, it was nice to talk and work with other students. Overall a good class, I learned a lot.

Dr. Maloy is an amazing and kind teacher. He is very clear and engaging in his lectures. Although his tests are tricky and require more analysis than memorization, I highly recommend him. Weekly launchpad readings may be long but they are clear and very necessary. A lot of people are lazy and complain about them but honestly it's less reading than I had in AP Bio. They are long so I would take notes and do active recall when studying to make it easier to memorize. Very similar info as AP BIO as well.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.