Dr.Maloy's lectures are very engaging. His method of "reversed classroom" is challenging but I got a lot from it. The online textbook is absolutely USELESS. It only provides basic information. If you want to ace midterms and final, do not waste your time rereading that piece of garbage. Go to his office hours as often as you can, especially the ones he hosts towards the time for midterms and finals. They are so crucial for acing the tests. Honestly, I learned more from his office hours than his lectures.

He is so patient with every student and with every question. Don't worry about asking a "dumb" question, because somehow, Dr. Maloy will connect your "dumb" question to some other mind-blowing concept. Honestly, one of the best professor one can hope to have.

I've heard so many people complain about the exams of the 7 series, and I don't get it. People who don't do well in this class are not studying correctly. SO many materials are given in this class, but you really only need a couple of them do well. Launchpad is good to learn a vague background about the material, but after that, it's irrelevant. Do not use it to prepare for exams, it will be a waste of time.
There are four things you should care about when studying for a 7A exam: lecture slides, iClicker questions, Discussion section handouts, and the handouts given in class. That's literally it. If you understand the concepts given on these, there's no reason why you should't be able to get an A in this class. These specific materials help familiarize you with the types of questions that appear on a 7 series exam. I got high A's on both of the midterms by studying the material listed above and rarely ever doing launchpad in depth. I feel like people who don't do as well place too large of an emphasis on launchpad. The final was more difficult and was worth double what the midterms were, but I still got a low to mid A through minimal studying via this method.
This class is total points, which is really good. About 100 come from midterm 1, 100 come from midterm 2, and 200 come from the final. The class is ~750 points, so all of the other points come from participation. DO NOT miss out on these easy participation points for your grade.
Maloy is a really good lecturer and is one of the most engaging professors I've had

Super nice guy, and he is really passionate about what he teaches and his students' learning! One of the few professors that cares about his students as individuals and really wants to make everyone feel welcome! Lectures are really engaging, but I feel like sometimes the lectures would be too surface level compared to the required readings. However, he does use the flipped class room model so that is probably why.

Flipped classrooms honestly suck. You basically have to do all the learning yourself with Launchpad, not to mention it's a large workload and it's worth $125. Attendance in lecture is mandatory with clicker questions and most of the time, they aren't very helpful. Maloy is a pretty straightforward professor, but this quarter he had another professor beside him. This professor is hard to understand and does not explain the content very well. Midterms are difficult. If you are NOT required to take this class, don't take it.

I have mixed feeling about Professor Maloy. He is super engaging and helpful during lectures, but I am not a fan of his flipped classroom approach and emphasis on group work. Launchpad was a waste of time and money. It didn't help me prepare for the exams and its only worth reading if you need some background info. It won't actually teach you anything of substance. He frequently forces us to work in groups which can be hit or miss depending on who was placed in your pod. If they are nice enough to help you it can be great, but if they aren't or just as clueless as you, then you are pretty much screwed.
Discussion worksheets are challenging and the TA's don't really explain the problems or help you when you need it. (Neither do the LA's for that matter). They just expect you to figure it out with the group. I had Marcus as a TA and even though he means well and seems nice enough he has led me to question if he himself understands how to do the worksheets on several ocassions. Both the LA's and TA's call you out and keep pestering you with endless questions about the material during discussion section instead of explaining the concepts we are studying. This was really annoying and made me hate going to these discussions. I just wished they would leave me alone! I don't like being put on the spot like that.

Overall I would recommend this class to other students. It is evident that Professor Maloy is a wonderful professor who deeply cares about his students. I just wish that he replaced Launchpad with a different program and selected capable TA's for his classes.

TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM! You've probably heard that the LS 7 series is tough, and this class was tough. BUT I highly highly highly recommend taking it with Dr. Maloy! He makes it much more bearable. His lectures and explanations are amazing and very helpful. I like that there are a lot of different categories that go into the grade. The exams were difficult but fortunately, the exam grade is based on the average of the individual phase and the group phase so even if you didn't do so well on the individual art you still have a shot at a higher grade. Launchpad can be super boring and overwhelming at times but if you don't wait until the day before to do it all it's ok. But yeah do take this class with Maloy if you have the opportunity to!

POINTS BREAKDOWN:
- 68 points for iClickers
- 90 points for midterm 1
- 120 points for midterm 2
- 72 points possible out of 80 for weekly discussion participation (so you can miss one discussion and still get full points)
- 10 points for CCLE Reflections (which I found useless, but they were easy points)
- 45 points for launchpad PCRQs
- 45 points for launchpad PEQs
- 45 points for launchpad assignments
- 200 points for final
- Extra Credit: varies by quarter I think, but for Fall 2019, there was like 5 or 6 EC points available
- TOTAL POINTS (w/out EC): 695 points

Yeah, this class is hard. This quarter, the class was taught by two professors, Maloy and Braybrook, but from what I saw Maloy teaches most of the content. Both professors were good lecturers, they had an abundance of office hours during the quarter and before tests. Lecture structure is a lot of active participation, and the iClickers are a big part of that. During lecture, there are a lot of iClicker ?'s, and you are expected to work them out with the people around you because they can be quite challenging at times. If you don't like to participate and the TA's see you, they WILL come up to you and challenge you to work out the problems with them. You're not safe anywhere, even in the back of the classroom sitting on the floor. Once, when Braybrook was lecturing, Maloy was going around and caught a bunch of us in the back not actively participating. He worked with us for the rest of the lecture, making sure we knew what was going on. While it can be annoying, especially because my lecture was at 9am and I didn't want to be doing anything at that time, it is really nice that the professors and TA's/LA's are so insistent. It makes you feel like they really care that everyone is getting the most out of their lecture time.

DO NOT DISCOUNT THE IMPORTANCE OF LECTURE. Go to all your lectures!! As you may have read/heard before, launchpad kind of sucks. It's good for background info I guess, but the professors are really going to let you know what you need to understand from launchpad. And what they talk about is what's on the tests, in excruciating and often confusing specificity. Take advantage of study sessions hosted weekly by your LA's, I never went (my bad) but I heard they were super useful for practicing how to answer the questions as they are formatted on the tests. And they're formatted wack af, so you need the practice.

Don't fall behind, try to work with others as much as you can, and by God, take advantage of the resources they give you in the form of office hours and study sessions. If I had done all these things, I probably could have gotten an A-, or a solid B if I tried a little more. This class is honestly really difficult, but it can be easier if you don't fuck around and actually focus. These professors aren't dicks, they want you to succeed. So good luck and happy studying! You can do it :)

So many ridiculous works. Very unreasonable.

(TLDR; Maloy is a wonderful professor, I just personally had a hard time with this class. Its difficulty level is highly dependent on your learning style, prior knowledge and the kindness of your peers, so just try to be mindful of these things if you do decide to take this class.)
This class was structured in a flipped classroom format; we essentially had to teach ourselves the material before lecture through textbook readings and worksheets, whereas lecture itself consisted of clicker questions and slides to briefly review what we were supposed to have learnt beforehand. I think this format has the potential to work well in a smaller classroom setting where students could have in-depth discussions with each other/the prof about any confusion or questions about the coursework, but being alone in a 400+ person lecture hall made it hard to get the help I needed. Maloy does assign groups - called "pods" - of four or so people at the beginning of the quarter to try and foster collaboration, but this could be a disadvantage depending on your group members' kindness and willingness to help. I also didn't have any high school experience with bio like many of my peers did, which definitely made trying to keep up more of a struggle than it could've been otherwise.
However, Maloy is both an amazing professor and person in general. He's passionate about the material he teaches and explains it clearly, using a plethora of great analogies to help clarify difficult concepts. He's also empathetic towards his students, and I really appreciate the emphasis he put on inclusivity in STEM and the compassion he always showed us throughout the quarter. Plus, on an unrelated (but equally important) note, he also brings his sweet dog Toby to lecture every now and then!
So, although I found this class to be an extremely difficult and taxing experience, it had more to do with the class' format than the professor. Maloy is great and if you have to - or would genuinely like to - take this class, I would highly recommend taking it with him.

Took LS7A first quarter freshmen year, and absolutely hated this class! Professor Maloy is great, he's easily understood, has good teaching skills, even brings his doggo to class, but the way the LS series is formatted with flipped classroom is annoying. If you like to learn from a textbook, this class is for you! Took me mid quarter to realize I didn't need to attend lecture since all of my assignments were from launchpad and did most of my learning there. Pod work, if/when you do go to lecture, are not helpful at all. iClicker questions seem useless but aren't! They help your grade and are good review questions to study from for exams! There are two midterms, one week 4 and the second week 6 which is rough if you don't know how to manage your time, so prepare for those!! Each exam gets harder as it goes, as they are application based questions, but there is a group exam to help your individual exam score. Overall, this is a fine class, annoying with so many deadlines from Launchpad and reading guides, but if you dedicate your time to memorizing Launchpad you'll be fine.