B241 2003 student feedback

Human Geneticists: I enjoyed it which is fortunate as it's what i'm studying as a degree

A very interesting course.

content interesting but found it quite difficult, but hope it will all click in place when i revise.

It is an interesting course, it would be nice to have one book we can stick to though.

This rate would have been a lot higher if the lectures were made slightly more interesting towards the end of the course. Also the lecture notes should have been provided for students in a course book, rather than having to print them all out from the web!!!

The whole course went really well and there was a good flow from one lecture to the next, the right amount of information presented at the right time. The only point where this failed was the first tutorial because we were asked to use a web based program without any prior knowledge. Maybe a lecture preceding the tutorial can explain certain aspects of the work (e.g. what are the different options we have available from the program) and can make the learning from the tutorial more interesting.

Course organiser v helpful. Order of lectures sometime erratic.

notes on the internet were very good. perhaps the course was a bit intensive, and spreading it out over a whole term would have been better.

JW and JSJ had interesting lectures but didnt get very good notes from them-was good having web notes though. found Z's lecture pointless and just read through handout but didnt evemn have enough handouts for the class.

The first set of lectures by JW and JSJ were very interesting and have very very good lecture notes on the web. However the lecturers after them were not very interesting and notes for the last two lectures were not present for the actual lecture!!!

I can understand not wanting to give conventional coursebook, but when many lecturers handed out stuff anyway then it might have been worthwhile. Although there is no one specific textbook that covers it all, it may have been helpful to have specific page references for further reading at times.

The lectures which were needed to fill in the second worksheet that was assessed should have been introduced earlier in the course. Also some lectures which were needed to be understood to fill in the worksheets at various tutorials were not given in the right order. Once the tutorial was over, we would be tought what we would have been struggling with in the tutorial!!!!!

Tutor was at times difficult to understand and took too long.

More understandable tutorial explainations should have been given. Although the actual tutorial lecturer was approachable, perhaps 1 hour was not sufficiant as there was always a shortage of time and last sections of most tutorials were always rushed!!!

I felt I got more out of the Chrosmosome quiz than the biochemical quiz

Biochemical quiz challenging but in a good way (I think). Having it in the tutorial was best because I don't think we'd ever have got it done otherwise.

the biochemical quiz was quite difficult...would have preferred to have it to look at before the tutorial because im not very good working in groups before ive had a look at it and tried to understand it.

I thought the help given on both quizzes where very useful. However, perhaps for the biochemical quiz we could have been given the lecture on that a week or two weeks perviously. Also perhaps we could have been given the quiz before the actual time of our tutorial. This would have allowed us to work on it in our own time more, rather than keep asking the tutors for help!!!!!

Both of the quizes were very useful.

There was a little bit of overlap at one point with B200 but this helped understanding rather than being repetitive. However was also a deadline clash between B200 practical write-ups and the essay and this meant I didn't manage to give the essay all the time it needed. Would advise checking this doesn't happen in future years by eg making the deadline either the week before or the week after.

In the end I anticipate spending that many hours working (qu 16), but have not had the chance to yet - having the course in 5 weeks was a great shame as there was no chance of keeping up with one's own reading and note making, particularly given the simultaneous intensity of B200. Given that it is a very interesting course it is a pity there isn't more time to take it all in. From the student perspective it means that though the course is finished I shall spend the rest of the term catching up on stuff I didn't have the chance to do as we went along. It might have been helpful in this respect if there had been more than a week between the end of the course and the essay deadline (I know it was reading week, but that doesn't stop other courses exploiting that fact too!)

spreading of course over a term rather than a block....fewer powerpoint slides on web, conventional notes are easier to revise from!

i think because the course was only over one block, the wasnt much overlap from other courses but sure there will be over the year. but i did prefer having it over one block to get a module finished.

If there was any overlap with other courses it can certainly be described as an advantage since revisiting some aspects of a subject helps with our understanding.

Biologists: Like you said, it at first seemed quite confusing how everything tied together. I just feel that more emphasis on experimental techniques would be more beneficial since it would apply to our futures.

I felt like the first population genetics lecture was a too basic for the level of the class. The biochemistry lectures could have benefitted from more structure and clearer, more detailed examples.

Everyone was well organized, but some had trouble keeping my attention and thus received those ratings

It would be great if there was a link to the glossary on the main page of the website.

Litte strange order as mentioned above, sometimes went too fast because I could not print out handouts before lectures (no printer)

I found the biochemistry and the cytogenetics quiz to be very useful. I thought that the biochemistry questions were great, and it really helped me get a grasp on the material. Dr. Swallow was extremely helpful and did a wonderful job of explaining the questions. I did not find the other tutorials to be useful at all. I felt like when I had non-basic questions about them I was not able to get them answered. Often times it ended up that the students mostly taught each other things. I know that it would be logistically difficult, but the tutorials might benefit from being taught by a professor, or by having more than one graduate student at the tutorial.

Tutorials were extremely helpful, and the informal style was perfect for disuccing and understanding the work.

Good job with help, but sometimes rambled on unecessarily

The quizzes were very helpful, it would be nice if we get them back once they're marked.

Some of the time slots conflicted with other classes.

Some overlap but that is good, ties things together quite well, looking forward to your lectures in b200. of course better timetabling would help and also i think the essay is somewhat useless but does require to learn something i suppose

geneticists: It was a good course that cleared up a lot of concepts, especially for other subjects. However, the books recommended were a bit misleading

this course was badly organised. The lecture notes on the internet are out of date and there are only powerpoint pictures for some lestures without any information. although the topics were very interesting the way the lectures were organised was terrible. for hugher exam results the lecture noted need to be more recent and should include more information.

I prefered the lecturers who's lectures contained more detail than their slides or hand outs because i think that the act of making notes helps me to concentrate and to remeber new information. Equally, i found it difficult to keep up with lecturers who offered too sparse notes.

Some lecturers use very technical way of explaination to the undergraduate students. the lecturers need to be more clear and a technical build-up should be established as the course progresses not at the beginning of the term. this will make it more difficult for the students to understand.

Overall the lectures were good, especially the notes given. However, the lectures did not consistently follow a logical order, possibly due to timetable clashes. Nothing that can't be fixed!

Hand outs may be a better way of distributing information because it is easier to make notes directly onto a booklet because you know what is already included in the course notes and hence how detailed to make your own notes.

the course wasny difficult but the way it was thought made it more difficult than it is. if the students had a course booklet with all the lectures and its notes at the beginning of the year, similar to B31A then it would have made it much easier for the students to learn.

The wording in questions of the tutorials weren't very good and left a lot of holes. The tutorials were a bit disappointing as they were all recycled from the previous years

I found it particularly useful to go through the more mathematical problems in the tutorial.

the tutorials were the only properly organised part of this course. they were very useful and enabled us to assess what we have learned. i think the tutorials have to be part of this course

I liked that workshop style of the quizes and the fact that there was someone there who you could ask questions throughout. I found that the paper was quite long and that it was difficult to concentrate near to the end.

both quizez were useful but the lectures for these quizez were not tought properly and this is why many students had difficulties in completeing the quiz in one tutorial session.

There was not too much overlap with other courses. The 5-6 lecture ona tuesday was not very useful because it was impossible to concentrate after attending our 5 hour labs on this day. Overall i enjoyed the course and found it interesting.

the course also had problems with the timetable. the timetable of the course was arranged badly. because of its timetable many students were not able to choose the option they wanted to do and chose courses which do not interest them.

Intercalated Medics: Medics found it all quite repetitive from the previous two years, but that's not neccessarily a bad thing as it gave us chance to refresh what we may have forgotten.

Very interesting and well presented lectures.

Lecture notes for JSJ were very difficult to follow with the lecture and afterwards.

We did not have enough time for the first tutorial, espeically since we were not expected to be familiar with the gene browser already. I didn't really find the tutorial on "stone age molecular genetics" particularly useful.

Quizzes were really helpful, consolidated the lecture information

The biochemical genetics quiz was very difficult and i didn't feel like i was prepared at all by any of the reading or lectures. It was also far too long maybe it could be spread over two sessions?

The lectures really needed to be arranged in a more suitable manner, they were a bit all over the place. Apart from that organisation wise the course was pretty good.

Feed back on the coursework would be nice.

Molecular Cell Biology: Interesting course and fairly good lecturers.

The tutorials could have been improved by better explanation of the calculating questions. The course could include a revision session that would be optional to attend so that people could have the chance to be given a quick summary and review of the course.

Interesting course.

I couldnt really understand what ARL was saying.her english was not really clear enough

Lectures seem a bit disjointed

It would be better actually for a course book like B200 which would save us a lot of trouble printing them out. While it is good on the net (u can't lose it), printing it single sided for lectures actually wastes more paper. And it is useful to have lecture notes before the lecture to at least anticipate on what is going to be taught.

I had a hard time understanding the tutorials, they were not exactly helpful. However i must say that the tutor did seem to be trying his best

Tutorials were useful, except the Quizes were a little more difficult but generally good

maybe have further tutorials on individual lectures, just as an overview. it could even be done towards end of next term, to refresh before the exam

Quizzes were quite useful

Quizzes were very difficult and rushed! The amount of coursework was too much for only half a term...fine if spread throughout the term.

Biochemical quiz covered some ground that was not in lectures, therefore a little difficult

biochemical qiuz was too difficult and i found it very difficult to understand

There were overlaps (electrophoresis and other experimental methods) but it didnt make the lecture seem useful but just emphasized the importance of those material

Overlap more with other course areas to compliment each other!

There was a slight overlap with B200, but good overlap.

Overall: The class scores for the first four questions above were all improved over last year, particularly the question about clarity of aims. This was largely due to last year's feedback so thank you for that. The general level of satisfaction was quite high but obviously there is still some room for improvement.

Lectures: Lectures seem to have been mostly well received. Some topics drew more flak than others. The lecture most criticised above covered difficult ground. I have left in bad comments because I have included all the comments but I'd like to point out that several students scored that lecture 9 out of 10 and the median score was 7. Timetabling was a problem and I'm afraid that criticisms of clashes which don't state the precise nature of the clash don't help. The order of lectures is never going to be easy to perfect. Hope for some minor improvements next year.

Textbooks: Most of the good textbooks are more advanced than this course which makes it difficult to suggest any one as being perfect. I think that I have given honest reviews of a number of books in the website. But I am not going to force any one book down all your throats, you are too diverse a group of students.

A comment about lecture notes / course booklets vs. internet pages: The internet has a number of advantages over course booklets which for me outweigh the disadvantages. First, you cannot lose the internet course site. Second, its always available whether you are at home or in college (assuming that you can at least visit your local cybercafe if necessary). Third, if I make a mistake I can correct it and make an announcement on the page and everyone can see that, not just those who were present for a verbal announcement. Fourth, I can release information when I see fit, for instance giving out the model tutorial answers after the tutorials. Fifth, not everyone needs all the information. With the website you take what you need - e.g. the map to find the Bland Sutton seminar room! I agree that there are some difficulties with the internet - mostly caused by UCLs printers. (Please ask yourself if you really need to print out this material - its not going away after all. Also, powerpoint can be printed at a number of slides per page and many printers will print double sided if you look at the settings before sending the job.)

Quizzes: These seem to have been mostly well received. The few adverse comments were from those of you who failed to realise that they are not just tests – they are intended to teach something. Not all teaching is confined to the lectures.

Tutorials: Some valid criticism here but some that seems to be completely off track. I'll probably retire the stone age molecular genetics tutorial next year and introduce something new.