The following passages are unmodified student responses (67 out of 74) to a Course Survey administered by OMET.
The standards the instructor set for me were#
Too low: 0
Appropriate: 32
Too high: 35
How many hours per week did you usually spend working on this course outside of classroom time?#
Less than one hour: 0
One to three hours: 6
Four to six hours: 30
Seven to nine hours: 19
Ten or more hours: 11
The instructor created an atmosphere that kept me engaged in course content#
Strongly disagree: 7
Disagree: 17
Neutral: 12
Agree: 21
Strongly agree: 10
The instructor was prepared for class#
Strongly disagree: 2
Disagree: 7
Neutral: 11
Agree: 30
Strongly agree: 16
The instructor treated students with respect#
Strongly disagree: 2
Disagree: 11
Neutral: 18
Agree: 27
Strongly agree: 9
The instructor was available to me (in-person, electronically, or both)#
Strongly disagree: 0
Disagree: 5
Neutral: 9
Agree: 30
Strongly agree: 19
N/A: 4
The instructor evaluated my work fairly#
Strongly disagree: 4
Disagree: 10
Neutral: 16
Agree: 31
Strongly agree: 6
The instructor provided feedback that was helpful to me#
Strongly disagree: 6
Disagree: 16
Neutral: 17
Agree: 20
Strongly agree: 6
N/A: 2
I learned a lot from this course#
Strongly disagree: 1
Disagree: 5
Neutral: 16
Agree: 26
Strongly agree: 18
What did you like best about how the course was taught?#
I appreciated that Alex challenged us to think critically and connect content from different units. I felt like the A and S tier questions did force me to think outside of the box and engage with the content in a new way.
I enjoyed A and S–tier questions being graded initially based on attempt in homework and recitations.
I liked the different tiered questions and having weekly homework assignments for practice. I also liked how the instructor showed where equations were derived from and how previous concepts connected with new topics.
I love about how this class was taught is the recitaion and having weekly assignments that helped me understand the class a little bit better
Yes, this course was probably one of my most challenging classes I have had to take at Pitt. But, Dr. Maldonado was willing to work with students, constantly identifying and remedying issues of concern. I personally enjoyed the format of recitations and homework assignments in that they encouraged discussion and an advanced application of material. I believe lecture did an OK job providing the non–negotiable, must–know information, but it was recitation and homework assignments that really solidified knowledge.
We were treated with respect.
I liked the recitations and the homework assignments, I like that the C, B, A , and S tiers were marked so we knew what level of difficulty each question was.
Alex came prepared and was ready to answer questions.
I most liked the tier grading system (after the first exam) because when it was fleshed out more for exams 2 and 3, the questions felt like it made sense that they were tiered the way they were and the questions were fair.
I like the powerpoint slide style lectures because I think that style is the most efficient for going over the vast amount of information given in the class. Anything else would be too timely and all the material could not be fit.
I liked the layout of the slides, and they contained a lot of good information. I liked the textbook chapters provided and thought the content Alex picked was extremely interesting, engaging, and taught me some fundamentals better than I have ever understood them, such as entropy and voltage/reduction potentials and really the conceptual part of why things happen. This class taught me to stop doing straight memorization which is what I always do. I think he is a great lecturer, great at providing analogies off the top of his head that always stuck with me, and good at answering questions. I felt very engaged during the lectures and reading his suggested textbook sections, I really liked what I was learning. I want to point out that he went above and beyond specifically for module 4. He offered up a discussion board for questions that could be posted anonymously. I posted about 5 questions, and the next day in class he had created a tailored lecture addressing the questions in a way that solidified my understanding of the whole unit. I feel like this class is the most I have learned at Pitt and I could feel that I was improving my critical thinking skills. I also think he is understanding and responsive to feedback, and it is nice to have a professor when you can tell they genuinely care about what they are teaching and their students. I liked how he had an open discussion board and utilized it frequently. I think he was nice and created an inclusive learning environment.
I liked the tiered grading system. I think this is one of the more fair grading schemes relative to overall class curving.
I enjoyed the lecture style. The course content is by no means easy, and the instructor attempted to create real–world scenarios and examples to relate the content to something already known, like bank accounts. This simplified the overall purpose for a lot of biological processes as I was studying the actual mechanism.
The best part about how the course was taught was the emphasis on lecture. I also liked the weekly homework assignments and recitations.
This course was taught with well prepared slides and presentations that were useful. The objectives and the topics made it easy to breakdown each lecture into different parts. The tiered grading levels definitely improved as the course went on, with more multiple choice and recall as the C–teir questions. I also think that the quizzes were helpful for to practice material.
There were a lot of practice questions between recitations and homeworks.
The tiered grading scheme is a great idea! I only didn’t like it because my life has otherwise been a living hell.
I liked the amount of practice questions that were available.
The slides were easy to understand and relatively detailed.
The format of the slides was very helpful and exam material requirements were very clear (ex/ boxes around required equations). I also liked that there was plenty of practice in the form of homework, recitation, and extra material. Office hours were also quite helpful and were run efficiently when there were a lot of people and Alex was very clear and patient when he explained topics from the lecture. I liked the ranked question format and I actually found that it helped me to manage my time on exams, which is something that I have historically struggled with on chem exams.
I like that he tried to emphasize the concepts of biochemistry as opposed to memorizing. I liked that during lecture if it seemed like we did not understand what was going on he was receptive to receiving questions and doing his best to help us understand. He would stop lecture when it looked like we were confused and give more examples and explanations. In addition he was very receptive in general regarding the class so I hope he will not take offense to any criticism in my and my classmates omets and instead use it to help students in future for future classes.
I can appreciate that the professor was open to feedback
I liked the tier system for questions in any coursework. Having the two quizzes as separate from the exams was a good idea for ensuring memorization of the material.
I liked that there was a discussion section under each module and I liked that there were many office hours held for asking questions about difficult topics. I also appreciate the drops to give us a bit of a buffer to work with.
The material is very interesting and i felt how it was presented was meaningful, it made me care more about the class and wanting to learn.
I felt that i really enjoyed working with my classmates throughout the semester in recitation and outside the classroom. I feel that the structure of this class promotes collaboration and this helped with understanding material. I think the exams were fair relative to the difficulty of the material, they were never out of their way to be extreme, except maybe exam 3.
I really appreciate Dr. Maldonado’s communication with students, he was always accepting of feedback on the design of the course and what we thought.
At first i thought he wanted students to really challenge themselves to understand the material, but didn’t see what students had to go through with very intense studying. He wants us to earn our final grades, but i have never struggled this much throughout college so it felt demoralizing. I now feel that it was more that the class was bound to be difficult and he wanted us to come prepared to do our best.
I liked the way lectures were conducted and appreciated that textbook excerpts were posted so students didn’t need to purchase them. I REALLY like that exam keys are posted, because so many professors don’t do that and never give student exams back. Anonymous discussions on Canvas were also a great resource. I felt like there was a decent amount of grade padding from homework, recitations, and quizzes that is pretty rare in STEM college classes but is so, so helpful.
I liked the provided resources to go along with the lecture slides. They were helpful. I liked the tiered grading system.
I liked the way recitations were held every week (it gave us time to ask questions and solve problems)
I liked that this course had a discussion board where we can ask questions that would be responded to. I also liked that we had quizzes that were pretty straightforward. Overall, I also think that no curve is the way to go.
I liked the how in depth the slides were and that everything on the exams could be found in the slides.
I liked the visuals and the connections to the real world allowing me to visualize my learning.
I liked that the “why” was emphasized when teaching.
I liked the way that concepts were explained. Our professor used a lot of analogies to simplify ideas, which made it easier to remember information and understand related concepts. I also appreciated how detailed the presentations were and that they were always available on Canvas to refer back to. I often found that the information in the presentations was more organized and easier to understand than the supplemental textbook readings that were provided.
I like how each slide has pictures representing the information, as I am a visual learner, and I like how he did not have a lot of information on the slide, and instead, he spoke it, as having to write it down kept me more engaged.
I liked how thorough/in depth the slides presented were.
I liked the visuals and the connections to the real world allowing me to visualize my learning.
I liked that the “why” was emphasized when teaching.
I really enjoyed his lecturing ability. He did not just read off the slides but instead used them as a platform to create informational knowledge.
I liked the way things were explained in lecture and the slides were well detailed, which was helpful for studying. I also liked how the material was organized throughout the semester, as it felt like everything flowed well together. I also liked the quizzes, as they were a good way to enforce learning before the actual exam.
I appreciated that Alex challenged us to think critically and connect content from different units. I felt like the A and S tier questions did force me to think outside of the box and engage with the content in a new way.
I enjoyed the lectures.
Recitations and homeworks were helpful
I like how there were extra materials made available to me for each module. I also like how there was a discussion section for any questions we had for each module.
I liked that the professor tackled the learning material from a different perspective and offered reasonable answers/discussion opportunities in class.
I appreciated that Alex challenged us to think critically and connect content from different units. I felt like the A and S tier questions did force me to think outside of the box and engage with the content in a new way.
He presented his lecture slides in an engaging way. I liked how the recitations were setup and the drops we got on the homework, recitations, and exams were nice.
Weekly homework kept me engaged.
Attendance was not mandatory.
Posted slides to Canvas.
Visual examples, along with taking time to answer questions in class from students.
n/a
I appreciated the schedule that was (mostly) kept to, and if it wasnt, it was simpyl remvoing lectures / HW, not some other more complicated solution.
I liked that the units were divided very logically.
The slides are very detailed, so if I couldn’t attend class that day I didn’t feel behind.
I believe that the content of our lectures was very interesting, and had me very excited to learn about biochemistry as a whole. I also enjoyed the clarity of our materials for the most part, as they made the lectures easier to follow along with.
I enjoyed that he went into depth about certain processes that helped explain biological systems.
N/A
If you were teaching this course, what would you do differently?#
I feel like the slides were a little bit difficult to understand chronologically sometimes, so I think the order of information can be organized a bit better. I also feel like the homework questions were not very representative of what we discussed in class and especially the main ideas. A lot of the homework questions were math problems, but then we had hardly any math problems on the exam. It was just hard sometimes to really figure out what he really wanted us to understand versus just know the main idea of. With that, I think that the connection between the lectures and the exam problems wasn’t clear. I feel like I studied all of the material very in depth, but then when it came down to the exam I would see problems we had never discussed/practiced before (or maybe it was a small detail in the notes that I didn’t even notice, so maybe emphasizing those more in the lectures). I am not a huge fan of the curved questions versus curved average of this class, but I do understand why he does it that way. I also would still use the “Select all that apply” questions, but I thought that some of the “trick answers” within the answer choices were too tricky (ie. one wrong word in the explanation) and were not explained well enough in the lectures to have been fairly put in.
To start, i would organize how the class exams to one specific standard and not change from exam to exam. I would take time to ensure that the exam questions are comprehensible and well written. I do not believe that the grading system is fair, most students will not finish with anything greater than a b.
I thought it was odd that Alex used Monday morning recitation on the first week as “syllabus day”. It’s not a huge deal, but I didn’t get off the waitlist for the class until Tuesday morning (thus didn’t get Canvas access until then), so I never got a proper introduction to the course. I’m well accustomed to diving right into material on the first day, and I did review the syllabus on my own ahead of time, but I still felt like I was playing catch–up. They also formed recitation groups that Monday, which left me in an awkward position when I attended the following week, and I missed out on bonus points from R1.0. Again, not a huge thing, but I felt like I had a significantly slower start than everyone else, and I didn’t even miss a day of regular class. It wasn’t a great first impression.
I would at least review the wording of the exam questions ahead of time (e.g. use the UTAs as a focus group to gauge student interpretation). The ratio of each tier felt much more balanced by Exam 4. I think that should be a model for the other exams in the future. The tiered questions felt weird at first, but once the wrinkles were ironed out they were a lot more fair. I do think they are a good alternative to a standard curve.
The one thing I think this class needs pretty desperately is clearer content structure. The size and difficulty of the course material obviously isn’t the instructor’s fault, and I think Alex did a great job of explaining things in class and making himself available outside of lecture. Unfortunately, that didn’t help much for exam review. I didn’t have many questions about the material; I think most of the challenge comes from memorizing an understanding of every topic. Between my notes, the slides, and multiple textbooks, it was difficult to figure out what I was expected to know. The class would’ve been so much easier to follow if the material that we needed to remember, understand, and recall on assignments and exams was largely kept in one place. Alex went over a lot of tips about this during the Exam 4 review that would have been so helpful to know from day 1. Presenting the way he expects students to review material, either in class or somewhere on the syllabus, would really benefit future classes. Additionally, module study guides/outlines would be great. I tried to use the key takeaways from each lecture as the foundation for my study sessions, and I found that it helped, but didn’t narrow things down enough for me.
On a related note, the setup of recitation assignments felt more confounding than helpful at times. My recitation group and I were often unsure whether we were supposed to know the textbook content that wasn’t mentioned at all in class but was included on the recitation worksheet, and the TAs usually informed us that it was just for practice. I would prefer that the recitations mirror the C–A tier exam questions as closely as possible, and that only the longer homework assignments include those supplemental questions to expand our understanding. I think this would better prepare students for exams without sacrificing the challenge offered by the complex questions.
The best way I can summarize these issues is that it felt like this class was trying to model a flipped classroom and a regular lecture at the same time. As far as I could tell, I was expected to gain an advanced understanding of all of the lecture content and all of the textbook content I read at home. There needs to be some clearer outlines of what is required in each module (or at least how we should be approaching them/how to distribute our focus). If you plan to rewrite all the exams for future semesters, sharing old exams on Canvas would be good practice & would highlight the topics you like to ask about.
I know other students were able to handle these issues, but I put hours upon hours into this class, and my exam average does not really reflect that. I’m a neurodivergent student, and exam–heavy college courses are already fundamentally not built with me in mind. Addressing the issues I detailed would strongly benefit students like myself that struggle without clear structure, and provide a clearer path for neurotypical students to excel as well.
Overall, I really liked Alex, he’s very entertaining and it’s clear he wanted to accommodate us fairly. He was very receptive to constructive feedback, especially regarding exam grading, which I’m incredibly grateful for. There were some growing pains this semester, but I’m confident that his future courses will have a smoother experience.
The slides were very wordy and the instructor moved through them fast, so I felt overwhelmed at times. Also, biochemistry has a lot of content in general, so it would be nice to have some sort of study guide before exams. Maybe a list of key concepts to know or practice exams.
I would not implement a tiered system for questions and grading, or at least alter them to be more student friendly. It is great that the more difficult questions are weighted less however there is too much value placed on the lower C–tier questions. And since C–tier questions make the up the most amount of total questions and grading of exams, even messing up a few of the many C–tier questions would lower the exam score which may not always reflect the student’s understanding of the material. An example of an inaccurate grade reflection would be if a student were to answer all the A and S–tier questions correctly and fully but make a few mistakes on C–tier ones, which will just drop their score. But overall the lectures and recitations were enjoyable, safe, and respectful.
I know that Alex taught this class to the best of his ability but his method of teaching is bad because he doesn’t explain the concept or the conceptual part of the class well. His exam questions, were tricky and POORLY written, I believe this contributed to the dificulty of the exam, which made it feel like he was out to get us. The A, B, C, and S–tier questions were not accurate representation of the tier bracket they were i.e., Some of the C and B–tier questions were more difficult than the A and S– tier. He rushed teaching his classes when hes running out of time leaving us to study the rest of the slides by ourselves.
I would explain in detail and provide accurate and relatable example to the students to help them understand the material better. I would write the exam questions in a way that is easy to understand so that if you study and understand the material you will be fine.
I do agree with Dr. Maldonado’s critical stance of “curving,” but I also feel that Dr. Maldonado incorrectly gauges the efficacy of his exams. Exams were difficult and I will point out a couple reasons as to why. Firstly, the wording on exams need improvement. It almost seemed as if the intention wasn’t to test knowledge, but differentiate between obscure subtleties in the language. Secondly, some questions would simply go beyond the material and require either background knowledge or recalling little nuances, neither of which are fair metrics. After each exam, I felt that my knowledge of the material was always greater than what my grade would reflect, which meant that either my inherent testing ability or the test is at fault.
But besides that, Dr. Maldonado is exceptionally qualified to teach and his strong understanding and fascination with the material is unquestionably evident. Often, A– and S–tier questions seem to be simpler than C–tier, while other times, C– and B–tier questions pose the greatest issue. I feel as though the average student benefits by the limited open–response questions that intrinsically require deeper knowledge, but poorly worded or overly tricky multiple choice questions end up disadvantaging students who have a greater grasp of the material.
Alex changed the structure of the tests, assignments, and recitations as we went. From more open ended questions to multiple choice to select all that apply to questions that gave you instant feedback to written or pdf form assignments. This created a very distracting learning environment that did not allow me to excel in an already difficult course in itself. I understand he was trying to help students by changing structure but these changes should be made in later semesters, not while the semester is in session and an expectation is already in place about what assessments look like. Alex was not approachable despite being available both in person and online. He was very passive aggressive and voiced that his assessment of our biochemistry knowledge is a validaiton of our degree. Alex took a significant toll on my mental health this semester as I put in a lot of work to study and learn material and my exams varied from As to Cs and Ds.
I would SERIOUSLY KEEP MY WORDING CONSISTENT!!!! There were many times that I felt lectures, homeworks, and exams had far too much academic jargon that was not defined in lecture. I understand the importance of this, but this is not the class to do that in with having to already remember a variety of terms and other defined academic words, adding more that are undefined was just too much. If you were to continue this please provide a definition in a footnote or something PLEASE!!!! I did enjoy the class though, and I do plan on pursuing a career in biochem.
I feel like the emphasis on quantum was a little forced sometimes, especially learning it and doing calculations in recitations and on homework but them not being tested on exams. Once the equations were highlighted in the lecture it made it much better.
I would post the slides for class the night before, I personally like being able to review the slides myself before class so I can understand the lecture during class better. I would also hold an exam review session for each exam, there was one for the first exam which I went to and found helpful, but none after that.
Record lectures –– a lot is said, and it’s hard to remember. Review sessions before exams would be helpful –– I’ve never had a STEM class that doesn’t hold these. There were too many changes to the syllabus over the semester, making it difficult to keep up with them. The organization of assignments should be improved/ communicated in the syllabus prior to the semester starting.
I would make module/unit summaries that basically sum up the key points of each lecture.
I would really emphasize which things we are expected to know because sometimes he expected us to know the tiniest details about a lot of topics but other times only wanted us to know the broad concepts which sometimes wasted time. For example, sometimes I would think I needed to know exact names of things when in reality he just wanted us to know themes.
I would change the layout of the SABC tier questions. I like the idea of this, but from my experience I felt it was very subjective what counted as “S” and “C”. I would study around 25 hours for each exam, and during exams I would get to a “C” tier question and struggle greatly with it, whereas I would get to an “A” or “S” tier question and feel it was very obvious/from a slide that I had memorized. Additionally, I feel that the select all that apply C tier were too difficult to be considered “fundamental” as some wrong answer choices were, I thought, a bit too nuanced to be considered fundamental. From my perspective, this caused a lot of anxiety knowing I was losing more points simply due to the weighting, and it caused stress when studying because sometimes it made my many hours feel futile and like it was just up to luck whether the hardest questions would be C or S weighted. I just wish there was a bit more forgiveness baked into the scale, considering the “C” tier questions I felt sometimes still take some critical thinking and are not always just the most basic baseline concepts as described in the syllabus. I understand the no curve philosophy but I found it demoralizing when I landing well above the Q3 for the exams, studying hours, asking questions in lecture and recitation, reading the book, and still not having an A, but I don’t know yet how final grades will shake out. I understand Alex’s philosophy but I think its hard to adjust from having ochem classes where an exam with a high of 92 gets curved 8 points, and then coming into this class and an exam with a 92 high has no curve. But I learned a lot more in this class. Overall I loved what I learned in this class but the grading system brought a lot of anxiety for me.
I would make takeaways from lecture a little more clear, because many students were often asking how in–depth they needed to study for exams about reaction mechanisms, enzyme properties, and blue box equations.
If I were teaching this course, I would change the homework schedule to align more closely with the content being taught at the time. The current weekly schedule begins with learning material in lectures Tuesday and Thursday, homework released on Friday about the previous week’s content, recitation on the same content on Monday, new content the following Tuesday and Thursday, and repeat. I would assign the homework assignment that encompasses the week’s material on the same day the material is taught, so Tuesday. The schedule would consist of homework released before Tuesday’s class, lecture on Tuesday and Thursday that is covered on the already released homework, recitation Monday going over the previous week’s content and homework, homework due before class on Tuesday and begin new material with new homework set. This way, the same content in the homework assignments overlaps with the lecture content instead of doubling back on the previous material while also juggling new material. I learn best by studying the same material before the new material begins, and the homework calendar as it stands made this more difficult for me.
I wish the powerpoints were more condensed, containing the information we needed to know. This class also went a little fast for handwriters, and I found it difficult to keep up during lecture.
I would spend more time reviewing the complex/long processes of biochemistry instead of quickly explaining them in lecture and moving on.
As a visual learner, I think it’d be important to include more videos are stills for certain topics that involve pathways or progressions in steps, where that’s the ETC, TCA, or glycolysis for examples.
I would not do the tiering of questions because it’s hard to gauge what questions students find easier than others. I would probably just do a normal curve.
I would heavily alter the format of the homework. I felt that the homework worksheets were only slightly beneficial to studying for the exams. Earlier in the course when the exams were less multiple choice the worksheets were helpful, however as the exam switched to more multiple choice I felt that the C–tier homework questions were not as useful. When there were C or B tier open ended question on the exam, the homeworks were useful study material, but as the shift was made to more multiple choice and select all it felt unfair when there were zero practice multiple choice questions. The lack of practice material made the exam difficult to study for and hindered my drive to perform well in this class and learn a lot. I felt that the tiered grading of the questions had its ups and downs.
It was difficult the first couple of months when the course weighting/grading kept changing. I would’ve rather the syllabus be set and kept to. I’d also round half percents up :)
I don’t know why, but it seemed to me like important material was sometimes touched on lightly and things that should have been stressed were given brief and cursory explanations (as in Nowe Ateny’s “Everyone knows what a horse is”). Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention because my life was otherwise a living hell, in which case this is de facto my fault, but it might be something to keep in mind in future runs of this course.
Give more non graded practice questions.
I would include a general study guide or list of important topics for upcoming exams. The topics I would study the most would play a very little part of the exam, so it would be nice to have a guide and determine a hierarchy of study topics.
I think that I would want some more material that allows us to practice select all questions. They weren’t too unmanageable on exams given that we received partial credit, but I would still find some extra practice content geared towards these questions helpful.
Many of the equations near the beginning of the course material in the slides were very hard to understand and not given context regarding the variables that were used (units can be useful as well for the future). For example, the kB constant was used in the class for thermal energy (kB)T. This was supposed to be known by all the students for the exam for many of the equations that we used, however, he never assigned a value or units with this constant. On google and every other source, kB is 1.380649 × 10–23 but he wanted it to be 8.314 which is actually the constant for R. In addition, randomly in the slides he changed kB(T) which is thermal energy into the constant Beta. He never made any explanation in the slides that showed this change so me and many classmates were left wondering what this meant. In addition, with the Boltzmann equation, (even now I am still confused) there are times when you need to multiply by multiplicity vs not supposed to multiply by multiplicity BUT there was never any point in the slides where he put the equation with multiplicity or even said in the slides that you needed to do this. On the homework, you need to multiply by multiplicity and this was supposed to be known for the exam as well. This occurred many more times throughout the course and it induced many more hours of studying, understanding, and going to office hours just to understand what needed a small adjustment or context in the slides. In addition, even after telling us he would highlight all the needed equations on the slides, he would introduce equations from the “optional” textbook we should use as an “additional resource” into the homework and then we would be told in recitation that we would need to know this for the exam. By making these small changes in upcoming semesters these modules will be much easier and much less time consuming for students to understand which I hope can be of use for the professor to know. In addition, the exams were very inconsistent throughout the course. In the first exam, there were many open ended questions that required a lot of explanation which was very time consuming. In addition, the c tier questions he judges as the easiest were not the easies but were worth 7.5% of the exam for each question, meaning that missing one c tier would bring you down two letter grades (i.e. A+––>A–). He was receptive and thought this was not right so on the next exam he made the levels of c tier and so on much better and more distinct. This exam was easier and more indicative of the tiers with less open ended which gave us enough time to answer and not rush through writing. In the third exam however he introduced select all that apply which made up a majority of the exam. With these, he would make each question have about 6–8 answer choices with each choice being wordy and confusing. This made it very challenging compared to the past two exams. One problem with this is that the exams were not indicative with what we knew for each exam. Even if I knew more for one exam than the other, the scores that translated into the exams were nowhere near indicative since each exam was completely different in structure and difficulty. In addition, all of his tests contained very bad wording that was very difficult to understand. I asked almost 15 questions on each exam (especially the third) and could’ve asked about 30 more if I was given the time which made it very difficult especially with the select all that apply when there were 8 different choices to decipher which basically made it 8 questions in one. I did like he at least did partial credit but the scores was not indicative of what we knew because of how wordy and difficult to understand many of the questions were. It could be helpful to maybe give to your undergrad TAs to take a look and see what they think regarding question wording just to make sure students on the exam don’t have as much trouble. I do like that he was very receptive throughout the course so I hope he can use what I have said and make changes to see what he thinks fits best for the student’s learning in future classes.
There were multiple variations in how the tests were structured, points allocated, and redistribution of grades. I think being more prepared and consistent would allow for more fair grades to be made. I think each test was distinctively different in the way the material was presented, and each way students’ prepared reflected the last test, however I think consistency would provide better results. For example: going from 4–5 selection multiple choice to A–G, or going to select all. Additionally changing the recitations and homeworks format seemed to also slightly disrupt how we recieved materials.
I personally think in multiple lectures the class (especially toward the end modules) were sped up due to the instructor not allocating his time for teaching evenly. His emphasis on “sounding smart” rather than explaining the material was a problem for me. This required me to seek other resources to explain topics well; he instead would ramble and go in tangents trying to correct these mistakes which often confused students further. This forced him to say “come to office hours” as a means for substituting materials although this is not 100% the intention of OH.
Although he firmly believes that “he should not curve”, it seems obvious that his teaching ideology is unorthodox and the changes are not reflective of a prepared teacher. With this, I believe that perhaps for a “redo” of his first biochemistry semester to cut the students a break/implement a larger buffer as it’s his first time instructing this material and he stems from a engineering/computational background.
I would have clearer instructions on what is important in the class material. The ‘packet’ part of each lecture’s notes was not very useful. Also, during the lecture, please refrain from making remarks on students’ responses/questions, as it is unprofessional. I also recommend keeping the exam structure consistent, as changes to it take away from applying the course material in a timely manner.
While I enjoyed the C–tier – S–tier grading scale, it sometimes felt inaccurately paired to the true difficulty of the question, so I would maybe reevaluate the rankings of those questions. I also wish there was more practice problems and practice exams before the exam because sometimes it was tough to gauge what to expect. I also have had professors make lecture transcripts in the past – they are really helpful to get a detailed understanding of the lecture material in the professor’s words.
Maybe I would be a little more interactive with the class and clear up the unknowns by providing a study guide so we know what to expect on the exam. The slides were nice, but sometimes there was just so much information, and it wouldn’t even be on an exam. Knowing what to know rather than generalizing everything would help study efficiently, rather than trying to memorize every single slide.
I think removing a little bit from certain lectures, so they do not need be rushed, as often that means I have to fully teach that rushed section to myself. Also, for lectures that end early, instead of adding content, perhaps extending explanations of certain sections slightly. Maybe doing a more comprehensive explanation or giving an alternative way of explaining.
I would ensure that the slides reflected what I am expected to know for the exams. There were not clear expectations set regarding testable material. I would also make the homework assignments entirely based on completion so that there is not any stress surrounding practice.
I would simplify the wording in the slides, organize some of the slide decks more, and refrain from biochemistry jargon that isn’t directly defined in the slides. I understand that there is a lot of material that had to be translated to us, but I really think that the large words and long slide titles were very confusing and made understanding the material much more difficult. I think there was a disconnect between the instructor and the students because of the jargon used in class and in the slides; the language choice might be more accurate to the actual topic, but simpler wording is much more beneficial to learning the material to begin with. I also think that the slides could be better organized. For the most part, the content on the slides was understandable after breaking down the language, but there was also disconnect between the slides (like how does one slide/topic relate to the next slide/topic) that were not really connected during class.
Besides the lecture slides and wording, I would also change the format of the exams and their consistency. I think that the system of C, B, A, and S tier questions is a good idea, but sometimes the difficulty of the questions didn’t line up with their corresponding letter grade. I also understand the point of the partial credit/true or false/select all that apply questions, but it was really difficult to have almost 1/3 of the exam be these types of questions, and also for the format to be switching back and forth between “select all true” to “select all false” back to “select all true” and so on. That portion of the exam felt more like a mind game than testing my actual understanding of the content.
Lastly, I would change the homework content and format. The homework at the beginning of the semester was actually helpful for understanding the material. The more recent homeworks were no longer helpful. I think that there were too many A and S tier questions compared to the C and B tier, and even though we’re allowed to just put down an educated guess and receive credit, this defeats the whole purpose of understanding the material. We shouldn’t be guessing and just hoping for the best.
Overall, I appreciate the effort of trying to adjust the class throughout the semester to benefit the students. Some of the adjustments were helpful.
I would mainly adjust the speed of the lectures, because it felt the first half of the lecture we were always moving behind schedule, so that the second half of the lectures had to be rushed. I understand we need to get through lots of dense material but it just means that lectures were harder to gain understanding from, so they felt rushed and somewhat messy.
I would consider a curve in the class, i feel that i was constantly on top of material and i was even studying for med school this semester, but the material is just so complicated and difficult at this level of a class, it is just naturally harder for students to get by without a curve. Having no curve feels more appropriate in lower–level classes, most classes at this level i take either had a curve or had students more satisfied in their relative performance.
Additionally, i thought the tiered question system was good, however sometimes the tiering of the questions did not represent my understanding of the material. For example, i sometimes found A tier questions to be easier than B tier questions, or sometimes a C tier would be too difficult. I would like to propose a system where for example, if you get an A teir completely right and a C tier completely wrong, and the A tiers are designed to be more challenging, then that correct answer should contribute to any lower tier questions that you may have missed. This is because C tiers are worth much more than A tiers. The tiers are not always mirrored to every students understanding of the material, more so what the professor expects.
The lectures could become dry at times. The slides could be dense and worded in a confusing manner. I would provide more clarity on the more dense topics. The exams were not consistent. As we took each exam I didn’t know how to prepare because the format was different each time. I think a clear format using the tiered system in the future would help students succeed more. For example, the first exam was short answer heavy, the second exam was most fair with mostly multiple choice and some short answer, and the third i found unfair because the majority of the exam was “choose all that apply” and we had never had those types of questions showed to us in previous exams or recitation/homework and it made up a majority of the MC questions. I think the amount of homework needs to be dialed back as well. Some weeks we had 15 homework problems with multiple parts and in my opinion they do not really reflect exam style questions.
I would not have slides with random information on them. I would go through the slides before presenting and truly highlight and pick out the key pieces that students need to know. Between the textbook and the extensive slides it is hard to understand what is important to know. Further confusion occurs when the recitations and homework ask about niche aspects or minimally covered parts of the lecture. I would also outline a format for the test at the beginning of the year and keep that format relatively the same. For example, question weights should remain somewhat consistent (this was not true for the first exam) and if there are changes made, I would adjust the grades for the dissimilar set up. I failed the first exam and it was essentially all multiple choice and way less C–tier questions to my knowledge. This is not an ok set up and I feel frustrated by how many points I missed for missing a few multiple choice questions. So adjusting where mistakes were made it important. Furthermore, if I planned on changing the test format, telling students before hand is important. It doesn’t give anyone an edge it just minimizes the opportunity for people to be shell–shocked when seeing an exam. Furthermore, I would have a study guide with key concepts and the breakdown of like “C–tier must knows” type thing. It is just helpful for students to understand even what should have been learned. I would also want the content covered in class to be the content on the exam. For example, students should not be responsible for material that is not presented on thoroughly. With 4.4 the lecture was not completed and then rushed through and in a section in Unit 3 a lecture was missed and then still required. There was eventually a partial solution to that problem… but not sufficient. Overall consistency is key and transparency with material that is required and important. Also knowing the depth to which to go into material is important, especially when the textbook is SOOOOO in depth. It makes it hard to know where to turn.
better lectures and more resources in terms of practice questions
I would provide study guides for students. I would also provide more insight on what the format of the exams would look like because it was very hard to know how to study when the formats changed for every exam.
If I were teaching this course, I would break up the presentations into pre–class and in–class content. There was a lot of material to cover in lectures, and there were a few times where we ran out of time and had to review material on our own. The presentations were very readable, so it would be fair to post a pre–class presentation for students to go over on their own, and then an in–class presentation that goes into more complicated information once students have that baseline understanding. In this setup, I would prefer if the homework assignments were shorter pre–class assignments to hold students accountable to do the pre–class readings. It would be ideal if these pre–class assignments had only “C–tier” and “B–tier” questions, and then harder questions were saved for recitation so that students could get help from TAs.
Make homework relevant material and not all conceptual. Provide study guides. Being able to correctly understand and evaluate A and S tier questions is not possible without a strong foundation understanding of the material which these resources were not provided
If I were teaching this course, the main thing I would do differently is maintain consistent expectations for exams. Throughout the semester, the format kept switching between free–response and multiple–choice, and the grading style and level of detail required were not clearly communicated. This left many students feeling unprepared no matter how they studied, because the exam structure and expectations changed each time.
Additionally, the weighting of questions often felt arbitrary, and even when students demonstrated accurate course knowledge, full credit wasn’t always given unless the answer matched a very specific level of detail that wasn’t outlined beforehand. The contradictory expectations made it difficult to know how to prepare effectively.
Keeping the exam format and expectations consistent—or at least clearly defined ahead of time—would make the course feel much more transparent and help students focus on learning rather than guessing what each exam will look like.
If I was teaching this course I wouldn’t a bunch of extra background information that just leads up to the information we actually need to know. It got very confusing on the organization of the information at many points and it would be difficult to actually understand what we did need or didn’t need to know. I also think the slide shows were too long on multiple occasions in which rushing through the content just to get through slides was extremely unhelpful. I think the discussion in office hours was always more helpful than any of the lectures. I also wouldn’t change up on my students so much considering the switches with formats of exams and homework/recitations. I also wouldn’t consider one person getting a high A on an exam as me doing everything right with teaching when the class average isn’t passing and while there are also other individuals who have gotten low Fs as they are also being taught by me. One person doesn’t account for everyone. I also wouldn’t display the class grades to the entire class.
I take student confidentiality seriously and have never exposed individual grades. Historically, I have limited class-wide data to statistical summaries (mean, median, and high scores) with no identifying information. I chose to display the histogram of final grades specifically to alleviate anxiety and demonstrate that the class, as a whole, is performing better than rumors suggested.
I would lower the difficulty of the questions asked, make the questions easier to comprehend, and provide a greater focus on the types of questions he expects us to know before the exam takes place. I would probably offer study guides or additional learning materials for those students who struggle with the content that is presented in class/book readings. I think the lecture content was very disorganized and not necessarily clear as to what I was trying to learn. Exams were extremely difficult and hard to decipher, and the lecture content also did very little to prepare me for the level of thinking required for some of the questions. I understand the idea behind it, but it is also important to take into consideration that for most students it is their first time learning biochemistry (and for only like 4 months) so it is hard to set the expectation for the level of thinking you may determine as beginner level (you’ve likely been studying biochemistry for years, as well as research and hands–on learning for the subject). I found it hard to grasp the info and there wasn’t really any resources I could find myself that encompassed all that you expected us to know. It is good to know things to a deeper level, but it is also hard to do in a month or three.
If I were teaching this course, I would work to make the grading and course structure more clear to students. I understand that this was Alex’s first time teaching this course, however, I felt like the structure changed frequently and remained unclear. Despite the idea behind C through S tier questions (which I appreciate), I felt as though the question difficulty did not match their assigned tier. We also did not have adequate example problems given that exams were mostly multiple choice and recitation/homework was almost exclusively open ended. Additionally, each lecture was packed with content, however, these classes often felt rushed and it remained unclear what mechanisms/enzymes were crucial for us to know.
This class needed to be much more organized. I understand that it is his first time teaching this course but I believe he should’ve modeled it after what previous professors have done for the class to avoid a constantly changing class structure. The first exam was incredibly hard, which he acknowledged, however refused to curve it even though the average was a 67%. Even with more than half a class failing there is no curve? The highest score on the third exam was a 92%. Again, if the best student is only achieving an A– on exams, it shows that the exams are too difficult. Again, no curve. Additionally, the questions are extremely difficult, with some multiple choice questions having 9 possible answers. He said there is research about “Select all that apply questions” being best for learning but he makes it way too difficult and this is not how any other bio class I’ve taken has been. This requires us to remember every single detail written on his slides in order to do well, which is just not possible. This pushes memorization instead of understanding, where instead it should test big picture questions that require us to understand the material. This is an upper bio class, and I believe the students who have passed the prereqs are competent, this average should not be the case. He does not listen to student feedback when we consistently tell him these exams are way too difficult, and the averages are too low. Many of us have to take this class to attend grad school, and even though I also do not agree with grad inflation, I do not think he evaluates us fairly through these exams. His lectures are incredibly unorganized and hard to follow, often he puts in complicated stuff he is interested in, like topics related to computational bio, and it makes it hard to follow. The lectures focus on the details and forget the big picture ideas, which leaves us students to try and connect ideas and figure out what the main ideas are. Again, many students have made complaints, considering no one is even close to A+ territory and a majority of students are doing poorly in the class. He is stubborn about how he runs the class, even when people complain (even though he should be more receptive considering its his first time teaching the class). Again, he is very inconsistent with the exams and has changed the layout of each exam we had, which makes it incredibly hard to study for, considering we don’t know what to expect, and it is very unfortunate because exams are weighted so heavily. He becomes very defensive, stating that he teaches the course as he wants and is very proud that he doesn’t curve. After talking with others, this class is not consistent with other biochem classes and this content should be standardized. This class needs to change.
There is now a curve on Exam 1 but apparently it took a student an hour and a half to convince him to come to this conclusion. I think it is ridiculous for him to need someone to sit down with him for so long and explain to him why what he is doing is not working, while a majority of the class has been expressing concern for the whole semester. He then sent an email explaining this, with his final statement being “Thank you to the student who decided to talk to me like a person”. I think this is incredibly immature. As students at Pitt we are used to a certain standard in professors, and when we feel like we are not getting the education we are paying for, we should be allowed to complain (especially when it is a new professor teaching a class for the first time) and hope and expect a change. This comment makes it seem like us students have not been talking to him like a person, when all semester all we wanted was for him to understand our frustration. It is incredibly demeaning, passive agressive, and discourages us to make our voice heard, when our requests are more than reasonable. Other comments and another incident this semester makes it seem like he has a lack of emotional regulation, which is important when you are a professor. He did not create a comfortable learning environment, and it is dissapointing as someone who has taken many classes at Pitt across a variety of disciplines where I have never felt like this. I am a competent student, I have gotten into grad school, and this class has been the most ridiculous experience of my life.
Reponse to the comment above
Reflecting on Grading Standards and Academic Rigor
The student provides a detailed critique regarding the course’s difficulty and the “no curve” policy, arguing that the assessments are unfairly difficult. However, this perspective appears rooted in a desire for grade inflation rather than an objective assessment of performance. My exam averages are statistically on par with historical averages for this course and > other current biochemistry sections; the distinction is that I do not artificially inflate grades to ensure a specific percentage of the class achieves an A or A-. While I do not apply a normative curve—which mathematically forces some students to fail so others can pass—I actively engage in criterion-based adjustment. This involves removing questions that fail statistical validation and offering partial credit on multiple-choice items to reward partial knowledge. This is, by definition, a curve applied on a granular, per-question basis. Furthermore, the student fixates on the difficulty of the “S-tier” questions required for an A+, ignoring the fact that at this university, both an A and an A+ carry the same 4.0 GPA weight. The “S-tier” distinction is designed to reward exceptional mastery, but the barrier to a 4.0 GPA is accessible, especially considering that 25% of the course grade is largely effort-based. With quiz averages sitting at 99.8%, students have a significant buffer for exam scores that this feedback fails to acknowledge.
There is a significant contradiction in the student’s feedback regarding the nature of the exams. The student argues that the course “pushes memorization instead of understanding” while simultaneously complaining about the difficulty of “Select All That Apply” questions. Educational research supports the use of “Select All” formats specifically because they test deep conceptual understanding and the ability to distinguish nuance, rather than rote recognition. The student’s complaint that this format “requires us to remember every single detail” suggests they are approaching the course with a memorization mindset, despite my explicit Day 1 instructions that this course is built on application and analysis. Additionally, the critique that I focus on “complicated stuff” like computational biology is factually incorrect. I referenced these topics briefly to illustrate the broader field and its relevance to modern science, but they were never tested. All exam content was strictly aligned with the learning objectives presented in class.
Course Evolution and Responsiveness
The student claims I am “stubborn” and “do not listen to feedback,” yet in the same paragraph complains that I “changed the layout of each exam.” These are mutually exclusive complaints. The changes in exam format were direct responses to student feedback in an attempt to find a structure that best allowed students to demonstrate knowledge. While this was my first time deploying this specific curriculum, the adjustments were evidence of my flexibility and willingness to adapt to student needs, not disorganization. I reject the premise that I was unresponsive; rather, I was actively refining the course in real-time to better serve the learning objectives, which naturally resulted in structural shifts that some students found unsettling.
The Reality of the Exam Adjustment Meeting
The student mischaracterizes the interactions regarding the Exam 1 grade adjustments. The decision to adjust the first exam was not the result of a student “convincing” me or wearing me down over an hour and a half. It was a productive, logical dialogue where a student proposed applying our current, agreed-upon weighting scheme retroactively to the first exam for consistency. I agreed because the logic was sound and fair. To correct the narrative that this interaction was hostile, the student involved in that meeting sent me a follow-up email stating, “It was a pleasure to actually speak with you as a human… I thoroughly respect your continued adherence to your personal values, while also being open to suggestions.” This evidence contradicts the claim that I am unwilling to listen to reasonable arguments.
Contextualizing the Classroom Climate
Finally, the student characterizes my email sign-off—“Thank you to the student who decided to talk to me like a person”—as immature and passive-aggressive. This comment requires significant context regarding the hostile environment I navigated this semester. I faced an unprecedented level of aggression, including incidents of swatting, death threats, and students shouting at me regarding grades. When I had to cancel office hours due to the emergency euthanasia of my cat, I received emails calling me unprofessional for the late notice, and I was forced to miss multiple funerals for loved ones to maintain course obligations. When I thanked a student for speaking to me “like a person,” it was a genuine expression of gratitude after a semester of being dehumanized. The accusation of a “lack of emotional regulation” is absurd; especially in the context of a professor navigating severe external threats and personal tragedy while trying to maintain academic standards. I remain committed to student success, but I will not compromise the integrity of the material or accept abuse as part of the job description.
I would use a more understandable grading system and try to use more examples that are more applicable to other things learned in other classes, so it can be easier to visualize the concept.
I would give homework and recitation worksheets that mimic exams instead of being completely unrelated.
Offer practice exams or at least practice questions
Organize things so that we aren’t rushing through slides
Curve the class or make easier exams
The tier thing didn’t work at all, just give us regular exams and importantly PRACTICE QUESTIONS FOR IT because the homework, recitation, and the lecture slides were often irrelevant when taking the exam and you changed the format of the exam at least twice
Please don’t do tiers again there were times that the C tier was harder than the A it just made no sense
The grading structure was not great. I am retaking this course and the first time around my other professor had better averages and I understood biochem more then. I feel like course was completely different than my past class and other biochem class I have heard from my friends. Learning about glycolysis for the last exam was crazy to me. I learned more and everything was more in depth last time taking this course. This class was all over the place and the grading structure did not reflect my knowledge that I already have known and learn this semester. Keep grading the same as every other professor at Pitt does! DO NOT USE TIERS!
I would make the test format more consistent.
Starting with the professionalism of the professor, I was highly disappointed, and I found that the professor was ill–prepared to teach this course. The professor continuously made mistakes when lecturing in a way that made engaging with the content incredibly difficult and confusing, he was unable to answer student’s questions (both regarding course content and the format of course assessments) countless times which made it difficult to trust his knowledge, and there were often mistakes in lecture slide, assignment, and exam wording. The number of errors the professor made nearly every lecture caused frequent confusion in class, making an already difficult course harder. A notable issue was his admission that the graduate teaching assistant grades exams, and because she does so quickly, there were mistakes in grading (which would have never been mended had I not gone to speak with the professor directly). The professor often made comments about relying on the graduate teaching assistant in capacities I found to be inappropriate (such as the TA having to tell him what to not include on the exam because it would be unfair to students). There was also an instance where the professor had to apologize for his unprofessional behavior in class via Canvas announcement because he made a rash decision regarding exam material in reaction to a student’s comment. Additionally, the professor was unavailable to the students for outside help. At the beginning of the year he only had one hour for office hours (now there are two hours a week, however he frequently cancels one of them), and he does not make office hours appointments. The material he presented and the way he taught it was not in line with other biochemistry classes at the university (enough so that it is glaringly and alarmingly different). Lastly, the inconsistency in the structure of the course made it very difficult to make sense of how to succeed in the course. The format of exams changed greatly from one exam to another, and because the professor often does not write exams until a couple days before exam day, he was unable to clarify what the exams were going to look like. Most worrying, the grading scheme of the course was not generally solidified until last month, and even this week, he had to make adjustments to grades from the beginning of the semester because the grading scheme has changed so much (he had to go back so that the first exam was graded to match his current guidelines). Overall, the way this course was taught negatively impacted student stress, learning, and grades.
Instructional Accuracy and Scope of Knowledge
The student claims that I was “ill-prepared” and “unable to answer questions,” citing mistakes in lectures. As this was the initial deployment of a new curriculum developed from scratch, minor typographical errors or slide sequencing issues did occur. In every instance, these were addressed in real-time during the lecture, and corrected materials were uploaded to Canvas by the end of the day. Regarding the claim that I could not answer questions: I prioritize intellectual honesty over feigning expertise. When students asked questions related to physiology or clinical applications outside the scope of this biochemistry course, I explicitly stated when a topic was beyond my immediate expertise or the course’s learning objectives. This is not a lack of preparation, but a standard academic practice to ensure students do not receive speculative or incorrect information regarding topics not covered in the syllabus.
Utilization of Graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs)
The student critiques my reliance on the Graduate Teaching Assistant, suggesting it was inappropriate for her to grade exams or offer input on exam content. This feedback demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the TA role in a large university setting. The primary function of a TA is to assist with grading and instruction; having a TA grade exams is standard practice across the department to ensure timely feedback for 74 students. Furthermore, the TA for this section had previously served as an assistant for this specific course. It would have been pedagogically irresponsible for me to ignore her “institutional memory.” I actively utilized her experience to ensure my new exams were calibrated correctly against previous iterations of the course. Correcting grading errors when they were brought to our attention is evidence of a responsive and fair grading process, not incompetence.
Office Hours and Student Availability
The student asserts that I was unavailable and criticizes the frequency of office hours. The course offered a robust support network: in addition to my scheduled hours, the GTA held two hours weekly, and three Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) hosted their own sessions, providing students with multiple daily opportunities for assistance. My specific office hour times were selected based on a student availability survey to maximize accessibility. While I regret that I had to cancel sessions due to significant medical emergencies and personal bereavement, these cancellations were unavoidable. To mitigate this, I maintained an active, anonymous discussion board on Canvas to ensure questions could be answered asynchronously. The TA also covered for some of my cancelled office hours.
Course Alignment and Exam Construction
Finally, the student claims the material was “not in line with other biochemistry classes” and criticizes the timing of exam creation. While all biochemistry sections at the university adhere to the same departmental learning objectives, academic freedom allows instructors to approach these objectives through different pedagogical lenses. My course emphasizes on developing chemical understanding and structural perspectives, which differs from other sections but fulfills the same requirements. Regarding exam creation, writing exams in the days leading up to the assessment is a standard pedagogical practice designed to ensure fairness; it guarantees that the exam tests only the material we actually covered in class, rather than testing what was planned on a syllabus months ago. The adjustments made to grades throughout the semester were not a change in the “grading scheme,” but rather responsive adjustments to question formats based on student feedback to ensure the assessments were evaluating student knowledge fairly.
Making it more clear what the important concepts are for each exam. Answering questions or having answer key answers being more concise to reflect what is expected of students during exams
I would give homework and recitation worksheets that mimic exams instead of being completely unrelated.
I felt that the early aspects of our course leaned too heavily into computational biology, which I understand is our professors background but it felt very foreign sometimes to what we were actually learning about. While most of the time I could appreciate and understand the insight that this perspective offered to our class, it still would feel tangential at times or like we aren’t focused on the main points of the slide/topic, and this made me less compelled to come to lectures, as the explanations in class would sometimes complicate what I was trying to learn through the slides.
I would be more consistent about setting the exam standards early on and ensuring homework problems and recitations reflected the style of questions on the exam which was not usually the case. Most of the homework and recitation problems we have are quite complex and require the use of calculators and in–depth calculation, and on the exams, we are not allowed to use calculators, so the questions relate more to concepts with which we do not get enough practice. I would adjust this to give us the opportunity to practice and match the high expectations he has for us. I also wouldn’t go too in–depth with certain concepts as this is still an undergraduate course.
Additonally, the format of the exams were not consistent which was a probelm as the professor used a tiered system of grading. This system employs C–tier, B–tier, A–tier, and S–tier questions. The weight of these questions differs, but often the C–tier questions are the most difficult and cause students to miss the highest number of points on their exams. He has also changed the layout and style of questions for each exam, with the most recent one including 12 select all that apply questions, where each question has 6–8 answer choices, a style of question that was not on the first two exams. This hindered my perfromance on the A and S tier questions which are supposed to reflect thinking like a scientist and being able to reason through more complex problems. I was not able to adequately perform on these questions as most of my time was taken up by the harder more conoluted C–tier questions which had poorer wording. This is the opposite of what should be happening as his sylllabus explains C–tiered questions to " (Core Competency) Questions at this tier assess your understanding of the essential, non–negotiable knowledge of foundational concepts", A–tier questions are defined as “(Analytical Integration) Questions at this tier challenge you to analyze complex scenarios, interpret new data, and connect multiple concepts to solve multi–step problems”. Finally, S tiered questions are defined as: “(Synthesis & Evaluation) Questions at this tier ask you to synthesize information to generate new hypotheses or critically evaluate complex scientific arguments”. So I would remove the tiered system entirely to remove confusion and doubts of whether the questions actually reflected these definitions and just make all the questions are weighted the same as any other STEM course I have taken here at Pitt which would reduce the learning curve assoicated with this class and remove any confusion as to whether a C–tier question properly address a fundamental concept or if an A–tier invokes adequate scientific reasoning.
Additionally, I would reduce discussion of more complex topics in class. He would bring up concepts in class such as quantum tunneling and advanced calculations that are more suited for computational biology majors or engineers. That is his background so I understand why he included this but as for a student interested in the stem side this cause additional confusion and stress. I would also be more preprared with the content he chooses to put on his slides, oftentime during lecture or office hours he would not provide an adequate explanation for some complex concpets that he included forcing students to seek the outside limited resources that were available for such complex concepts.
Finally, I would be more open with the students about expectations, the professor had very high standards but we can’t meet them if the method of the assessment consistently changes, and if homeworks and recitations seem menaingless compared to the nature and content on exams. I also wouldn’t be so adamant about not curving and how he enjoys that his class is hard. This creates tension between the professor and students as has repeatedly mentioned in class that he was hired to teach this class because he does not believe in curving or in grade inflation, but the current class average sits in the low 70s, causing sutdents to feel disheartened and angered. Instead I would explain with reason why the class and content is difficult rather than just saying it is which evokes a negative reaction out of students.
I do not wish for this response to come across as “emotional” or “venting”; rather, I am going to list things I have noticed during my time in this class that I would alter if I were teaching this course, while writing with a pointedly emotionally detached mindset.
If I were teaching this course, I would change the “weight” grade of questions given on exams, as it does not make sense that a question that requires higher level thinking and application is worth a small fraction of the kind of question whose answer comes from a rushed comment made in lecture.
I would plan for more time during lectures in which students can ask questions and have them clarified to an acceptable degree rather than deciding mid–answer that not enough time would be left to cover lecture content, telling the student that I have to “cut them off” to continue, especially for a topic causing confusion to multiple students.
I would make exam questions more straight–forward, avoiding confusing wording and multiple choice, multiple answer, “select all that apply” questions that seem to test the ability of the student to second–guess themself more than asking the student to demonstrate knowledge of information.
I would not let my own personal frustrations out on a student with known disabilities and DRS accommodations in the middle of lecture when a flaw in my reasoning was pointed out. I would not put words into that student’s mouth in what could be best described as an ego trip, making a rash decision to include extra content on an exam scheduled for the next time the class meets as punishment, only to take that decision back roughly 20 minutes after apologizing.
I wish that this professor conducted himself in a more professional manner, and I have heard from my peers that they share the same sentiment. My own grade rose considerably after I began teaching myself the content, which I believe reflects the quality of the lectures given and teaching administered.
Questions asked to students were often roundabout and, as stated before, there was no “clearing up” of confusion, as lectures did not allocate the time to do so. On the rare occasion that an answer was provided, the answer was given by way of a metaphor or comparison that made little to no sense regarding the source material.
I would try to create a more cohesive method of delivering course information to students, rather than presenting module PowerPoints with 50+ slides in them that would be barreled through over the course of a singular lecture. I understand that there is a lot of material to traverse, however, I feel that students were talked at instead of taught, and that the heavy course content could be presented in a much more digestible way. On a similar note, I would provide key takeaways to students from slides in a more structured format. When questions from students are cut off by the instructor, a “positive learning environment” is hardly fostered, and students resort to making best guesses when asked questions about material. I did not feel comfortable during my time in this class, which, if I were teaching this course, I would strive to provide a semblance of for my students.
I would like to make it abundantly clear that I could be emotional with this report. I could “go off” and “vent”. I could use charged language and say things such as “this was one of the worst courses I have ever taken”, but those are not answers looked for or respected in an end–of–semester report such as an OMET. I have re–read this multiple times, editing out tangents and things that could come off as too emotional. However, I feel that this course was extremely poorly taught in comparison to other high–level courses from the Biology department that I have taken in the past, and if I had to retake this course, I would go out of my way to choose a different professor entirely.
May Ahmed, the teaching assistant for this course, was wonderful in her content clarification, stellar answering of student questions, and timely responses to emails. She provided desperately needed help to students struggling due to the way in which this course was taught.
I would give homework and recitation worksheets that mimic exams instead of being completely unrelated.
I did not like the tier questions. I was unsure of where to spend my time most to study and the tier questions caused me to lack proficiency in parts of the course that would hold a lot of weight on the exams. Instead, I would not create tier questions and give students a guideline or a study guide or something they could usr to reference what would be on the exam. Listing the amount of A tier vs C tier vs B tier questions does not help students at all and give them any insight to the exam.
I would not tier questions.
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