Animal Physiology - Homeostasis
I took this course in Fall 2009 with Dr. Wood.
The mark breakdown was:
35% - Labs
25% - Midterm
40% - Final Exam
Lectures
There were three main topics that were covered in the course: the circulatory, respiratory, and urinary systems. The first half of the course was devoted to circulation, while the remaining half was split between the other two. This course goes into a lot more detail of what was covered in 2A03, and I would definitely suggest keeping your 2A03 notes. Lecture slides were posted before class, and they were pretty good for the most part. They have all the important information on them (including diagrams), but I wouldn't suggest skipping class as they're not extremely detailed. I missed some classes and regret it. As well, Dr. Wood often assigned specific topics and readings that need to be done on your own, which can be tested. In other words, you'll need to buy the textbook, which I found kind of hard to get through since it's so detailed.
Dr. Wood is one of the better profs I've had. He definitely knows what he is talking about. The only thing I didn't like about the lectures though was how it felt like he was just talking about topics randomly without any clear cohesion into a big picture for the systems, so I thought the information could have been presented in a better order. We also had some guest lecturers because Dr. Wood went away for research and whatnot, and they were fine as well.
Labs
Labs are a big component of this course as it is worth 35% in total. The labs are 3 hoursevery week with a formal lab report every other week worth different amounts (3+4+5+5 = 17%). In the weeks where there are no lab report, there is a quiz worth 2% (three of these in total = 6%). We also had to a seminar, which includes a three page written report, a handout for the class, and a presentation worth 4%. The final 8% is a lab exam.
The labs are a lot more interesting than the 2A03 ones. A majority of them involves using the computer and measuring pulse pressure, ECG, respiration, etc, which was done briefly in 2A03 if I recall correctly. My favorite lab was the frog dissection. Speaking of which, if you're against dissection animals or using animals in labs (you also use goldfish and mice for respiration), then you should think twice about taking this class.
Everything is done in partners (including the seminar), but the lab reports are individual. If you really dislike writing lab reports, don't take this course. I had an awesome TA who was fair in the gradings, but I've heard that some are harder. You get either one or two weeks do the lab reports, and I recommend starting them as fast as possible after the lab since they take a while.
The quizzes we had were ten multiple choice questions each, and are generally easy marks as long as you pay attention and learn during those labs. The seminar just involved researching a topic and presenting it. Pay attention to the presentations though because some topics may appear on the lab exam, which was all multiple choice like the quizzes.
Tests
The midterm covered mostly circulation (we only had one or two lectures on respiration before it), and the final exam was 60% post-midterm and 40% pre-midterm. They both had three sections to them: multiple choice, short answers, and longer answers. The questions were fair, and it's really only the multiple choice where you might find tricky questions. I found the exam to be more difficult, but that's just because I don't really like the respiratory or urinary systems as much. It's also not completely pure memorization because there are some calculations and application involved.
Interest
All in all, the course was interesting. If you like learning a bit in-depth about how the human body works, then you should take it. The workload is pretty big, and you really have to keep up to do well. There is also 3UU3, if you don't want to do the labs but want to take a physiology course.
Last edited by Omega_X13 : 12-18-2009 at 01:26 PM.
|