I took this course with Joshi in Jan 2012. I can't comment much on the prof since I only went to three lectures (half-awake). But a lot of what she said was posted on her lecture slides.
The midterm was okay. I studied two days before and got an 82. However, the final was a lot harder. It really tested me on my knowledge since the choices were set up as
1. answer A
2. answer B
3. answer C
4. answer A and B
5. answer A and C
I would say ~70% of the questions were set up this way...extremely frustrating. I would know, for instance, that 1. is right, but then she makes 4. and 5. sound right too. It was a guessing game for me.
Exam aside, the tutorial and volunteer placement are basically a free 20%. I chose the placement because I was already volunteering at a physiotherapy place (which has elderly people). However, I heard a lot of people enjoyed the discussion groups.
The reflection wasn't at all difficult and I did it the night before. You just write what you learned from your experience and relate it to three different topics in the course material. I could have gotten low 80s if I didn't mess up my APA citation (the list of authors wasn't in alphabetical order
) and I'm terrible at writing.
Extras
1. All the assigned readings were a fair game on the midterm/ final. However, basically the entire textbook was assigned, which had tons of other information. Since she did ask a few detailed facts from the text, I had a tough time deciding which to include in my notes.
2. I left this course until last minute (2 days for midterm and 3 for final), so there wasn't enough time to read through everything. After wasting hours only to have covered several pages, I decided to abandon the text and just use my lecture notes. I also memorized all the definitions after each chapter.
3. I hardly attended the lectures, though I should have gone when there were guest speakers. A few questions were based on what they said.
Overall though, the material is simple and marks are easy until finals. If you do sort of decent (>70%) for the exam, a 10+ is likely.
I ended up with a 10 in this course
