Alright so I took this course with Dr. Pincivero during Fall 2014, which was the first time the course was offered. The mark breakdown was:
40% midterm (basically a final exam, as it covered all of the lecture content covered throughout the course)
60% group project (18% preliminary paper, 18% final paper, 21% poster presentation, 3% group member and topic sign up)
The midterm was 70 multiple choice and 20 marks short answer. This was extremely fair - he is a great prof and is not trying to trick you, which is nice. The content was very interesting (if you found 2N03 interesting). There was quite a bit of review, however we expanded on that content and covered new topics like alcohol. I find Dr. Pincivero can be a little disorganized, and it was a little difficult for him to gauge how much material we would be able to cover (because the course had never been run before) however we managed to get through most of it and as in his other courses, notes were posted and all lectures were podcasted.
For the group project, we had to pick a controversial or debated nutritional claim that had been made in the media or by a public figure (Dr. Oz, for example). We then had to write a 3-4 page preliminary paper outlining the claim and introducing some of the related research, followed by a final paper (10-12 pages) detailing all the relevant research (supporting and refuting) the claim, followed by a verdict (is the claim legitimate? Was it exaggerated and the supporting literature questionable? Etc.). We then had to make a poster and present it (very informally) to the professor (all the posters were set up around the room and groups took turns presenting to him, as well as discussing their topic with other students who were scheduled to present on another day).
The marking was very fair and Dr. Pincivero is very understanding and accommodating. He even switched the date of the midterm because several students had another test that day. I think this course was great, a fairly light workload and I suspect it will only get better after being run a few times. Would definitely recommend!
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