Great class to take, very well executed

Great course to take, it really gives a wide yet comprehensive outline of what biology and evolution is really about. If you work hard, you get the marks!

This was the first year for this course, and she did a good job teaching it. She obviously loves teaching, and finds the material very interesting. Her exams are very fair and she seems genuinely concerned in how we do on them.

She is an awsome teacher. I think in a couple of years she will be one of the best profs Western has. I actually enjoyed being in her class.

great prof! great course!

Well, I believe they changed the course this year because the averages were too high before. I think a lot of people underestimated the exams and were shocked with their marks. I'm not sure if they will make it easy again next year, hopefully they will. You can pretty much study only from her notes and she is interesting.

A very cheerful professor with wild hand gestures. While it does seem like this prof does just read the textbook and then spew it back to you, the course was not a waste of time. It was enjoyable. The mid-term and final were ridiculously easy, anyone who says differently just didn't study. No complaints here.

One of the nicest profs ever. Easy, easy exams!

Really interesting course! I was not excited about taking evolution but it ended up being one of my favourite classes! She teaches the course well with interesting examples you can relate too. Do not underestimate the exam! Study her lecture notes and you'll be fine.

She's really sweet. Explains thing really well, but if you need clarification, you can always email TAs or see her after class. Exams were not difficult, but fair. She's great at explaining things one on one and is awesome for having office hours 3 times a week. The course is well rounded, and interesting. Motivates me to learn more about evolution

Great Class. She makes all material interesting and relevant. Her lectures are fun to go to and are key for a good mark on her exams. Overall a great class, course and PROF!!

I caught her wearing a Threadless tee. +100 scene points right there, esp cause she's a prof. Awesome lady, great professor, quirky, accomodating, enthusiastic, a bit scatterbrained, but in an entertaining way. Thoroughly enjoyed Evolution with her. She also mentioned the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This is A+. Props!

Loved this class! The ONLY class I attended on a regular basis (only missed 2-3 all term). Was very clear in her notes and never gave you random crap on exams you didn't learn. There were a few tricky questions, but overall a great prof!

She's a bit out there and a little all over the place but nonetheless she's fun and her lectures were always a laugh.

She's really smart and probably one of the nicest professors out there! Her lectures are pretty much straight from the text book. In terms of her exams, pretty straightforward, a few tricky ones but manageable. Compare to haffie and maxwell she's the "easiest" out of the three. Though her material is easy don't forget to study it well.

She's great!! Material is a little tricky but clear enough if you come to lecture.

Shes a nice lady, good prof...her material is a lot of terms but you will be surprised by nothing they are all obvious facts with terminology attached to them...she uses her arms very much as well during lectures lol

MacShack is an extremely clear prof. Very linear lecturer. Learn the and similarities between terms as well as how they relate to each other, and you'll be just fine on her portions of the first year bio exams.

Really straightforward. You know what is expected of you and what she will be testing you on. Not the most interesting lectures but she gives them in a fairly organised, cheery manner.

Evolution was harder than ecology if anyone was wondering. She is very straight forward, and even gives you hints to exam questions. Her exam questions require the least amount of thinking out of the 3 profs, but the most amount of memorizing. Watch for her hands in class, I know you'll get a goood laugh

love the mac shack shuffle

Professor MacDougall Shackleton or "Mac-Shack" as she's known to students, is a friendly and approachable prof who answers questions with keen enthusiasm. Her material is straightforward and understandable, with her exam/test questions not too challenging. She enjoys, birds, sex, and viruses. Interesting lady overall.

Very enthusiastic, knew the material well. Fairly organized, and gave summaries at the end just in case someone was a bit confused. Gave a lot of examples and used interesting case studies to teach. Received questions well and answered them even better. She was sort of a role model for what is possible in biology. I thoroughly enjoyed this class.

Very enthusiastic, knew the material well. Fairly organized, and gave summaries at the end just in case someone was a bit confused. Gave a lot of examples and used interesting case studies to teach. Received questions well and answered them even better. She was sort of a role model for what is possible in biology. I thoroughly enjoyed this class

Mac Shack is a very enthusiastic prof. A lot of examples in lectures, easy clicker questions. Also writes easy assessments compared to Haffie. Loves Birds and uses a lot of hand actions. Answers questions thoroughly.

Excellent prof! Very clear and very helpful. She's very enthusiastic about biology, and her lectures were interesting. She's easier on her assessments and exams, too. Overall, I enjoyed her lectures.

Awesome teacher! All her lectures were extremely interesting. I went to all her classes. Very good teacher

Although I never went to her class, I watched the archives and she had a great speaking voice. I remember a lot of content from her lectures because she explained concepts so well! She is a model professor, that's for sure!

Such a nice prof, and very enthusiastic! She is a great lecturer, she explains concepts very clearly. Has a good sense of humour as well. I always found her classes interesting.

Shes a great prof and person. I loved her lectures because she explained it very well, never even had to use the text because lectures/archives were enough. So nice and funny too!

Excellent professor and sweetest person! She makes whatever she's talking about really interesting and memorable, which really helps during exams. She's also very helpful during office hours. Oh, and she loves birds.. a lot.

Amazing professor. very funny, very nice. explains things clearly. exams are fair with no tricks. love her!

Super nice and funny. Very easy to understand, she talks quite fast but always posts recordings online which is SUPER helpful. And she looks like Alice Pieszecki from the L word!

OMYGAWD SHE DA BOMB. but kinda slow to explain simple concepts

LOVE HER

Haffie's partner in crime. Beth's material balances Haffie's material out pretty well. Definitely the easier half of the semester. Also Beth is real-life Ms. Frizzle.

Beth taught the second part of first semester bio and her course material was very easy to follow and understand. Beth's term test was much, much easier then Haffie's and brought my mark up by at least 15% if not more!

Beth saved my bio mark after I bombed Haffies midterm. I found evolution really interesting and it was much easier to understand than genetics. She truly wants to see her students succeed. Excellent prof.

Excellent prof for first year bio. Augmented my interest in evolution. Awesome lectures!

Young and passionate lady scientist!

Beth is really interesting, at times she can be VERY boring and at other times she can be extremely interesting. Her quizzes saved my mark though

She's a great prof! Definitely cares about her students and their success. She's a very down to earth person and theres to help you

A super interesting and fun professor! I loved going to her lectures and feel like I took away a lot from them. Also, as someone very interested in animal behaviour, it was like her lectures were catered to what I wanted to learn about.

Amazing caring and interesting prof. Definitley much easier questions then Haffie.

Really nice and really energetic. Her material is much easier than Haffie's and her questions are more straight-forward.

Really enthusiastic about biology, and has straight forward, structured lectures. Her exam and test questions are much easier and more straight forward than Tom's.

Literally a angel sent from above, I tear up just thinking about her and her questions. She's literally glowing 24/7 with some beautiful heaven sent glowy glow. What's she doing here next to Haffie? I have no idea but I thank my lucky stars she decided to do some charity work and spend time with all us degenerates. (Minus she's weird about birds).

Beth is the best prof. She makes class super interesting and keeps everyone engaged. She truly is an angel sent from above!!!!!! She taught all her material in the course super well and made sure everything was clear; her love for biology is evident and that is so inspiring to see.

She's good at teaching and she really helps boost your mark with her content after Haffie destroys you on his midterms. Found her quite helpful. My only concern is that she forces atheism on the class too much. I understand her background is evolution and I believe scientific evidence for evolution. However, she has disrespected religion before.

An all around amazing human being. Literally my favourite prof. So patient and understanding when answering questions and her lectures are actually really interesting and fun. Still forever grateful for her quizzes that boost your grade after you fail your November term test!!

Really easy content and always wants to help students understand

Super easy prof. Her questions are taken right from her lectures. Very easy and clear material.

OMG she is amazing!! I've never liked a Professor so much! She is a literal angel and so kind and funny. Her lectures are super interesting and she is so enthusiastic; it warms my heart coming to her lectures. 10/10 would recommend taking her course if you get the choice. She is so awesome, gonna miss her

Beth is the person who saves your GPA after Haffie destroys it. Her content is boring but very easy to understand and test. Her lectures are mediocre at best, ngl had some trouble saying awake sometimes.

She's engaging and clear. She tries to be engaging and her content is fun. Sometimes her lectures were a little slow but that might've been just compared to Haffie. Her tests are fair, know her content and you should be ok. You'll learn to love the birds

Beth isn an amazing teacher. Her lectures are enjoyable and you can tell shes very passionate. You feel as if you actually learn something in her lectures. All lectures are recorded. Make sure to read the textbook and make your own notes.

For sure my favourite prof! Really engaging:)

She is an engaging prof. Very chill. Lectures can be a bit more exciting though

Beth was an amazing teacher and gave us a great semester. She clearly explained the concepts which we need to know

Great lectures, and slides

Very humble prof. Her lectures are interesting and well-structured. Her lectures are definitely more reading-heavy compared to the other 2 profs teaching the course but overall really good!

Make sure to read over her learning outcomes for both the textbook and the lecture. Overall, professor MacDougall-Shackleton is a good professor with a grasp of her lecture content. Fair questions for the final that can be completed if you take your time to understand the concepts and learning outcomes.

Birds

Very fair professors, you have to put in the work but can easily get a high grade if you learn everything that is assigned. The exams are very fair and expect for her to connect every concept to birds.

Very funny and entertaining in lectures - approached the content in an engaging way and did her best to prepare students for exams through providing example questions in every lecture. Though she gave the most readings of the three BIO1001A profs, I found they were helpful in understanding the content and made the lectures more effective.

Compared to the other profs (in fall 2023), prof.was good. She's enthusiastic about the material and goes over it in detail with ways you can remember it. However, if you didn't read the textbook, it could sometimes be hard to learn as it goes so fast (if you didn't learn it in high school). Exams were fair, but often had strange detail

Awesome lectures with Gen-Z humour effectively incorporated; super friendly. Very clear about expectations for her sections. I found her part of the course was easiest to succeed at (McNeil was less clear about what he wanted, and Sharan's content was more difficult). Clarifies very well during office hours.

Love her lectures, never fails to make me laugh. She makes sure that everyone understands the lecture content by doing a lot of iclicker questions. Her lectures are very interactive and she even has games for some of them. Doesn't go too in depth though, definitely read the textbook as her slides don't have much text. Her exam questions were easy.

Dr Beth is a very funny and kind professor. Her lectures were always intriguing and organized, and she did such a great job teaching. To be honest, her questions on the final exam were harder than expected, but she prepares us as well. Although the text book is mandatory, you definitely don't need it to succeed; focus on lectures instead.

I really like Dr. Beth! You can tell she loves what she does, she is approachable and nice, and her exam questions are relatively easy. She was a great first biology prof to have.

Her content was so boring to me, but her questions on the exams saved all of us from Niki Sharan's awful questions. Very friendly professor who has the most passion for birds that I have ever seen! If you don't love MacShack, there is something wrong with you.

i'm not the biggest fan of biology but i actually went to class just for mac-shack's jokes. she's so funny and unserious i love her.

MACSHACK, MY GLORIOUS GOAT, YOUR QUESTIONS SAVED ME ON THE FINAL. PRAISE BE TO MACSHACK.

I love Mac Shack I thought she did a great job of teaching all the concepts after the midterm, but to be fair it was really easy content compared to what Sharan taught.

Lectures are great, she's funny and uses real examples of concepts. Her exam questions are much easier than Sharan's. Made me enjoy bio.

MacDougall is a very kind and funny professor. I enjoyed her lectures and found them to make evolutionary biology an interesting subject. Her questions are significantly easier than Sharans aswell.

Such a sweet prof, you can tell she has passion for what she teaches. Made the lectures fly by (which I highly recommend you come in person, bio is so much easier to learn irl), funny, fair exam questions. Made the first year bio experience worth it :)

Her content during BIO1001A was easier and while she was worse at explaining than Sharan, her lectures are slower paced and easier to follow. Exam questions from her were easier and contributed to the final feeling much easier than the midterm, which had most questions being from Sharan. Sometimes cracks jokes during lecture; nice prof.

Loved her!!!! So engaging and caring about her students

Dr. Mac-Shack is amazingggg. So funny and sweet, I love her

flying spaghetti monster

Amazing prof very knowledgable, down to earth, makes boring topics interesting and very funny! #WeLoveMacShack

You can tell she is passionate about the topics and does her best to explain the material with engaging and relevant examples. To do well you should read or at least skim through the textbook readings before class as it is assumed that you read it before the lecture!

You can tell she is passionate about what she teaches. Her exam questions are fair and usually something we've seen before or on practice exams. I understood her content way better than Dr Sharan. There's lots of resources for her cycles to study if you didn't understand the lecture content. Overall great prof

Dr. Macdougall-Shackleton's biology lectures are good at explaining and reinforcing concepts. Her lectures can sometimes be boring, but her in-class practise problems are good material for reinforcing concepts.

Dr. MacDougall-Shackleton's lectures are very straight forward and simple to follow. Her exams I thought were more than fair. Certainly cares about student success, and overall an excellent example to what a professor should be.

Dr. Macdougall Shackleton's lectures are very clear and straightforward, and her exam questions are very easy.

I enjoyed Dr. Mac-Shack's lectures, she did a really good job of keeping students engaged. She was also great at answering questions during office hours. It's clear she knows the material well. Her exam questions will make you think, but are fair. Make sure you understand the expected outcomes and do the practice problems. Great professor overall.

I honestly loved her section of content more than Niki's, as I just found it to be so interesting. While some people find her lectures boring due to the content, I think her iClickers are extremely engaging and I loved attending! Her test/exam questions are also extremely fair but she's not as easy as people make her out to be! :)

MacDougall-Shackleton focuses specifically on the evolution portions of this course so if you are interested in evolution, she will be your favourite. Her teaching style is a bit awkward and slow but she will make sure you understand the content and will have practice questions during the lectures that directly correlate with exam questions.