2.7
Quality2.7
Difficulty46%
Would Retake89
Reviews46%
Would Retake
89
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
23
4
12
3
4
2
24
1
26
What Students Say
“she didn't know what she was talking about there was no relation between the lectures and labs, it was the worst experience for me ever”
BISC100 - 1.0 rating“Although she is a kind lady, she is not capable to teach for multiple reasons (not all are covered)”
BISC204 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
47%
Textbook Required
69%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.08 avg changeRatings by Course
BISC474
5.0
(3)BISC204239
4.0
(1)XXXX000
4.0
(1)ENV200
4.0
(1)D100
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
BISC329
3.5
ECOLOGY204
3.5
BIO204
3.3
BIO111
3.3
BISC329202
3.0
Reviews (89)
The exams cover the general knowledge of the course rather than specifics. People who like straight memorization rather than processes won't like her. Lectures are really interesting, and she's great to talk to outside of class.
Not a great course and the teacher does nothing to improve it. Questions on the lab are VERY unclear, you think you know what she is asking but you are WRONG! (and I have a high GPA)
Super approachable. Told us what the questions were going to be on the final! Not as much math as other ecology profs. (And she does omit your worst midterm even if she says shes not going to).
I really love ecology and she seems to as well... Only she seems to hate men and she has a really arrogant attitude. Not pleasant to talk with :( Take this course with Dr. Gries!!!
Watch out! Leah does not like to teach and you will definitely see it during her lectures. She does play favorites. Take the course with someone else who actually cares like Doug Wilson.
No Comments
VERY VERY poor teacher. Her lectures are uninformative and boring. DO NOT take this course with this teacher.
Mixed opinion. Nice person, tries to explain the "big picture" but doesn't quite work. Exam questions very vague but answers specific. Would have done much worse if the TAs didn't give hints or if she didn't give us practice Qs. No notes, no recordings just talks general concepts. Bad textbook.
I appreciate how she gives us final exam Q to work on at home before the last midterm. But I don't like the lectures without giving any notes for us to print or recordings for us to review the lectures.
Ecology is pretty boring stuff. And Bendell-Young doesn't help at all. All her lectures were were pictures of stupid beaches and charts showing god knows what. And the exam questions - really. Who makes a flow chart of the entire course worth 8% of your total grade? Bad prof, bad tests, bad text, BAD COURSE.
Great professor. She gets at what ecology/science is about, rather than having you memorize a bunch of definitions. If you understand the concepts, and want to know how they are applied, you'll love her. If you're looking to memorize a textbook, or lecture, you'll hate her. Very approachable in office hours, but opinionated.
Although I did very well on this course, I noticed she played favorites. Don't take this course if she happens to be teaching it.
Notes are mostly in keywords or point form. Not very clear. Very rush in the materials. Try to avoid if you can.
Fun in Class and really knows her stuff. Willing to change her lectures in order to address questions students have about or relating to the material. Finds creative ways to introduce hard/boring material. Wants very specific exam answers, but most questions have to do with concepts.
She's nice, but her teaching style ... and notes ... are a little strange. If it wasn't for her TAs (tutorials were helpful), this class could be a potential disaster.
Incredibly sporadic notes, no online recording of lectures. Subjective marking, She expects you to be able to integrate every major concept clearly and concisely even though her notes are completely worthless. Be prepared to do LOTS of self teaching, and go to EVERY class. Overall, I have never seen a science course been taught this way.
Not good. Sux. I don't like her teaching style. Hard to understand in that way.
No Comments
Her notes are useless...you have to search through the notes to find the useful info. The TAs are amazing...learned way more from them then from this prof. Read the textbook and go to tutorials and you should do fine though.
No Comments
It took alot to refrain from posting something about this prof. She is a horrible lecturer. Very scattered in her thoughts and presentation of the material. She DOES play favorites so watch out. Do not bother trying to get an explanation about your mark. Treats her students like children rather than people who make decisions for themselves.
She not very good to student. She not good teacher. Dont want to have her again.
This prof is so bad, even the TA agreed with us when we were complaining about her teaching style and organization. She was even late to administer her own midterm. Clearly plays favorites. If you know your stuff, she'll still intentionally lower your mark cause of attendance. Comes up with irrelevant excuses when you confront her about your mark.
Bad Prof. Expects everyone to love the material, fails to realize that people take it for an easy "A" elective. Give up the teaching gig and stick to field and lab work. Would be better if she didnt force it down ur throat with mandatory attendance. 1 hour of reading could understand the whole course, doesnt provide text b/c she wants to talk more.
Interesting lecturer with a strong interest in the subject.
Terrible teacher. She doesn't use a text book, but supplements with journal articles and papers that are very difficult to understand. Her lectures are confusing, she has very scattered thoughts. Her presentations and notes are usless; mostly pictures and single words. Overall, she shouldn't be teaching this class. Avoid her classes if you can.
The entire course itself was well thought out and extremely relevant. The downfall was that her lectures were hard to put together because of her scattered thoughts and lack of clarity. She is a very knowledgable prof but can't express what shes trying to say in a simple, untangled matter. Very interested in the material but not her students.
The prof was very interested in the material but not as interested in her students. A text book would have been helpful. The lectures were very disorganized and were hard to follow. She did present some interesting case studies. Attendance was necessary because all testable material came from her notes.
Interesting teaching technique. Doesn't use a textbook and encourages students to dig up information on topics to stimulate own interest.
Very good proffessor articulates very clearly, and makes class interesting. Very intersted in the material she teaches.
very interestig Class
I had Leah twice and thought she was great. It was so refreshing to take a biology class that wasn't entirely about memorization. She cared more about big ideas than little details.
Simply an excellent teacher, able to convey complex concepts in a clear and fun way.
ecology made fun. understand concepts of the world working together. WATCH PLANET EARTH, it integrates the importance of the planet & helps for your final!!! leah is awesome. enough said.
Terrible lectures and notes, unable to convey material effectively, and exams were unfair.
Ecotox 2008. As many people have mentioned, she goes for larger concepts - could be a good thing, but that's the only complement I have for her. The set-up was a discussion course with "no wrong answers", but she would back-handedly ridicule students if their answers were not exactly what she was looking for. Discriminates & plays favorites.
terrible prof. her notes are useless and extremely vague, and she doesn't do any better elaborating on them in class. she only puts 5 questions on the 3 exams she gives, and all of them are scattered and disorganized.
Really easy marking, but lectures were pretty useless. Exams not very related to material. Easy class to just totally BS exams for and not bother going to lecture.
Terrible, terrible, terrible lecturer. Leah is a fantastic, kind, and caring person, but is not by any means cut out to be a teacher. I'm sure she is excellent at what she does, but cannot properly structure a course nor convey its material. Exam and assignment structures were dreadful!
I loved her. She was nice and made lectures interesting. No textbook used, 2 take-home midterms (based on lecture powerpoints and 1 750-word paper. Tutorials were awful though, my TA was completely unprepared/unorganized
Kind woman, hopeless lecturer. Has a tendency to pick favorites (everyone 80%+ was given 100%). Cannot understand ideas explained any other way than she explains them.
Useless lecture notes, unclear about what was being said. Not helpful at ALL for midterms (when I asked her a question, was told to read the lecture notes, which were useless because they only consisted of pictures and titles). TA was unorganized. Overall experience of the class was horrible.
It was the easiest class i have ever taken. Two take home midterms, a 1000 word paper and no final. Lectures are kinda useless, but the topics she brings up are real life events and pretty interesting. she only wants ppl to understand the big concept of an issue. Easy A, and the most bs-able course. highly recommended.
Textbooks are useless...do not buy. 2 take-home midterms, 1 750 words short essay and NO FINAL. The midterms were too easy that the class average was 83% and ~20% of ppl got 100%...She does not use bell curve system so it's definitely a GPA booster class.
Leah is a TERRIBLE professor. Her lectures consist of her going off on tangents and forgetting her train of thought, then repeating. If she is marking your exams RUN! She just looks for key words and nonsense graphs, if she doesn't find them you will fail. This class was a complete waste of time and her teaching style is AWFUL. I learned nothing.
Great personality and funny, but not necessarily fit for teaching. To be knowledgeable is one thing, but to be knowledgeable and then be able to teach that knowledge onto others is a whole different ball-game
Super easy course but she has some microphone phobia or something. Refuses to wear the mic properly so you can't hear her. On top of that she talks extremely fast and mumbles and goes off on tangents. Hard to follow, quiz answers sometimes dont make sense. Recommend for an easy A, but lectures are useless and don't buy the text book I never used it
terrible lecturer. she talks so quietly and mumbles into the mic gets off topic easily. there is no point in coming to class. the materials covered in this class are easy, so its an easy A course. but be prepared to teach yourself everything.
Dr. Bendell is a decent professor. She cares more about the overall picture rather than the memorization of facts like other biology courses. She can be a bit vague in her lectures and at times go too fast leaving students lost while she goes on. Exams are fair however some of the marking is interesting- looking for specific use of vocab and desc.
Lectures were all over the place. First time teaching the course and evident. Weekly reading quizzes in tutorial that showed up on the midterm and final exam. Overall easy marker. Not approachable for this class- rely on TA's!
Her lectures are super vague. She talks too fast. Lecture notes are disorganized, so you won't learn much from them. She is a caring and nice person, just not a good lecturer.
Her first year in teaching a course, so she tends to be a bit scattered. Doesn't always follow her lecture notes and I can hardly hear her. However her exams are EASY. They're taken straight off the weekly quizzes. LOTS of material to memorize. Always, always ask the TAs for help and clarification. However she is kind.
Mumbles, talks super fast and doesn't really know how to use the mic properly. HOWEVER, she is one of the easiest profs I've ever had. Questions on the midterms and final come straight from the weekly quizzes (done in tutorial) which you will have answers to and lab final is open book. VERY easy A, skipped more than half the lectures.
Leah was an awesome prof. uses the outdoors to teach ecology
I am a fourth year student and left BISC204 for my final year. It was the best course of my whole undergraduate. Dr. Bendell taught ecology using lectures, field assignments and DVDs. It was great and I highly recommend this course to others.
This is my first year and I think she is an awesome prof. Really interested in what she is teaching and concerned for us. The text book sucked and the ta's didn't really support her. It was kindof awkward.
This was my first year at SFU so hard to be specific but she was really nice and I really liked her. One of the TAs was really mean to her so not sure what that was all about. The text book was terrible but I think she did her best to help us make it useful for the course.
Great class, great prof.
Best course of my UG degree
Excellent Professor! She really emphasized the key concept that she wanted her students to understand and apply. She does not force memory but the general concepts and ideas which will be able to be of use in a practical setting. We were able to go out and do some lab field work which was great! PEarth videos brought everything into perspective.
Although she is a kind lady, she is not capable to teach for multiple reasons (not all are covered). Terribly disorganized, Notes are almost completely useless, Speaks super fast, Jumps from topic to topic without connection, wastes a lot of time, marking is unpredictable, teaches like the content is just review, makes tonnes of errors EVERYWHERE!
As long as you follow her criteria in assignment and study the notes you jot down in the class you will get good grade.
I was shocked by the 2 no cumulative midterms + no final. Grades are easily obtained by participation and easy assignments. Although the lectures notes are unclear and she speaks fast, it was pretty easy to grasp the concept after discussing with classmates.
she didn't know what she was talking about there was no relation between the lectures and labs, it was the worst experience for me ever.
One of the best profs I have had! I loved her
This course changed my ug direction. Conservative biology nw.
Leah is everywhere during her lectures and often times discusses overly complicated topics that don't help teach the important concepts of the course. Eventually I stopped going to lectures, and spent more time teaching myself the important concepts on my own time.
This professor is one of the worse ones I've ever come across. She speaks so fast that its near to impossible to write down good notes. She is so disorganized and all over the place. Unless you've taken courses similar to the one she is teaching I would not recommend her to anyone.
She is a great prof. Funny and caring.
She is my bisc100 lecturer. To be honest, she was caring and kind. However, she speak too fast and that makes you hardly ever can concentrate. She was not organized with what she was teaching. She shorten the lecture, provide useless so-call "activities" which is just making models of cell structure. Her grading was unclear as well.
Stay away from this prof. I waited a year to write this to compare to others and its as bad as I thought. All over the place, talks a mile a minute, ridiculous exercises. Go along or flunk. Anyone, anyone else. Be warned.
This is a late entry into a course a took more than a year ago. But the professors commitment to change and showing us the biology that we need to know really hit me.
Overall she's nice and has passion for bio. However too much was crammed in lecture. Her exam hints didnt always appear which sucked as exam questions were extremely vauge. I used the lab prof, TAs and the textbook to pass instead. Mini activities and documentaries were common. She does give opportunities to get bonus marks.
Lectures are long and boring, tests are super hard and labs are long and usually don't connect with course at all. Do not buy textbook, all info on powerpoint slides is on tests. She is not organized at all and lectures tend to be all over the place
60% of your grade is an ecology essay, that doesn't relate to the lectures, and a group powerpoint presentation, that also barely relates to the lectures. Her lecture slides have no words and are incredibly vague for when you DO need them for your oral exam, not that her explaining them improves understanding because she is also vague when teaching
Goes through lectures extremely quickly and leaves a lot out of her slides, making it difficult to catch everything she talks about. However, the topics are generally not too complicated and 60% of the grade is based on an essay and presentation that do not have to relate to lecture. She seems kind and likes to interact with students.
I thought Dr. Bendell was a great professor for the course, I found it very interesting. The course grade is based on an essay, group presentation, tutorial participation, and an oral exam. All of which are spread out so you don't feel overwhelmed. Dr. Bendell herself seems very passionate in her area so it makes the course more enjoyable.
Dr. Bendall is great Professor. She made sure that everyone in the class participated in discussions and took time to explain concepts. The presentations made a big chunk of the course but she made sure they ran smoothly. Overall, a very caring professor. Definitely take the course with her.
This class was based on a presentation, oral exam, and an essay (each worth 30%). So I was able to get through this course without attending the lectures or even using my textbook. Prof was nice, but was very unclear with her expectations/gradings. More communication would have been great. TA's were the only reason why I was able to do well!
Really nice teacher. The grading of the course was a hot mess. For the presetation marks, you could get 1 of 3 grades: "Grades were 65 for satisfactory, 75 for very good and 85 for excellent. You can determine your mark from your final mark as each course metric adds to 100, i.e., 10, tut 30 final, 30 paper, and 30 presetation." -Leah
I made it through the class just by attending the tutorials. never made it to the lecture or even opened the textbook. the easiest class I've taken! show up to tutorials and you'll get nothing less than a B. a little effort and yay you got an A
Surprisingly, absolutely none of the lecture content was required for this course. I'm not saying this as hyperbole, you could technically have done well in this class without attending a single lecture, one of my friends got an A- and didn't attend a single lecture past the first. Grading schemes are completely withheld for whatever reason.
Dr. Bendell is truly one of the most inspiring and caring professors I've ever had at SFU and her lectures are amazing in the sense that it opens your eyes to things you've never thought of before. She also makes an effort to learn your name and made me want to pursue further studies in the field of ecotoxicology. Would highly recommend!
Caring prof, attendance and participation is a must! Class content is very interesting and you can tell Leah is passionate. Would take a class with her again!
Do not take any classes with this professor. She is a nice person and when you look at the syllabus it seems like an easy A+. - Awful lectures. You won't learn anything. - Your grade is only based on luck and not hard work. She will pbb give you a good mark.
Avoid taking her if you can, this semester was impacted by strike but, she moved all lectures and everything to zoom even after strike ended, grade was determined by 2 THINGS: an oral exam of a random 5 questions out of 40 and a 5 minute presentation. She gave no instruction for the project. Lecture slides are useless and confusing.
Because of the TA strike the syllabus for this class changed DRASTICALLY in a negative way. She is nice and caring, but her lectures are kinda boring, but its ecology so makes sense. She gives the questions that will show up on your exam at the beginning of the semester so you know what questions to expect. but id still avoid her.
While things were definitely thrown around because of the strike, The class as a whole felt very disorganized, with only one final exam and one group project being our entire grade. The project had almost no criteria yet was marked extremely strict. Found the subject matter interesting but had trouble through the online lecture portion of the class
The entire course was graded on 1 final exam and a group project. She gives every exam question on the first day so you can just memorize it all and not have to go to a single lecture. Maybe not the best if you want to actually learn the material but good gpa boost.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
47%
Textbook Required
69%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.08 avg changeRatings by Course
BISC474
5.0
(3)BISC204239
4.0
(1)XXXX000
4.0
(1)ENV200
4.0
(1)D100
4.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
BISC329
3.5
ECOLOGY204
3.5
BIO204
3.3
BIO111
3.3
BISC329202
3.0