BIOL 3250

Super easy and interesting class to take if you need a bio elective! Grades were based on the top 4 scores of 5 exams, so if you did well on the first four you could skip the last. Exams were multiple choice and were pretty straightforward from lecture slides, but I found the textbook really useful for clarify things that were confusing. Lectures are kind of slow but Kawasaki is so sweet and you can tell he really loves teaching this subject! He records lecture but you only were able to view the recording if you emailed the TA. If you read the textbook or just go to class/use the slides to study it’s an easy A.

love kawasaki. although lecture can be slow, the material he provides is very interesting and his tests aren't confusing at all. if you know the vocab and simple concepts, you WILL get an A (as opposed to a lot of biol classes in which even know all the material might land you a b+ if you're not a good test taker). his tests only had 2 answer choices, and he also dropped the lowest exam for us, but also this may just be a covid only thing. i learned a ton of fascinating things in this class, and it's not too bad difficulty wise. definitely recommend for that biol requirement

Fun class! Lots of fun facts about animals and he showed us interesting videos in class. A lot of the material in lecture came right from the textbook so at times it felt repetitive and boring, but he added some examples that weren’t in the book and sometimes went into more depth than the book.

Kawasaki is a great professor and really enjoys the subject. He’s very punctual in terms of starting and ending class, which I appreciated. Kawasaki speaks quietly and slowly, which is good if you need to catch up on notes, but not so good if you’ve finished your notes and want to move on. He doesn't check chat messages on zoom, but this wasn't a huge problem. He made all the powerpoint slides available for us to download and also some of the papers we discussed in class if anyone was interested. We also used Piazza (discussion board) to ask questions, and he responded within a day or so and gave helpful, in-depth responses.

There are five tests and the lowest score is dropped (including the “final” which is just another noncumulative exam). So only 4 tests go into our final grade and each test is worth 25%. The tests have two multiple choice options. He returned our test grades and feedback (just about the questions we missed) the same day as the test. I’m not sure what the test procedure is like in-person, but for Zoom University we took the test on Collab and couldn’t look at questions we already completed (for anti-cheating purposes) and we turned our Zoom cameras on while we took the test. This personally didn’t bother me and I felt that the tests were fairly easy. According to the syllabus, the boundaries for letter grades (A, B, C, D, F) were fixed, but the boundaries for in-between grades (ex. A+, A, A-) would be determined at the end of the semester based on class performance (so basically curved). I'm not sure how true this is because the boundaries for A+, A, and A- were exactly the same as in spring 2020 (maybe this was just chance). If you read the book and pay attention in class it's an easy A.

Overall a great class and I would take it again if I could!

As are most courses in the bio department, Animal Behavior is graded off of several equally weighted exams. Contrary to the department, Professor Kawasaki's tests were completely straightforward and I feel accurately assessed our understanding of the subject. He took feedback for the exams and removed controversial questions, making the impression he cares more about us enjoying and learning the subject than creating an unnecessarily competitive environment (I'm looking at you, biology intro and core classes.)

I felt the class textbook was very helpful in clarifying points made in class, and as long as you understood the vocab and associated studies you easily did great on the exam. Sometimes it was hard to pay attention in class as he talks a bit slowly, but he made the class recordings and slides accessible to everyone so this was easy to overcome by watching later at a faster speed. I primarily studied by reading the textbook actively (i.e. writing key concepts and associations in the margins) and reviewing the slides (which were mostly verbatim from the text other than slides he clearly marked in blue as being his own content). I don't think I ever really wrote "notes" in this class as the book was so easy to understand, but can imagine flashcards for the research studies being helpful (i.e. matching which concept was explained with which study.) This class reminded me a lot of psychology/ecology courses, and if you favor those you'd love this class.

(Also: he dropped the lowest exam for us!)

Definitely take this class if you are one of the below:
(1) like to watch documentaries
(2) Enjoy learning fun facts about animals
(3) Interested in Biology in general
Overall, this is the easiest Biology course I've taken as a Bio major. Just go to class and pay attention, there's nothing complex in the material. You will succeed if you are interested in the topic. good luck.

I thought this class was alright; it wasn't the most interesting class I've ever taken but relative to a lot of other bio classes the exams were quite easy. Professor Kawasaki is great and the material is basically a rehash and case studies of BIOL 3020 (Evolution and Ecology). If you need an easy bio elective, look no further.

This class is not an easy A. Your entire grade is based on exams. The exams can be extremely detailed. It was hard to pay attention in class, and honestly, you can get away with skipping a lot of classes as long as you read the textbook and look at powerpoints. He is willing to give back points on exam questions if you have support for your answer sometimes. The topics were really random about animals, some interesting and some very boring. It was a lot of memorizing a million experiments. Overall, this class was okay.

Content wise, the course is a lot of fun. I feel like the best thing I gained out of this class is a new collection of awesome animal videos and strange facts about animals. Grading wise, it's not the absolute best. It is yet another BIO class where your grade depends only upon exams. Because of this, getting in the A/A- range can be really difficult. It really sucks when you have a professor who is adamant about not rounding grades and you get one extra question wrong on an exam that keeps you out of a higher grade bracket. So as long as you go in with an expectation of learning a lot of fun information and getting a decent but not super high grade, you'll be fine.

Professor Kawasaki is an adorable person, however I didn't really like the class. Most of students in the class are bio majors and I took it because I'm a Cog Sci major and it is one of the approved courses for that. From that perspective, the class really didn't apply to what I'm interested in. We learned a bunch of just random facts about how certain animals behave, like how a specific species of bird attracts mates or how naked mole rats live, which is cool, but not what I was interested in. I was hoping it would be more about general themes that cause animals to behave the way they do. It was also frustrating that a lot of the material in class seemed to have carried over from other bio classes as I often heard people talking about how they had already learned something in evo/eco or genetics or whatever classes bio majors take and so Kawasaki wouldn't focus much on topics that I actually found confusing because he assumed people had already learned it. The midterms and final were kinda tough and it sucked that they were the only factors in the grade.

The professor of this class is great and he's very willing to sit down and listen to your opinions about a certain question. He gives back points on questions he thinks were unfair and that's something many of his students are thankful for. However, his exams are not easy, but they do range in around the B range. If you're a good test taker, I think you'll do fine in this class. However, I read the textbook and always went to class and still had a hard time on some of his exams. I recommend reading the textbook because it sometimes explained concepts better than he did in class, however he will teach additional concepts or examples outside of the textbook. Therefore, going to class is important. His class is all exams and no other assignments to help boost your grade which sucks, but that's all biology department classes. I think the content is very interesting and I enjoyed going to class. I just did not enjoy his exams. He also provides study guides for every exam on topics he'll emphasize but his study guides are not exclusive, meaning anything NOT listed on the study guide can also end up on the exam. Therefore, I recommend you look over everything but focus on topics he listed. The final is cumulative. He definitely gives tricky questions that sort of go against what is taught in class, in a way.

I absolutely loved Kawasaki! I really enjoyed this class. But I would only recommend Kawasaki to speak a little louder during his lectures because sometimes it was hard to hear him. But besides that, everything was good! The class was not hard at all. All you have to do is go over his lecture slides and watch the videos. You can refer back to the textbook if you do not understand something, but that is rare. His exams were fair. The test averages were always in the B/B+ range. It is not hard to achieve a good grade in this class.

The class overall was ok. Kawasaki is ok at lecturing but it was hard sometimes to understand what he was saying. He picks out important topics to cover during class but you should do the assigned readings from the textbook if you have time. For the tests, I would mainly focus on the stuff he covers in lecture, understand the videos he goes over in class, and read the chapters. I always felt behind when it came to reading the book so I mainly would focus on the lectures themselves. However if he pointed out topics that we should focus on from the textbook then I would read those sections. The average for the midterm one was 31.18/37 and 37/43 for midterm two. He gave us a study guide for the final and told us what to focus on so if you work on the study guide and read the pages he points out then you should do well on the final. The average on the final was 44.95/50. Midterms were 50 mintues long, but final was 2 hours long.The grading comes from the two exams and the final so you have to do well on the exams. An A started at 94 so it's an easy A- class but a hard A class. Only 6 people received an A while 18 students got A- (I got an A-) and 15 got B+. The class overall was worthwhile, but I didn't like it that much.