Todd Cooke

This professor has taught: BSCI207, BSCI329, BSCI329H, HLSC207, HONR239F

Sort By:

Information	Review
Todd Cooke Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2019	Cooke is a very nice teacher and tries to make the class interesting even though a lot of the content is very boring (i.e memorizing the phylogeny of plants, animals, etc.). He covers a large breadth of material but makes the exams in depth which can make them difficult, but he weights the homework heavily, which are easy, so your grade will be good. The class is essentially a lot of memorization, and the way it is organized doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Overall it is a decent introductory class, but pretty much boils down to how much information you can rote memorize for the exams.
Todd Cooke Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/15/2015	Cooke is the nicest man you will ever meet. He truly cares about his students and tries to make the course interesting. Unfortunately, 207 is just a very boring class due to the material. He really tries to make the class fun though. General info: -restricted to students in Honors Integrated Life Sciences -3 exams and 1 final constitute most of the grade -homework every week or two Pros: -very very nice -material not too difficult -posts powerpoints online, and most of the tested material is straight from them Cons: -boring -his powerpoints can be hard to follow
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Expecting an A- milk 06/09/2014	Like others, I'll preface this review by saying that BSCI207 just inherently sucks to begin with. Cooke is a very nice man but he couldn't make that class interesting if he tried (and he 100% does try). That being said, I never understood why some people revere him, because I hated taking this class with him. Cons: Cooke's approach to teaching is learning "general concepts" instead of rote memorization, but to be perfectly honest this approach made learning relatively easy material hell. There's no sense of organization to his lectures, so you have to sort through his PDFs. If you take notes on your laptop like I do (OneNote, MS Word), you have to put in an insane amount of time making them outside of class. Most disorganized powerpoints you will ever see. He uploads his lectures as PDFs instead of powerpoints, so you can't see any of the diagrams because they've shrunk by a factor of 10. Useless. Exams are 99% short answer writing prompts (the other 1% consists of phylogeny trees, completing picture diagrams, etc.) and the answer key is made so that the TAs look for buzz words. So even if your answer is technically right, you won't get credit because you didn't have the word they were looking for. Like someone else said, I never figured out how to study for them. In terms of difficulty, they're like 4-7 on a scale of 1-10. Don't cram. Pros: He drops 1 exam and 1 homework. Homeworks are easy, and end up saving your grade because he weights them so heavily. The final was actually pretty easy too. It's 60% new material and 40% cumulative, and he makes the 40% very general so you don't have to study for it too much. Studying old exams helps a little, but not that much, because he doesn't reuse questions often. He accepts regrade requests, looks it over himself, and will only regrade the specific questions that you requested so it's impossible for you to lose points. Definitely do regrades. He genuinely tried to engage us with interactive in-class worksheets, which essentially translated to a free class period. He goes to his own review sessions - they're 2 hours long, TAs lead for 1 hour and Cooke leads for the second hour. He holds 2 of them before every test. Some sessions were helpful, some weren't. For ILS kids: your 207 TAs will most likely be in ILS as well, and are probably your friends, so you have connections whoop-de-doo good for you. Basically this class gave me the most grief over the semester. Cooke is probably the best teacher you're going to get for this class, even though he's not that great either, so it's all about knowing HOW to take this course instead of who you take it with. So yeah take Cooke but be warned the class is among the most annoying you'll ever take.
Todd Cooke Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/01/2014	There is no way to make the content in this course interesting, but Dr. Cooke tries his hardest. He is a very kind man and professor that tries to make the content as exciting as possible, but sometime of the stuff is just dry as anything. The first 3 months of the semester are pretty lame in terms of class material; after the third exam, the material actually gets interested (too bad it’s only for a few weeks…) His exams are challenging, and I never really figured out how to study for them. Group work is encouraged in this class, which unless you’re a very social person, is annoying. As a bio major, this class made me really rethink my choice, because I didn’t enjoy it much. Dr. Cooke is approachable for office hours and tries to help your grade out as much as he can; he drops the lowest exam and homework grade. This class is meh, but if you're in ILS you'll get through it just fine.
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Anonymous 05/20/2012	I honestly liked Cooke, but the class is just way to boring and useless. Cooke loves this 207 class, because I mean, he created the class.. This is probably the worst Bio class you will ever have to take, but it is so doable with Cooke and Jensen. Just study the old exams and memorize the answers. You can also look at the HLSC207 version from your honors friends. They are identical. In the end, Cooke is much more interesting and interactive than Jensen. This class was bearable with Cooke. Definitely the best 207 professor.
Todd Cooke Expecting an A Anonymous 12/22/2011	Dr. Cooke was essentially a great teacher. His focus on concepts over details made biology more interesting and understandable. His exams were rarely too detailed oriented, and he dropped one exam as well as one reading assignment and homework. Reading assignments were a pain but I suppose they were useful in helping me learn how to read and comprehend scientific articles. Some of the interactive activities were a bit silly and unnecessary but this was only in one or two lectures throughout the year. Overall, definitely take if you have the option. ILS is a great program.
Todd Cooke Expecting an A David Yang 11/12/2011	Great professor! I like the setup of this class, and especially the set up of this program. Having us bunched up on one single floor helps a great deal. Not only have we become one of the most social floors in all of umcp, but we can also actively help each other on a daily basis. In addition, the professors are right downstairs, so if there is something you dont understand from the lecture, getting to the professor only takes a min. Almost everyone on this floor is friendly, social, and eager to learn. Now .. back to the class...At first, his style of lecturing didnt make sense to me. I did not know the best way to study for his tests, so I resorted to what worked for me in high school, which is to not pay that much attention during lectures and learn most of the materials from the book. I soon found out that was a bad idea. The book used for this class (Freedman) is SOOo bad! And his tests, which I thought were going to be detail oriented, were just the opposite. After failing his second test, I understood that the best way to study for his class is to both listen AND take notes for his lecture. And after the lecture, to go back over the lecture and take your own notes on it. And after that, to review your lecture notes daily until the exam. This takes a total of around 35 hours for a single exams, but it is the best way to study for these conceptually oriented exams. Oh.. and unless youre a genious of some sort, dont try to cram only a few days before the exam... its ridiculously hard to earn an A that way. Details can be temporarily integrated into our memory after a night of memorizing... but concepts just dont work that way. You can memorize the concepts but you'll get stuck when you have to apply those concepts in many new situations during the exam. His exams are very fair if you know what to study for. Class avg. was a 86 for the first exam and a 82 for the second. As we get used to this new style of teaching biology, well hopefully score even higher. We also get a Reading assignment and a GAE (similar to a worksheet). We are supposed to work in groups for the GAE but we rarely do cause they are so easy. But I must admit that they are both pretty helpful in the long run. Count them as grade boosters! Dr. Cooke is very friendly. He is very eager to help his student even during times other than his office hours, and his explanations usually make sense. He is also very popular among our floor; everybody likes him <3 I curious about the complaints about his 'sex jokes' cause I havent seen him say any in this class. Overall, ILS is a great program. It makes biology come alive.
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Anonymous 06/16/2011	I would rate his lectures 10/10 on a scale of boring. The only reason I went to class was so I didn't have to download the slides online. And even then I spent most of it falling asleep. Sometime mid-semester I figured out that it helps to stay awake if you count how many times he says "essentially" during his lectures. Once I got to 112 in a 50-min lecture. Good times.
Todd Cooke Expecting an A Anonymous 01/17/2011	Dr. Cooke is one of my favorite professors. Though he does make an uncomfortably large amount of sex jokes, he is very nice and approachable. If you have any questions he is more than willing to answer them. I had another class during his office hours and he was very accommodating and was willing to meet with students pretty much whenever. The TA's in this class are totally useless. They "lead" the question and answer sessions, but you might as well not show up until Dr. Cooke and Jensen get there. My suggestion is to embrace the group activities, because I have found it incredibly useful to bounce ideas off of other students in the class. Meeting with other people made the homeworks loads easier (I can only think of one time we spent more than 15 minutes on a homework or reading). Studying for the exams with a group also made it go a lot better. The exams weren't too bad, and they weight them and drop the lowest one. Overall, if you have a choice, I would take the class with Dr. Cooke because he is a great teacher, and at the very least he's pretty entertaining.
Todd Cooke Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/16/2010	While he means well, Dr. Cooke's 207H class is a horror of epic proportions. The class is oddly designed, most of the TAs just took the class recently and can barely help, and the exams are horrifying because you are taught just the bare bones of a wide variety of things, with an emphasis of breadth over depth. He wants depth on the exams, resulting in terrible exam grades from having no idea what to study. This class sucks. It was co-taught with Dr. Jensen, who is a really nice guy and a slightly better lecturer. Dr. Cooke means well, but the kid who sits behind me's description of him as a "horny hippie" works. He makes sex jokes to try to relate to us and fails, as well as quotes Darwin to excess. He and Jensen try to come up with these cute hands-on activities such as with pipe cleaners. Not cool at all. Overall the class is terrible, and as Anonymous said, you must memorize and not learn. Dr. Cooke means well, really. I think half of it is the class.
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/22/2010	Let me preface this by saying that the class itself, and the material incorporated into it, is AWFUL. Dr. Cooke co-taught this class with Dr. Jeff Jensen, and he was certainly the more engaging of the teachers. His lectures are fairly clear and to the point, and his notes aren't annoying fill-in-the-blank like Dr. Jensen's are. Take these professors if you're willing to do a LOT of phylogeny and a LOT of "hypothetical application" of the material that you memorize. Yes, memorize, not learn. It's all evolution, phylogenies, and theories, and on exams, you'll be expected to take all of this and propose several plausible hypotheses as to animals' evolution and ancestors, etc. Really, the entire thing was awful but if I had to choose the better professor of the pair, it would be Dr. Cooke!
Todd Cooke Expecting an A- arshie26 01/22/2010	I had Professor Cooke for an experimental discussion class for BSCI 207 that had around 20 students. He has a rather enthusiastic voice that keeps you engaged in the lecture that he gave. He was really good with questions too. Best of all, the class also involved hands-on activities to really help us understand the concepts. He was also lenient to a degree; while he took points off for some stuff in homework, he wouldn't care if someone was on Facebook or sitting with teir head down. This guy was very helpful in helping understand some crucial biological concepts.
Todd Cooke HONR239F Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2009	Professor Cooke is obviously invested in his subject matter and his fascination with plants is infectious. He acknowledges that most of of us in the class are there to fulfill a non-lab science requirement and does his best to make it as painless as possible for the "non-sciency" people. He is one of the few professors I have had who is truly understanding of our status as college kids. He is accommodating and willing to be flexible but still expects you to do good work. Plants and Empires was a great class. I highly recommend anyone to take this.
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2009	Dr. Cooke is a great lecturer and a really friendly and approachable guy. There is a lot of material to learn for 207, but he does a great job teaching it!
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Anonymous 05/22/2009	Cooke co-taught this class with Jensen. It was a difficult class: the average on the exams were around 60%. The second exam had a 15 point curve in order to reach an average of 65% and the third exam had a 6 point curve. In addition to the 3 exams (one of which is dropped), there is a cumulative 150 point final, 3 mathbench quizzes, 75 points for clickers, and a diagnostic exam worth 25 points. This class entails knowing A LOT of information- so much information that I highly recommend studying at least a week in advance for the exams. I thought I would do well in this class because I got an A in bsci105 and bsci106, but I was wrong.
Todd Cooke BSCI207 Expecting an A rbterp 03/08/2009	Dr. Cooke did a great job helping students understand the "big picture" rather than just little, unrelated facts. He truly cares about students and is very easy to talk to if you have a question or concern. Jensen's lectures were a little drier and less engaging than Cooke's.
Todd Cooke HONR239F Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/21/2009	Good professor, very knowledgable and approachable. Overall the class is relatively easy and very interesting. A great way to fulfil your non lab science core if you aren't that into science but are interested in history or economics.
Todd Cooke HONR239F Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2008	Terrific lecturer and guy. Easy to talk to and explains material very well. Also very funny and interesting. Time went by fairly quickly in class