SCS2159 - Our Students

Our Students

This course is intended for any students who require a credit-equivalent course in Human Physiology as a prerequisite for entrance into Health Science professional programs (including medicine, nursing, dentistry, speech and language pathology, occupational and physical therapy etc...our online physiology course also counts as one of the two life sciences pre-requisites for admission into Medicine at UofT) and individuals who simply have an interest in understanding how the body works will also benefit from the course as it provides a working knowledge of various systems in the human body.

Student surveys from the past sessions (hear what they have to say!)

We have conducted numerous surveys of our Online Physiology course and we have implemented suggested changes to enhance the learning experience. Moreover, we are committed and always striving to be the best online course possible.

Student Survey comments

I think it is an amazing course. It is really well taught, and the information is brought to you in a clear, "easy to understand" manner. I'd reccommend this course to anyone, anyday.
I would suggest this course for anyone - everyone should know more about their own equipment and read the operating maual. The lecturers are clear and easy to understand. The course material is fascinating. The TA is very helpful.
I think this is a well-administered course. I find the Physio-Ex lab exercises very useful i understanding the concepts. I enjoy the course material and look forward to learning more. I would love if UofT offered more courses of this kind for an even larger foundation for application to MD programs.
Thank you - this was my first online science course and although it was quite challenging to balance with the rest of my busy life, the format did make it possible for me to complete it in go od time. The lecturers and TA, particularly Dr. K and DS were all very knowledgeable and helpful. And Dr. K is hilarious - I laughed out loud many, many times during his lectures!
I enjoyed this course very much. I learned a lot of valuable and useful things. I am looking forward to continuing studies in health sciences, and I believe that this course was a good stepping stone toward a career choice.
Thank you to all of you who made this course possible, and helped all of the students through it.
I am really impressed with the course so far. It is very well organized, and the one-week window for lectures really keeps you motivated and on track. I think the book is great, and I love that you can ask questions on the discussion board.
As a participant from non-medical background, i find this course rather interesting and do broad my way of thinking. the online lectures are quit clear, comprehensive, and in detail.
This online Physiology course is one I longed for. My previous studies was majorly in arts and humanities, but I have had several opportunities to practice in health service both in Africa and briefly here in Canada albeit, as a well groomed personal support worker. Although I hold a master degree in Education from OISE, University of Toronto, I am still feeling unactualized because most of what I was thought about diseases and care for them remain a mystery until I started this online physiology program. The course is vital as it broadens my understanding of human internal structures, how and why they work and what brings about their disfunction - dis (ease). More interesing and of great import to non-science learners is the incorporation of audio visual system which creates a pseudo-class room atmosphere as one listens and sees his lecturer at the lecture periods.
Outstanding professors and organization! Very well done.
I am enjoying the course, and the lecturers and TA are wonderful.
I found the discussion board to be very useful and I appreciated Dr. X's quick and resourceful responses. I felt like all of our concerns and questions were considered important and it was great to get things resolved quickly.
It is the first time when I take an online course and I am really pleasantly surprised one can actually learn from it. I do not have too much time to participate to the discussions as I'm working and have two little kids but I must say the lecturers make a great job. Pinpointing the most important concepts and even the pace of the lectures (it is not at all monotonous) are excellent.
Thank you for all the effort you put into this - the organization and clarity of the lectures are wonderful.
This was by far the best unit. The professor was dynamic and interesting to watch. The material was presented in a fun and practical manner. Great course!
I found his lectures more interactive and tangible than other lecturers.
His lectures made it seem like we were actually in a class rather than watching an automated online lecture just repeating the facts.
I think this is a well-administered course. I find the Physio-Ex lab exercises very useful i understanding the concepts. I enjoy the course material and look forward to learning more. I would love if UofT offered more courses of this kind for an even larger foundation for application to MD programs.
I am really enjoying the course so far. I like the layout, the format (1week for the online lectures, 1 day for the quizzes) and the pace of the lectures. I find the subject matter incredibly informative, and I enjoy the use of real-life applications during each lecture.
Lectures by Dr. X are amazing. he makes learning phsyiology fun.
I'm loving this class so far! It is the best formatted class I have ever taken on-line. Due to full-time employment and a time-zone difference it is harder to have time to interact with others in the course. So far the social experience has been positive.
Even with a degree in Biochemistry, I learnt a lot. The book was surprisingly a great tool to learn. I love how I can see the prof in the lectures because it enhances the realism of the topic, whether hands are used, or just having someone look at me work.
Being a mother of two it has been great to get some support here [from the discussion board], I don?t think I would have attempted to do this [interact with/talk/ask questions] if I were back in school after so many years?
The faculty is very helpful and I feel that they genuinely care about us, the students, succeeding in this course.
Having the forum was very helpful. It allowed students to converse and help each other with problems, and then allow the TA to confirm conclusions.
Overall, I did find the course to be a positive social experience up to this point. I enjoyed the lectures, and discussion boards.
So far, it has provided a positive social experience. The opportunity to interact with and discuss problems/concepts with profs, TA and other students in the discussion board is great.
This course has been great so far. I find that keeping up with the all the posts on blackboard can become a bit overwhelming, however it is nice to see so much participation. The help that students offer to one another is also great.
I find it very comforting to meet a lot of people that are on the same path as me (nursing). Hearing their stories and the paths they have and plan to take, is very beneficial.
The course is very interactive and has been a great social experience.
I find that the course provides a positive social experience because it provides different ways (email, discussion board, online TA office hours) for students, TA and lecturers to interact and discuss about course material. It also provides people with different backgrounds and from different places of the country to share their common interests.
It's hard to make a web-based course much more interactive. I think the TA office hours are a neat idea. It seems as though the lectures are pre-taped so I doubt the instructor would be able to answer student questions from the previous week in his lectures but that would enhance the course material if it were possible.
I think this course overall is well designed and organized with the exception of the layout of the topics. I didn't like the fact that we started the course with Neurophysiology because for me, it's one of the more difficult or rather tedious topics and so if we were to start off with a less intimidating topic, perhaps it would be better for most students. Other than this minor issue, I am very impressed with this course, especially since it's a distance ed. course.
I'm really enjoying this course despite the difficulty of the material.
The course requires a lot of initiative and discipline, and has a lot of material. The quizzes occur once every three weeks, and comprise a large amount of material. It would be helpful if the quizzes were more frequent, but each covered less material. As it stands now they are more like tests than quizzes.
It is helpful and appreciated that there are so many resources (lectures, TA, discussion board, book, exercises, book's website, CD). The discussion board is helpful but does not have a user-friendly interface. Especially annoying and counterproductive is the fact that for any given topic, only one message is visible at one time.
The profs are very nice and helpful, and so is the TA.
I'm really enjoying it so far! They've made the course very interesting and easy to follow. LOVE the physio ex labs! So neat and realistic!
The course is well organized and the professor (so far Dr. X) is very good at explaining the concepts found in the textbook. I've taken a physiology course in the past, and it made no sense to me at all. This course is making sense of a subject which I once found impossible to understand.
I'm enjoying it so far. Considering I have no background in this field, I do find some of the concepts difficult to understand at first, but having all of the resources we have available to us is very helpful in this regard.
Great course, very indepth (lots of material to cover), interesting topics covered.
The course is well put together, it covered all topics very well. It also made it very accessible since the course was offered online.
This is very good course for me, because I can do it on my own speed according to my work. And the professors and the T.A are very helpful.
Thanks for all your hard work!
So far, I have found the lectures to be very informative and interesting. I have really enjoyed Dr. X's lecture style, and have found the TA, Dani, to be very helpful and enthusiastic.
It is a very good course-very valuable in providing the basics for a health professional program. The material is overwhelming but the instructors and TA are very helpful in answering questions and providing feedback.
The online lectures and the resources available at the Physiology Place are outstanding, and the access to past quizzes is also a huge help. PhysioEx, on the other hand, is not such a helpful tool in mastering concepts and applying them.
The content of the course is very interesting. The professor's videos are well done and they explain concepts well.
Great course, everything has been clearly explained so far, the basic concepts have been reinforced well in the lectures, making it easier to read the dense material.
I think it's really good that the lectures are only up for 1 week, because it forces me to sit down and really go through them before they disappear. Then when I have finished them, they form a great basic outline for the reading I have to do in the textbook.
I also think it's great that we have PhysioEx to use as "lab work." It's a simple program to use and clearly depicts everything. However, it can't be used on it's own but rather as an interactive supplement to the textbook and lectures. It's a really great learning tool.
The lecturers are really interesting to listen to. I really enjoy when they throw in a little tid-bit fact so we can apply the theoretical knowledge to our everyday lives (e.g. cones in our eyes prevent us from seeing stars).
I am really enjoying the course overall and appreciate the lab component as it brings a lot of concepts together in a way that improves my understanding and retention of them. One suggestion would be to pose a topic of question of the week that students can discuss to further acquire participation marks. An interesting article or link of the week would be good too and a good incentive for students to enhance their learning by exploring physiology topics outside the classroom.
This course exceeded my expecations, especiall as a continuing education course!
i appreciate this class giving me the chace of learning from great renowned professors.
In general, I'm having a fantastic experience with this course. Thank you!
Overall I enjoyed the content of this course. I think there are certain areas that can be improved but I also think the course moderators (Dr. X and Danny) were able to make accommodations to certain instances. For example, extending the timeline for the final quiz, extending office hours when Danny was absent for the holidays, looking into the spelling mistakes on one quiz, dealing with glitches with the online lectures. I feel they did what they could given the circumstances.
It is an interesting course with great sum information in lectures however in some areas too much information was given without documantation of points. Overall good experience , would only add more documents to the lectures to simplify it a bit.
So far I am very impressed by the course. I did not expect to enjoy an online course that much. I feel I am learning a lot. The lectures are easy to follow; they help me organize my knowledge and understand what are the key points.The instructors and the TA are helpful and they got back to me promptly whenever I approached them with a problem.
The virtual labs are a fun way to test and apply my knowledge. The discussion boards are not only a great learning tool , but also help create a classroom- like atmosphere.
Lecturers at times provide a simpler way of describing course concepts, and reiteration of the key points helps as well.
I am really enjoying the course so far. I like the layout, the format (1week for the online lectures, 1 day for the quizzes) and the pace of the lectures. I find the subject matter incredibly informative, and I enjoy the use of real-life applications during each lecture. I did, however, find the amount of information covered in the second quiz to far exceed that of the first. I noticed that the remaining quizzes will be closer together, so that may help in being able to review the material for the quiz.
The course has been so interesting, and has sometimes not felt like work.
Outstanding professors and organization! Very well done.
But thank you for all the effort you put into this - the organization and clarity of the lectures are wonderful.
Discussion board is useful and should be continued.
This course has been densely informative. There is a lot of information to consolidate every week and this can be challenging, particularly within the endocrine section. Content is very interesting however and I feel like I am rapidly expanding my understanding of physiological processes.
I do not use the textbook very often as I find the lectures cover far more specificities which the book does not discuss. I do enjoy the virtual labs though. I like that they're quick, simple to execute and they reinforce concepts very well.
This has been a very challenging but extremely engaging course. I have enjoyed the lectures and I find the textbook and PhisioEx Labs to be clear and comprehensive.
I am enjoying the course, and the lecturers and TA are wonderful. That being said, a lot of material is being covered for a basic introductory course.
For being an online, distance learning course this has surpassed my expectations in terms of the depth of teaching and format.