Reviews for Richard Payne
Average Rating:| Anonymous Course: BSCI453 Grade Expected: A December 29, 2011, 10:52 am | Dr. Payne is a fun lecturer and definitely kept me engaged through the entire class period. You don't need the book for this class if you take good notes. His exams are straight from lecture. For this class, he is more interested in how well you understand the experimental evidence for EVERYTHING. Not just memorizing the experiments that were performed, but you have to understand how you could manipulate each experiment to test different parameters. You have to understand those experiments! He tends to say A LOT during lecture. He'll put up a slide and then talk about it for like 15-20 minutes and sometimes that would lose me. I did go to his office hours and surprisingly he wasn't very friendly which caught me off guard because he comes off as really fun and approachable during class. He's really cool about re-grades and he especially likes it if you can argue a good case. Overall he's a fun lecturer. I like how he presents the material in a way that keeps me interested. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI453 Grade Expected: B December 24, 2011, 4:39 am | Terrible professor! His class has two quizzes worth 15 points each. The quizzes are worded in a way so that you will get them wrong, they do not test on what you actually take away from the scientific article. There are two midterms worth 75 pts each. He forces you to learn all the material and tests you on less then half, so if you learn the wrong half then you are screwed. The final is worth 120 pts. Quinlan taught the last third of this class and she wasn't bad, I wish she taught the entire course. Luckily, 50 pts on the final came from her, while 70 pts came from Payne. His portion on the final tested you on one common theme and then a bunch of nonsense. Quinlan gave you a set of important questions to understand before the final and then tested you on those ideas which was great! The class had a total of 300 points, the curve was set at the beginning of the class which is stupid if you ask me because you don't know how people will perform before you test them. A 255 was an A, 225 was a B, 195 a C, and so on. Take this class with someone else instead of Payne if your looking fo learn the material better. He has an accent too which can also be difficult to understand at times. He might have been a good professor at one point, I can definitely see that, but it might be his time to retire now because I don't think he has it anymore. |
| pat Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: B October 30, 2011, 1:06 am | Agree with previous reviewers. This class is a huge memory dump, and I feel like it was kind of a waste of money because of that. If you are a memorization jockey, you will be in hog-heaven, otherwise it's going to be really rough to remember every little detail from the slides (HINT: his tests are just that). Bought the book, read it in the beginning, aced the first test. Studied pretty much the night or two before on the last 2 tests and final and did fairly poor. Came out with a B despite my minimal efforts. If you keep up with the material, an A is incredibly doable here. Payne is the man. He tried, and is pretty fair with everything grade-wise. He occasionally pushed things back because he felt like we were "swamped." I hear horror stories from every other cell bio teacher. Get this guy and do yourself a favor. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: B July 10, 2011, 8:21 pm | I personally did not click with Dr. Payne and his teaching style. Maybe it was the material, but this class required a great deal of memorization. Further, I often found it difficult to focus in lecture and end up trying to memorize everything before the exams (Dont do this). His exams are mostly short answer questions and partial credits are inconsistent. But if you know everything on the powerpoints, then it's simply a matter of reiterating it on the exams. Lab, for a 300-level class, is v. easy. Never touched the book. No curve, but a few EC were given. Easy to get B, work to get A. |
| trex Course: BSCI453 Grade Expected: A December 23, 2010, 1:00 pm | Very good lecturer. If you listen to his lectures and take notes, you will not need the textbook. He makes the material very interesting and easy to understand. One of my favorite professors at Maryland. His tests are fair and reasonable. If you review by reading notes from lecture and read his slides, you will do fine. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A+ May 23, 2010, 12:48 am | Dr. Payne is a nice professor who definitely cares about his students. He's fair when it comes to regrades and his exams aren't terribly hard -- all you really need to do is know what's on the lecture slides. Though the book can help for supplemental understanding of the material, knowing everything in his lectures is key. I do mean everything -- he can ask 10 point (/100) open-ended questions on a single topic and if you don't know it well - you're grade will drop 10 points on the spot (though he's good about partial credit). Our class average was terrible for the second exam because of the snowstorms so Dr. Payne offered to allow us to make up for it by adding 15 extra points to the final. The lab portion of the class was not too bad (it was with Dr. Parent) especially if you're coming from taking those Orgo I/II or Gen Chem II labs; a grade booster if anything. Be sure to look at previous exams and his other questions before exams to know what Dr. Payne may be looking for. Going to class is not needed as he posts all of his lecture slides on blackboard...but if you do go, you'll get to enjoy his bubbly personality and awesome accent. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A- May 21, 2010, 10:52 pm | He is an amazingly nice guy who cares about students, although the material was dry. He tried to make it as interesting as possible, but I just could not bring myself to pay attention. Even though there is no "curve," there were enough cushy points built in to the class to allow for an a A with moderate effort (and without attending lecture). All lecture slides are posted online, and tests are ONLY based on the lecture slides, so reading the book is useless unless you want a more in-depth explanation of something he put on a slide because you didn't go to lecture. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: May 17, 2010, 2:40 pm | Payne is an awesome professor! Definitely take him! His tests are based completely on his lectures, but he posts lecture notes, so you know exactly what to study. The exams are also very, very straightforward. He's a good lecturer, and he's just a really good teacher. He wants students to ask questions at any time during the lectures, and he's really receptive in general. This was probably the best bio class I've ever taken. |
| hippoterp Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A May 17, 2010, 8:28 am | Dr. Payne is a good professor in that he certainly knows his stuff. But he's not as dynamic of a lecturer as Ades, the other 330 professor. Going to lectures is completely unnecessary since he reads directly off the slides most of the time and the stuff that he does say that's not on the slides he doesn't test you on. He is funny though, so it's fun to listen to him in lectures. He is a REALLY nice guy. It is crucial to have a good lab TA- lab is supposed to be easy with minimal effort (I lost 1 point the entire semester in lab). He is really fair. Make sure you look over the old exams he posts, especially for the final which is cumulative and has A LOT (A LOT) of material on it. Take this class-- you will certainly learn a lot. Also, when you're taking his exams, make sure you are thorough he is picky with points. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: May 1, 2010, 4:29 am | Great professor!! Dr. Payne really cares about his students and grades fairly. He's willing to help you granted you apply the right amount of effort and he responds often to student concerns and questions. |
| Anonymous Course: BSCI454 Grade Expected: A February 6, 2010, 7:46 pm | Dr. Payne is an awesome professor. He is very nice and fair. Lectures are interesting, he is very energetic! He teaches the material by first teaching you about how something was discovered or came to be. At first this can be tedious but you will soon realize that this method of teaching actually instills the information in you on a much deeper level of understanding. Exams require some preparation but he always holds helpful review sessions and has review questions and previous exams available to students. He can be pretty funny at times too :) |
| sova Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A August 26, 2009, 11:42 am | Dr. Payne is an excellent professor all around - engaging, witty, organized, and extremely knowledgeable. His exams are well-written and fair, often including research-oriented questions rather than straight memorization (ex. propose an experiment for testing whether x is a consequence of y). Plus, he has a cool British accent - can't beat that! |
| rbterp Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A March 7, 2009, 7:28 pm | Dr. Payne was a fair professor that knows the cell biology material well. He focuses a lot on research methods at the beginning of class and often asks the class "how would you prove this or investigate this" because he is a researcher himself. There is a lot of material to learn, but just study the slides and do his practice questions and exams and you'll be fine. |
| Anonymous Terp Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A April 30, 2008, 1:31 pm | Dr. Payne is great - good, solid professor that is interested in his students. Oh yeah, he's from England, so he's got a cool accent. I really enjoyed his class, and it was great prep for the MCAT. His lectures for BSCI330 are PowerPoint and usually consist of about 30 slides, which makes the material manageable. It's important to understand and go to lecture since that's what he tests from. He is very fair when it comes to regrades and answers student submitted questions on BlackBoard. The grading breakdown is as follows: Lecture - 68% (500 points) Lab - 27% (200 points) Web quizzes - 5% (40 points) A+ = 698-740 A = 767-697 A- = 655-675 B+ = 630-654 B = 606-629 B- = 581-605 |
| scroofoo Course: BSCI330 Grade Expected: A+ October 23, 2007, 8:14 am | Good lectures- alot of it is a review from BSCI105. Once you get into signal transduction pathways, Payne really shines. I learned more from this class than any other bsci course. Great prep for the MCAT too. Work consists of 1 lab/week and 3 midterms plus a final. Midterms were essay so be ready while the final was more fill-in the blank, matching, and short answer. |