Heather Barton
2 courses · 30 reviews
All Reviews
she dont be teaching but just reading or telling whats obvious. get ready to study on your own
9/1/2026
Typically explained things clearly. Lectures were sometimes a bit repetitive but she was nice
8/18/2026
There are many short assignments for this course (heavy volume) but they are easy. Additionally, Dr. Barton is very caring and understanding of extenuating circumstances. I recommend taking Bio in the News with her.
4/6/2026
Lecture explanations were often unclear and poorly articulated, making the material hard to follow. She frequently struggled to answer student questions on ungraded problem sets and did not consistently demonstrate strong command of the material during lectures or discussions.
1/7/2026
Dr. Barton's lectures were clear and she explained concepts really well. Some of the questions on activities, quizzes, and exams were worded in confusing ways, but she was always receptive to student feedback. I thought the course was pretty fair overall.
12/18/2025
Honestly, I liked her. She responded well to feedback and at least seemed more lively than Queller. There were so many typing and grading errors, though.
12/12/2025
People here seem to be misreading Dr. Barton. Sure, she made mistakes, but she is human. Go to her office hours, chat with her, and you'll see why. She is so caring for you as a student and as a human and is always willing to clarify concepts as needed, or simply chat about life! She is amazing, personable, and relatable- Love!!
3/3/2025
Ignore all the haters, I don't know why she gets such a bad reputation. She cares for all of her students and will give any help you need, as long as you ask. She is very accommodating of anything that may arise in your life and helps you through it.
3/3/2025
She's super nice and knows the content. Beware though that she talks SO SLOW. The pre-lecture videos were all the same length as Chalkers but his are all content while she spent 1/3 of the time talking and 2/3 thinking. No joke videos on 2x speed sound like normal speed talking. Other than that she's chill and I would take a class with her again!
1/6/2025
4-6 hrs/week
Agree with everyone, this is 10x better than 2960. Lecture is flipped, there are more drops on quizzes, the labs are more engaging (Hanes is the BEST AI), the material is more genetics based. If math and stats are your thing you will do well in this class. You also get a double sided cheat sheet for exams. Put brief lab notes on your cheat sheet cause they ask a few lab questions on the exams. The material of this class can be a bit confusing, but when studying reference/redo all of the in-class activities, extra help sessions, knowledge checks, quizzes, and provided worksheets because the exams are pretty similar.
12/26/2024
4-6 hrs/week
Felt pretty boring and organizationally a mess. Not especially difficult compared to other STEM courses but disappointingly boring.
7/9/2024
2-4 hrs/week
Loved the flipped classroom layout. Super helpful especially reviewing graded exams in office hours + semi-lenient in regrade requests. Overall loved this class.
5/23/2024
2-4 hrs/week
The course was a flipped classroom setup, where you watched a lecture on your own time and completed a short quiz, and then worked on reviews/practice problems in class. The lecturers had good rapport with individual students. Hanes was a great AI for the lab portion of the course. A note sheet was allowed for tests.
5/18/2024
Bio in the News is so chill. She's also so chill. The content is really simple but she still makes it engaging. Definitely take this if you need Natural Science and Math credit! Super nice and really cares about students. A couple of in-class group activities, but you can make them up easily if you miss class. Def take this class.
5/8/2024
I like Barton a lot, but I don't think that she's a great professor. Doesn't seem to have a full grasp of the material she is teaching, and we often didn't get through the in class activities when she was leading them. One of her lecture videos straight up has wrong information in it (how to calculate lod scores video, she does it wrong lmao)
12/26/2023
Nice and understands the difficulties with being a students and juggling schoolwork and other commitments. She is a bit informal with students and sometimes has a bit of an attitude. She is helpful during office hours for her own content but isn't super knowledgable about the content from other professors in the course (taught by multiple people)
12/22/2023
wait i couldnt do this for biology in the news but i love her she is the best and a chiller
5/10/2023
Barton takes the fact that students talk in her class personally and decides to not explain things for that reason. I don't think that is a great way to get authority in a class but she is okay at explaining. She also is not a fan of people asking questions after class.
4/10/2023
Horrible professor. Lecture videos never have any actual examples and she never explains when to use equations. Her quizzes are very hard and in-class activities are confusing. She is also a bit passive aggressive during lecture and doesn't explain concepts well. She oversimplifies concepts in videos but gives very hard questions on quizzes/exams.
12/15/2022
Class is not bad, but professor has a bit of an attitude and made many mistakes.
12/12/2022
She throws out ten different equations during a short video but never actually explains when to use them or their significance, you just have to guess right. Also, she talks so much but says nothing in her lecture like I genuinely learn more from just reading the slide than hearing her talk. I don't bother even attending class.
12/7/2022
Super condescending and her teaching is still on par with the review from 2019. She will not continue lecture until someone answers her questions in a large lecture hall, and threatens to cold call if no one volunteers. She also gets many basic biological concepts wrong constantly. Do not recommend but you most likely have no choice.
11/11/2022
Barton and Chalker both teach bio 2970 and are both awful teachers. Barton doesn't know anything either seems like she just learns the slides the day beforehand and tries to explain it. Always pauses during her lecture videos because she doesn't know what shes saying. I don't know how they're the bio professors at WASHU LOL.
11/10/2022
The teaching staff did a good job at transitioning to online. The quizzes were a bit rushed every time, but the exams could easily be finished on-time. Could have explained concepts more thoroughly, but office hours remedied any confusion from the lectures. One of the better professors at WashU. Other classes can be much, much worse.
12/22/2020
The whole classes are made up of bunch of equations and she doesn't explain the logic behind the equations. She just goes ahead and plop in the numbers for the entire lecture.
12/9/2020
She has a very roundabout way of explaining things - overall she's not too bad during the online semester but I can imagine it could be worse in person.
11/28/2020
Barton comes off as very condescending, teaches concepts VERY poorly (she gets basic biology concepts wrong frequently), and treats lectures like they're 10 person classes, often asking questions to the whole class and not continuing until someone volunteers to answer, even going so far as threatening to take off points if no one answers.
12/31/2019
This class was a mess. Barton started off lecturing well (compared to Chalker, at least) but by the end, she was messing up whole biology problems in lecture, wasting tons of time. Would answer all questions in lecture, wasting more time. Not nearly enough practice problems. Problems sets were awful. Textbook didn't help. Exams were a grab bag.
1/11/2019