Biology 278 – Animal Behavior
Syllabus for Summer Session II 2015
Time and Place:Lecture - Every day, 8:00-9:30, Genome Sciences Rm 1374
Lab – T/W/Th10:00-1:00, Wilson Rm G20
Professor:Dr. Eric Bauer
TA:Gina Calabrese (email address)
Office:TBD
Phone: TBD
Email: (please note that this is my Elon email – I do not check my UNC email)
Office Hours: By appointment only, ideally immediately following class
Class Website: A website for Biol 278 is available on Sakai. This syllabus itself, lecture PPTs, grades, and various other items will be posted throughout the semester for your reading pleasure. Bookmark it as soon as you are able – you’ll be glad you did.
Text:Nordell and Valone, Animal Behavior, 1stEdition. Readings and course schedule are in a separate Excel file found on the Sakai site. Readings are required, and you will be tested on facts that were not presented in lecture but only in the readings (textbook and journal articles).
Special Needs: If you are a student with a documented disability who will require accommodations in this course, please register with for assistance in developing a plan to address you academic needs. Then notify me and we will work out a solution for this course.
Lecture vs Lab: You may register for only the lecture, or lab, or both. I recommend doing both simultaneously. Lecture will be taught without direct reference to lab activities. Lab will assume you have either already taken lecture or are in the process of taking it.
Course Goals: The course teaches the science of animal behavior. We will focus on what animals do, how they do it, why they do it, and perhaps most importantly, how WE as scientists can be sure of our information. That means we will spend time discussing experimental procedures and alternative hypotheses in addition to the basic facts. You will be challenged to understand the experiments and conclusions and to think about them analytically.
Attendance Policy: Attendance is not mandatory to lectures. In fact, if you are only going to come and sleep or text I’d rather you didn’t come. You aren’t learning anything and you are a distraction to those who wish to learn. HOWEVER, most of the exam questions will come from material covered in lecture, and not all topics covered in lecture are in the textbook. So, if you wish to have a chance to pass this course I advise coming to lecture and paying attention.
Attendence is mandatory to the labs, if you are registered for lab. You must attend every single lab. If you miss two without an adequate (and documented) excuse then you will fail the course. This is a very short course and the labs are an important part of the course. Moreover, there is no practical way for you to make up a missed lab. Lastly, your lab partners are counting on your presence and participation, so missing labs hurts them too. Emergencies and other unexpected events happen though, so if you find that you can’t make it to a lab, Gina and I will need to hear from you (or someone speaking for you) via email by 9:30am of the next day.
Make-up Work: For the lectures, there are 5 exams as well as small assignments related to reading and presenting journal articles. Regarding the exams, you must notify me in advance as soon as you know that you will miss one of these exams because of a legitimate excuse. Failure to do so will result in a “0” for that exam. If you miss an exam unexpectedly, due to illness for example, you must notify me by 9:30am of the next day about why you missed it and when you will make it up. Failure to notify me by 9:30am the next day will result in a “0” for that exam. It is my sole discretion as to what is a legitimate excuse.
You will NOT be able to make up the work for the in-class discussions of the journal articles. The whole point of these is the real-time interaction with the other minds in the course – therefore you cannot do anything related to these discussions after-the-fact.
For the labs, there are no make-up labs. If you miss a lab, Gina will give you an alternative assignment as she sees fit.
Journal Assignments and Discussions
For some classes, we will be discussing articles from the scientific literature (ie journal articles). In order for the class to be productive, you need to come to class having read the article assigned for that class period and be prepared to engage in active and thoughtful discussion.
An assignment consisting of several “focus” questions will be due at the start of class on the day of discussion for each paper. You will be assessed on the quality of your effort and not necessarily on the correctness of your answers.
Things to keep in mind when reading the papers:
What are the implications of what is being researched?
Does the paper have any methodological or logical weaknesses/flaws? If so, what are they?
What assumptions are explicit and/or implicit in the study?
What aspects of the article were confusing? Why?
Even better if you then take the next step and try to find an answer.
What would you like to learn more about?
What questions did this article raise in your mind?
Grading: There will be 4 exams during class, each consisting of a mix of T/F,multiple choice, and short answers. The multiple choice questions usually require a thoughtful analysis and only rarely rely on pure memorization. The written answers need to be clear, well-organized, complete, and concise. These in-class exams will take between 45 and 60 minutes.
The final exam will be cumulative and similar in format to the exams. Approximately half of it will cover new material since the last exam, and the remainder will cover old material. The final exam will be given during our assigned final exam time and date.
Lecture Assignments (points are approximate values)
Articles (6 at 5pts)30pts
Exam 140pts
Exam 2100pts
Exam 375pts
Exam 475pts
Final Exam200pts
TOTAL 520pts
Lab Assignments will be detailed in lab. You will receive a separate grade for the lab, if you are registered in it.
Additional notes: There will be no extra credit apart from that on exams. To be fair to everyone in class, no form of curving will be used in grade calculations. The averages will speak for themselves. This also means that I do not consider “effort” nor do I factor in “improvement” over the course of the semester. I do not provide extra assignments to help boost your grade. I do not drop low grades.
A / >93 / C- / 70-72A- / 90-93 / D+ / 67-69
B+ / 87-89 / D / 63-66
B / 83-86 / D- / 60-62
B- / 80-82 / F / <60
C+ / 77-79
C / 73-76
Honor Code: As in any course at UNC, you are expected to adhere to the tenets of the student honor code and you will be asked to sign your exam as an indication that you will do so.