Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Behavioral Ecology (Joan Strassmann)/2014 Syllabus

Syllabus for Behavioral Ecology, Fall 2014
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Syllabus for Behavioral Ecology, Bio 472, Fall 2014 – Subject to change

Class Time: Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 14:40 exactly to 16:00 in Eads 016 Required one hour discussion sections:
 * C) Friday 11:00 – 12:00, Eads 016, Asa Earnest, Davies, Krebs & West, ch. 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13.
 * A) Friday 12:00 – 13:00, Eads 016, Cassie Vernier. Davies, Krebs & West, ch. 3, 5, 9, 11, 12, 14.

Professor: Dr. Joan E. Strassmann, Office: 310 Wilson, Strassmann@wustl.edu

Teaching Assistants:
 * Cassie Vernier, clvernier@wustl.edu
 * Asa Earnest, earnest.asa@gmail.com.

Office hours: by appointment; emails answered quickly.

Required Texts:
 * The Selfish Gene, 3rd Edition, Richard Dawkins. This is a fun conceptual introduction to the topic.


 * An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology, FOURTH EDITION Nicholas Davies, John Krebs, Stuart West Wiley-Blackwell 2012 ISBN 978-1-4051-1416-5


 * Mockingbird Tales: Readings in Animal Behavior. This is written by former students and is available as a free PDF, or modestly priced book at http://cnx.org.

Recommended for Writing:
 * William Strunk, Jr., and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. 4th ed. Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
 * Bonnie Trenga, The curious case of the misplaced modifier. Writer’s Digest Books. 2006.

Why take this course? This course is about understanding why organisms evolve to act the way they do. We focus on social behaviors and particularly on understanding conflict and cooperation. How do genetically distinct individuals cooperate while still favoring their own interests? We study things like the evolution of aggression, mating behavior, parental care, communication, and the complexities of living in groups and families. We will learn how natural selection operates on individuals in a social context. We study less material in more depth, with many videos. You will specialize in a certain area. In that area you will write for Wikipedia and teach high school students one Saturday. This class is a lot of work, a lot of fun, and you will never look at an animal in the same way.

What will you learn? This course is about how animals behave in their environment. You will learn to be skeptical and critical of logically incomplete arguments. You will learn how to formulate and evaluate hypotheses. You will learn to evaluate material for accuracy in data, in logic, and in conclusions. You will understand the nature of scientific evidence. You will learn to understand how natural selection operates, particularly on behavior. One of the most effective ways of learning is to teach and communicate the material you just learned. In this class you will learn to teach, to write, to collaborate, and to engage in the dialogue of Wikipedia.

What goes on in the class sessions? During class we will take quizzes, discuss difficult concepts, listen or give short lectures on difficult points, work together on Wikipedia articles, plan for the high school teaching event, or watch and analyze videos of animal behavior. Attendance is required.

What goes on in the discussion sections? You will meet in a smaller group with your TA in the discussion section. The TA will go over difficult concepts, discuss primary literature, discuss the study questions, and work on the various projects. You will focus on a specific kind of animal and on four chapters of the main textbook. You will give short presentations. Attendance is required.

Accessibility: This course offers an opportunity for everyone to shine with hard work. Nevertheless, you may have a condition that still needs extra support. We want you to succeed, so let us know what else we can do to help. If you have a documented disability that will impact your work in this class please tell me according to Wash U rules.

Assignments:


 * Weekly quizzes: You will have study questions over the textbook reading. There will be weekly quizzes on Tuesdays based on these questions, on Mockingbird Tales, and on in-class material. Come to class. Participate. You are responsible for all material covered in the class period as well as the assigned textbooks and readings. Some classes will be dedicated to discussion with your partners. The reading for each week should be done before class meets because discussion and application of ideas in class is important and will count on the daily quizzes. When we view animal behavior videos, you will complete short in-class assignments.


 * Wikipedia: You will write and rewrite major entries and contribute them to Wikipedia. These assignments are a major part of your grade and will be broken into many segments. Each person will do their own work, but you will work in teams of three where all work on a similar topic. One of the three will become a writing expert, one a fact checker, and one a Wikipedia expert. You will focus on one chapter from Chapter 3 to Chapter 14 in Davies, Krebs, and West, complementing this reading with reading original research papers, thereby making this your area of expertise.


 * High school workshop: On the morning of Saturday 8 November, you will teach a workshop to high school students who will visit our campus. This is a required part of the course, so plan for it. The high school students will rotate among rooms with about 40 minutes in each. You will present a concept in about 10 minutes and complement it with an activity that illustrates the point for about 20 minutes. This will be a group project. More details will come later.


 * Group work: You should work through the study questions on the reading with others.  You may talk informally with others on any assignment and in studying for quizzes. References must be cited where pertinent; texts identical or very similar between students or unattributed statements will be violations.  The high school presentation will be done together but you must provide a statement of who did what. Write and sign the honor code at the top of all work (see below).


 * Teams for Wikipedia: Even though you each do your own work, you will have a team of three for Wikipedia assignments. One person will be a fact checker, responsible for making sure the information of all three team members is accurate by looking at the original papers used as sources. One will be a writing expert, helping the other two to write clearly and accurately. The third will be a Wikipedia expert, responsible for learning how to edit on Wikipedia to a level helpful to others. In class you will always sit with your team.

Cheating, honesty, academic professionalism, and honor codes: An honor code means that students themselves police and judge the conduct of other students. Wash U does not have an honor code. Instead it has rules. You may not cheat, plagiarize, copy from others, fabricate data, or be deceitful in any way. This class fosters learning in an open, collegial, professional, goal-oriented environment. I am going to teach this course in an honor-code based environment. You may not cheat in any way. You must put this pledge on the top of all work: “I have neither given nor received any inappropriate assistance on this work.” Then sign it. I will appoint an honor council of four, two from each section, to handle all complaints, though I do not expect there to be any. The one thing I will keep careful track of is plagiarism, which I may use software to detect. Because we are posting our work on Wikipedia, we have to be particularly vigilant about plagiarism.

Plagiarism occurs when someone takes the ideas, words, or sentences of another and passes it off as their own. It can be avoided by never using the exact or general structure of someone else, and by citing references when another’s ideas are used. Taking someone else’s work and changing around the words is still plagiarism. If you are unclear about what plagiarism is, educate yourself on this important topic. Be vigilant and avoid plagiarism, and point it out if you see it in a paper draft. We will talk more about this later. It will not be allowed in any form.

'''Late work: This course has much interactive work, so it is essential that all work be turned in early or on time. Last minute technical problems will not be considered an excuse. Back up your work and save while you work every 10 minutes. All work is due on Blackboard a minute before midnight on the due date.''' Late work should have a written medical (including psychiatric) excuse from a health care professional that makes it clear that the problem precluded timely completion of the assignment. If illness prevents you from working with your study group, then the work done by the others is still due on time, and she/he must make the participation level of the ill person clear. Any work turned in late unexcused will lose as much as 5% of the points per day at my discretion. Work may be turned in early. You are required to keep copies of all work.

Openness: Student work and comments will be posted in generally accessible places so students can learn from each other’s efforts. The actual grade on the work will be kept private. We have found that it can be very useful to see comments on other’s work as a way of improving your own.

Overall rules: Wash U has policies about student and faculty involvement here. You should bring laptops and phones to class but the sound must be turned off. You may only use your laptop for class use. You may not check your email, Facebook, Reddit, or any use that is not class related. If you do, you will lose points that will impact your grade.

Structure of the course: This course has a structure that combines breadth and depth. It uses repetition to your advantage. We begin with a couple of weeks on one book, which covers most topics in the course. Then we work through the main texts for the rest of the semester. Each group of three students will study the topic of one chapter in detail, reading original literature, writing, and teaching the material. They will use wasps as models for their chapter’s topic and write about them for their Wikipedia contributions.

Grading

You are encouraged to attend relevant Departmental Seminars (selected Mondays in Rebstock 305 at 4 pm), Ecology, Evolution, and Population Biology Seminars (Thursdays at 4 pm in Rebstock 305) or any other relevant departmental seminar in Biology, Anthropology, Psychology or Philosophy and write up a brief commentary to solidify what you have learned. You may also attend Bioforum, lab meetings, or special seminars. This is to learn outside the formal classroom and to get some exposure to lectures. It will not count towards your overall points, but that should not keep you from expanding your learning in these ways. Here is a useful way to write commentaries. Give the talk speaker’s name, title, date, place, and time. Then give the main thesis of the talk, and comments on what you did and did not like about the talk content and presentation style, in a page or less. If you want me to, I will read your commentaries.

All work is due no later than midnight on the date given, to the appropriate place on Blackboard.

'''All students are responsible for information communicated through email, or through the course Blackboard website. '''

WIKIPEDIA ASSIGNMENT DEADLINES
Wikipedia due date and points table

Turn these assignments in to Blackboard and put them up live at the same time on Wikipedia. Thoughtful, comprehensive, well-written, carefully linked work within the Wikipedia philosophy will be rewarded. You are free to contribute more than required. You are free to modify and respond to comments more often than asked for here.

The carrots mean you remove that bit, so, for example, StrassmannJoanWiki11Sept only with your name.