Syllabus
Human Biology — 34BIOL171

Course Description:

3 ug. cr. This modular, Web-based section of this course is designed to expose and introduce you to a wide variety of topics within the field of biology. This is not merely an anatomy course, and so, while a number of the topics will relate to anatomy, a “taste” or sampling of a variety of biological topics will be explored, especially focusing on how those topics relate to humans and our everyday lives. Issues relevant to both individual wellness and maintaining a healthy environment will be examined, as well as overarching biological principles such as evolution, homeostasis, and the scientific method. Topics will include brief introductions to cell theory, characteristics of life, the organization and functioning of some of the body systems, genetics and DNA, evolution, ecology, biodiversity, and the ecological consequences of human activities. It is hoped that this brief exposure to these topics will spark your interest, show you how these topics and concepts relate to your daily life, and introduce you to ways of gathering further information on these topics, thereby giving you a basis for intelligent decision-making in regard to your bodies, lives, and environment.

It is assumed that students enrolled in this college-level course are capable of reading and performing mathematical calculations at a college level. If your entrance exam scores indicate that you need to take developmental English or math courses, you may need to complete those, first, before attempting this course. Also, since this section of the course is being taught as a Web-based course, it is also assumed that students enrolled in this section are also knowledgeable in and comfortable with the use of the Web.

Course Philosophy:

It is hoped that, through your participation in this course and exposure to the topics to be covered, you will come to develop a sense of excitement about and an appreciation for the true vibrancy and importance of modern biology. You can only do this by becoming actively involved in doing science and becoming an independent learner, which are also objectives of this course. Even more importantly, it is hoped that you will have an exciting, meaningful, and challenging (in the good sense) academic experience that will enable you to change and grow both personally and academically. This, after all, is the real purpose of being at the University!

Student learning should be central to any course, and we will strive to put student learning first in this course. This means that:

• Students, not faculty, are responsible for their own learning. In this Web-based section, you won’t have someone hovering over you telling you that you have to get things done. You must have the self-discipline to set your own pace and get the required work done on time.
• Faculty should function more as a “guide on the side” and not the old-fashioned “sage on the stage.” Many of the assignments for this course will allow you to steer your education in a direction of interest to you.
• Since students learn in different ways, ideally, they should be given the opportunity to learn in a way that works for them. While reading and writing, of necessity, form the core of what you will be doing, a number of hands-on activities are also incorporated into this course.
• Since students’ learning styles and abilities are also shaped by their cultural backgrounds and value systems, an effort will be made to include a variety of points of view when feasible. Students are encouraged to draw on their unique backgrounds as they complete the course assignments.
• Since adult learners have their own sets of priorities and expectations for what they perceive as being important to them, for what they feel they want/need to learn, therefore within the framework of the given course topics, students will be given some autonomy in deciding what is of interest to them, in what they feel is important to learn, and in setting their own personal learning goals.
• Learning needs to take place at a time and location that is convenient for the learner (asynchronous). You, the students in this online section of this course, are living in many parts of the world and have unique family situations and job constraints which make it difficult for you to “come to us,” and by offering this course online, it is hoped this will make it possible for you to continue your education in life situations where that, otherwise, would not have been possible.

Course Aims:

It is intended that this course will strive to:

1. explore the value of life, and the interdependency of all living creatures upon each other and the environment in which they live,
2. investigate the uniqueness of human life and the impact of the various course topics, concepts, and activities on students’ daily lives, and
3. better prepare students for future opportunities to share with others the knowledge and skills they will gain, including development of students’ biological and technological literacy and critical thinking skills.

Course Goals:

At the completion of this course, the successful student will:

1. understand the major themes of biology and use these themes to explain a wide range of natural phenomena,
2. understand the historical development of major biological principles and be familiar with selected original studies that have shaped our knowledge about biology,
3. understand the approaches used by scientists to define and resolve problems, be able to contrast scientific with non-scientific problem solving processes, and place a greater value on the processes used to conduct scientific investigations and the results of these investigations,
4. reason in ways that scientists would recognize as logical and critical so that (s)he can evaluate biological information, establish a personal position, and employ scientific processes when addressing everyday problems,
5. recognize the etymology of biological terminology, and use charts, graphs, figures, narrative descriptions and other appropriate technical writing and oral communication tools when exploring and discussing biology-related information,
6. understand newspaper and television reports on current biological research, recognize the social/ethical issues associated with these advances in biology, justify personal decisions based upon information and ethics which are consistent with what is known from biology, and willingly contribute his/her ideas and understanding of biology to current issues,
7. proficiently use Web and library resources to locate information on biological topics and evaluate the reliability of that information,
8. understand the scientific evidence supporting cell theory,
9. be able to describe the characteristics of living things, and apply this knowledge to decisions of when life begins and ends,
10. understand basic biological concepts necessary for personal well-being, including the structure and functions of the major systems of the human body, the principles of homeostasis, and the nutritional requirements of humans,
11. understand the historical development of our knowledge of genes as units of inheritance,
12. recognize the impact of reproductive biology and biotechnology on society and the impact of personal sexual behavior on both personal and societal well-being,
13. understand the major themes of evolution including patterns and products of change, maintenance of a dynamic equilibrium in populations, interaction and interdependence, ecology, and biodiversity,
14. understand and appreciate the biological unity that results from the evolutionary relationship among all species,
15. understand and appreciate the biological diversity present on our planet, and the interdependency of all biological species, and
16. recognize the impact of humans on the biosphere as well as the impact of the biosphere on humans.

Course Objectives:

One challenge of this course is to make you sufficiently knowledgeable and enthusiastic about biology so that you will become life-long learners in the field. To do this, you will be helped and encouraged to build your biological and technological literacy. Since not even Nobel Prize winners are literate in all aspects of the science of biology, this course will focus on a relatively few areas of biological significance, concentrating on several which have considerable human and personal relevance.

Throughout the course, an emphasis will also be placed on developing your critical thinking skills, including gathering data through hands-on investigations, weighing evidence, constructing and evaluating arguments, making judgments, and applying biological concepts and principles to everyday life. The concept of “Writing to Learn” will also be utilized by asking you to complete a variety of writing assignments. Technological literacy will also be improved by asking you to use a computer to access the Web and e-mail as you complete your assignments. To better enable you to be scientifically-literate citizens and make informed decisions, you will not be merely required to memorize facts, but shown how to ferret out and get at the facts on your own, so you can begin to use those facts to make ethical decisions and weigh the possible consequences of those ethical decisions.

An additional emphasis throughout the course will be to make the course content exciting and directly relevant to each of you. You will be encouraged to explore how the course topics apply to your interest in your own well being and in maintaining your body in as healthful state as possible; to your interest in “sex,” reproduction, what your children might inherit from you, and how you can influence your own fertility or infertility; and to your interest in the environment in which you live. One way of adding interest is by featuring biological topics in current news. Another is through the use of a variety of activities to appeal to students with diverse learning styles, diverse goals in life, and interests in diverse aspects of biology.

Means of Reaching These Goals and Objectives:

This course is structured somewhat differently from others which you may have taken, in that, within the limits of the course content, you will have more flexibility in choosing topics which are of interest to you. Also, you will have more flexibility in deciding when, where, and how you will learn – to succeed and do well in this course, it will be your responsibility to set your own deadlines to complete required assignments in a thorough and timely manner.

This course is designed as a series of Web-based modules, and the activities in the various modules are designed to emphasize several overarching biological themes, to address a variety of learning styles and cultural diversity issues, and to relate your learning to your life and/or chosen profession. In each module, you will perform some type of investigation, often hands-on, of the topic; assimilate background information from the course Web pages, other pages on our Web server, and information you find elsewhere on the Web or in a library as you delve deeper into the various topics; then complete a project demonstrating what you have learned.

Since communication with your instructor and among class members will be via the Web and/or e-mail, you must have an e-mail account. You can use “outside” e-mail providers such as AOL, Yahoo, and Hotmail, or you can activate your “free” (you already paid for it in your student fees) UC e-mail account. Within the first week of the course, you will need to establish contact with the instructor so that your name and e-mail address can be added to the course database on our Web server.

The hands-on components of the various course modules are designed such that you should be able to complete them at home (“kitchen biology”). If you have children of your own at home, they might enjoy helping mom or dad to do “homework.”

Knowing that you, the students, are scattered throughout the world and thus, perhaps, may not have access to Clermont’s bookstore, and given that this is a very basic “survey”-type course, rather than requiring you to purchase a textbook for this course, links will be provided to “other” information on our Web server that is applicable to the various topics being covered. You are asked to read through and study that material in the same way that you would read and study a textbook. If you wish, you may purchase any of the books listed for our in-the-classroom sections of this course to use as supplemental information. These are:

Johnson.  2006.  Human Biology: Concepts & Current Issues, 3rd Ed.  Benjamin/Cummings.  (ISBN# 0-8053-5434-4).

Borror, Donald J.  1960.  Dictionary of Root Words and Combining Forms, 1st Ed.  Mayfield Publ. Co.  (ISBN# 0-87484-053-8).

Berkow, Robert, ed.  1999.  The Merck Manual, 17th Ed.  Merck, Sharp & Dohme, Rahway, NJ.  (ISBN# 0911910-10-7).
(The Merck Manual, Home Ed. may also be used.  The Merck Manual, 17th Ed. is also available in a searchable, on-line format at http://www.merck.com/pubs/mmanual/.)

Marchuk, William N.  1992.  A Life Science Lexicon.  Wm. C. Brown Publishers, Dubuque, IA.  (ISBN# 0-697-12133-X).

Lappé, Francis Moore.  1991.  Diet for a Small Planet, 20th Anniv. Ed.  Ballantine Books, New York.  (ISBN# 0-345-32120).

Course Modules/Schedule:

Many of the modules will require that you do some kind of a “project” or “research” and then write something to demonstrate what you have learned. The key requirement here is demonstration of what you learned. Beyond that, creativity is encouraged. For example, some of the modules may ask you to write a story or a play or a poem that incorporates what you have learned about that topic.

• Background information on you – due as soon as possible

• So, what does a volleball picnic have to do with biology, anyway?
             Pasteur’s experiment due by end of week 2
• What’s the biggest bubble he can blow?
             Scientific Method, part 1 due by end of week 2
             Scientific Method, part 2 due by end of week 3

• Who are the players on this team?
             Body systems story due by end of week 3
• Why are all those people so sweaty?
             Homeostasis assignment due by beginning of week 4
• May I have some chocolate cake, first?
             Diet assignment, part 1 due by end of week 4
             Diet assignment, part 2 due by end of week 5
             Diet assignment, part 3 due by end of week 7
• How will that give me the energy to play volleyball?
             due by beginning of week 4

• Why does chasing after the ball make me feel so out-of-breath?
             Smoking Letter due by end of week 4
• Why does that rose over there look and smell so good to me?
             Nervous/Endocrine assignment due by end of week 5
• Submit your first newsnote by the end of the week.

• Which bones and muscles am I using?
• Will I get sick if I accidentally drink out of someone else’s cup?
• Excuse me, but which way is the bathroom?
             Combined disease assignment due by end of week 6

• Will I ever be as tall as you?
  
• Are we related?
  
• “Like father, like son”?
             Combined genetics assignment due by end of last week of classes

• Why is (s)he so good-looking to me?
  
• What about the  kids  . . . oops. . . children?
  
• Submit your second newsnote by the end of the week.

• What am I stomping on when I jump to spike the ball?
  

• How’d all those beasties get here?
  

• So, who invited the ants to the picnic?
             (combined with week 10) due by end of finals’ week (will be sent to you via e-mail)
• Submit your third newsnote by the end of the week.

• Can’t we just bulldoze it and build a parking lot and indoor volleyball court, instead?
             Final Assignment due by end of finals’ week (will be sent to you via e-mail)

“Tests”:

When teaching courses in a classroom setting, most Clermont Biology faculty members’ tests are written such that students are expected to answer questions in their own words, and “multiple guess” questions typically are not used. From the examples I’ve seen of “multiple guess” questions used by faculty at other institutions, either one answer is so blatantly obvious and the others are so “lame” that the question is a “no-brainer,” or else, in an effort to make the questions challenging, faculty resort to such fine shades of difference that the questions become “trick” questions. In an online course, it would be very easy to use JavaScript to write and grade a “multiple guess” test, and it would be as easy to use an HTML form page to administer an essay-type test.

The purpose of tests is to provide incentive to the students to learn the material and to ascertain whether they have done so, and to what extent. Typically, students are expected to learn the specified material, to be able to memorize and regurgitate certain portions thereof, and to think critically and use what they’ve learned to come up with new ideas, and thus, tests are typically “closed-book.”

In an online course, there’s no really good, easy-to-do way of insuring that all of the students would be honest enough to take a closed-book test without being tempted to refer to off-limit materials. Thus the asumption must be made that students will have access to course materials, and any tests must, then, be constructed as “open-book” tests which focus more on students demonstrating what they’ve learned by how well they are able to process the presented information than on memorization.

In planning this course, rather than setting aside a few, designated “tests” over multiple topics, as you complete the assignment for each topic, you will be expected to demonstrate mastery of that topic through the thought, insight, and creativity you put into completing each assignment and the care you take, the evidence of assimilation of the vocabulary and concepts involved, and the thoroughness that is evident as you write each of the assignments. Thus, the written portions of each of those assignments which are required to be submitted via e-mail will serve as “tests” in that they will be used to judge how well/how much you have learned.

Grades:

Grades will be determined based on the total points from your assignments, your three newsnotes (5 pt. each), any any newsnote comments (5 pt. each — max. of 50 pt.) that you make. No late newsnotes will be accepted for a grade. A histogram (curve) of total scores will be constructed and analyzed using statistical methods. In general, the class mean will serve as the dividing line between “B” and “C” scores, and only those students whose scores are above the mean plus one standard deviation unit, thereby demonstrating superior mastery of the material covered, will receive an “A”. An “F” will be given when an individual repeatedly scores at the bottom of the class and shows blatant disregard for good study habits and class attendance. Any student who stops attending class and does not go through the official withdrawal process will be given the grade of “UW” — unofficial withdrawal — the equivalent of an “F”. Grades will be awarded based on a straight A-B-C-D-F grading scale.

For more detailed information on how grades are calculated, please refer to Grading System and Assignment of Grades or to check how you’re doing Check Grades (and Class E-Mail List).

I realize that there are some medical conditions which, legitimately, can preclude a student from having an equal chance to learn in any course. A very obvious example would be a student in a traditional lecture who had trouble hearing me speak, thus was at a great disadvantage because (s)he would miss what I was saying in lecture. However, other, more subtle, conditions such as ADD and dyslexia can also adversely affect an equally-intelligent student’s opportunity to obtain information and/or communicate to me that (s)he has learned the needed material. It is not “unfair” to anyone to make arrangements to compensate for such medical conditions, but rather, this can help insure that such people have an equal chance at doing well in this course. Obviously, however, such students would still have to demonstrate that, given reasonable accommodations, they are capable of mastering the required material. Thus, students who need some type of accommodations in order to “level the playing field” and put them on a par with the rest of the class should first contact Jenn Radt (513-732-5327) in Clermont’s Disability Services Office (she will need documentation), then get in touch with me now, not after grades have suffered.

Other Information:

Please also read through separate Web pages which describe:

• Course Guidelines, Policies, and Other Information
• Grading System and Assignment of Grades
• Check Grades (and Class E-Mail List)
• Academic Policies and Student Code of Conduct