Description

Syllabus

Schedule

Archives

Blackboard

BCS 504: Syllabus

Fall 2011

Course Instructor

Dr. Greg DeAngelis (Instructor)
Office: 245 Meliora
Email: TEL: 275-8677

Co-instructors

Dr. Laurel Carney: , 276-3948
Dr. Duje Tadin: , 275-8682

Course Organization

The course will consist of a mixture of lectures and discussion sessions in which the class will critically evaluate primary literature relevant to the topics of the course. Background readings will be assigned for most lectures. Students will get much more out of the lectures if they have done the background reading before coming to class. There will be a considerable amount of lecture content that will not be found in the readings, thus class attendance is essential and questions are strongly encouraged. Students will be expected to be active participants in discussions, and will be called on as necessary.

Readings

Some background readings will be drawn from the 4th edition of "Neuroscience" by Purves, Augustine, Fitzpatrick, Hall, LaMantia, McNamara, and White. Additional required readings will be drawn from reviews, journal articles, and book chapters and will be available electronically.

Grading

Each student's grade will be determined by a combination of performance on exams, a final paper, and class participation. These components will be weighted as follows:

  • Midterm exam: 40%
  • Class participation: 30%
  • Paper: 30%

Paper

Each student will write a final paper for the course that is not to exceed 3000 words. Each student will choose a topic related to material presented in the course, and will be required to write a research prospectus. The successful paper will briefly summarize what is currently known about the topic, define the key open questions to be addressed by future studies, and briefly outline a line of research to address one or more of the key questions. It will be concise, specific, and concrete in the points that it makes. Important relevant literature should be cited appropriately.

top