INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN BIOLOGY
HUMAN DISEASE AND SOCIETY
Human Biology - 217
Summer, 2009
| Instructor: James C. Marker, Ph.D. | Office Hours: by appointment |
|Office: LS 445 |Home Page: |
|Phone: 465-2230 (2681) |Course Web Page: |
|E-Mail: markerj@uwgb.edu | |
Course Overview:
This course is intended to help students develop understanding, perspective, and an appreciation for the interaction between disease and society. Developing such perspective requires an understanding of the “scientific aspect of disease”, e.g., immunology as well as the “cultural aspect of disease”, e.g., attitudes towards disease.
Why are you taking this course? Presumably to fulfill a general education – natural science – values requirement. OK, but what does that mean?
Purpose of General Education
The general education program helps you strengthen academic skills, broaden intellectual horizons, develop and explore new academic interests, reflect on personal values and build a foundation of knowledge for future course work and lifelong learning. The general education program provides learning experiences in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, other cultures and ethnic studies.
Natural Sciences Learning Outcomes
An Understanding of the natural sciences, including: major concepts, principles, and theories of the biological and physical environment; and the impact of scientific and technological activities and products on individuals, society, and the environment.
This course is NOT a WRITING EMPHASIS COURSE! Do not misinterpret what that means!! It does not mean that writing is not involved and/or important!! Writing makes up a sizable component of the course/exams, and there is an expectation that you be able to clearly, effectively, and logically articulate a response in writing.
Specific Goals:
1. Develop a working model/outline that reflects the relationships and/or interactions between human disease and society and/or culture.
❖ This is the core of the course! Your experience, perspective, opinion, and ideas are of the utmost value and importance in developing this model. As a class we can bring together much more experience and perspective than we can as individuals. For example, what are issues that a business major would consider relevant to disease as opposed to a biologist or political scientist? Think about the contribution of a student who has or knows someone with cancer or AIDS or those with no experience with a chronic disease – that is a valid and important perspective (?) as well!!
2. Understand principles of immunity – particularly as they related to preventing the spread of disease via vaccination.
3. Understand the various dimensions to the etiology of disease.
4. Be able to communicate on this topic in both written and oral means.
5. Gain an appreciation of the impact of disease on society and on the impact of society on disease.
Texts: Viruses, Plagues & History, Michael Oldstone, M.D., Oxford University Press, 1998.
Plagues & Poxes – The Rise and Fall of Epidemic Disease, Alfred Bollet, M.D., Demos Publication, 1987.
Recommended (but not required) – some type of historical atlas that will help you locate past/present geographical areas relating to disease, e.g., World History Atlas, Longman
Class Schedule: Mon - Thurs 9:00 – 11:50, MAC-109
Class Format:
The format used for this course will include lecture, class discussion, small group discussion, media presentations, web “discussion”, and student presentations. Considerable emphasis will be put on student input, insight, reaction, perspective, and even conjecture. As such, your attendance is important and expected!
Putting it all together, at the end of most class periods, we will, AS A CLASS, highlight (1) components of our model including additions, modification, refinement etc, (2) important points, principles and/or concepts relevant to the topics, and (3) needed and/or noteworthy terms. The “information” from these 3 categories will make up the majority of what you will be evaluated on. The culminating project of the course is your (individual) model/outline/characterization of human disease and society!
…on the Web. Components of the model will be put on the course web page. Students will be assigned/asked to submit the highlights of the model for the day. If you have that assignment, you will submit (to me via e-mail) any additions, changes, etc to the model which I will put on the web page.
Assignments:
Assignments include questions associated with the readings (which will be used for discussion), questions associated with the video presentations, and taking notes on the “model (as described above). Your “score” for this category will be based simply on your completion record, i.e., if you had 17 assignments (from any combination described) and you completed 14, your percentage will be 82.3%. This component of the grade inherently includes attendance. As such, you must personally turn in your assignment for full credit. If you turn it in before (or after) class but are not in attendance, or if it is turned in (on time) via another student, it will only count for half of the points!
Since the exams have a short answer component, we will be using some of the assignments to prepare you for such. One or two of the questions on most assignments will be designated as writing evaluation (WE) questions. The expectation for these questions is that they be written out as per the expectation of a written exam question. They will be peer reviewed (not graded) for effective writing (which we will discuss). Again, not all assignment question responses need be written at that level.
Exams:
The exams will cover information from the lecture, assigned reading, class discussion, group presentations, and videos shown in class. They will be made up of multiple choice questions, True-False questions, matching and short essay questions. Part of each test will be computer scored so you must bring a #2 lead pencil for the exams. If you will not be available for an exam, you must contact me in advance to work out a suitable alternative. Make-up exams will be given only for verifiable emergencies! Please contact me or the department as soon as possible if a situation comes up that prohibits you from taking the exam as scheduled.
Challenge Sheets: Students will have the opportunity to "challenge" questions on the exams that they feel were "ambiguous", "misleading" etc. To challenge a question, the student must turn in a challenge sheet. Challenge sheets are due one week from the day the exam is returned! Challenge sheet forms are available via the web page.
Group Presentation:
You will participate as part of a group in preparing and presenting information about a disease. You may choose any disease or aspect of disease NOT discussed in lecture! It must be approved! The write-up and presentation should be consistent with the model that we will have developed. Each group will have ~30 minutes to do their presentation. You can be as creative as you want as long as you get the job done of educating the rest of the class regarding the disease (and society). As part of the presentation, each person in the group will be required to submit questions relating to your topic/presentation.
You will receive a score from your group (including yourself) which will account for 30% of your presentation score, and you will receive a score from the instructor which will account for 70% of your presentation score.
Grading: Grades will be based on the student's performance on assignments, unit exams, web participation, and the group presentation. The final grade will be determined as follows:
Model of HDZ & Soc 10.0% 10.0%
Assignments 10.0% 10.0%
Group Presentation 15.0% 15.0%
Exams 65.0%
Highest (40%) 26.0%
(35%) 22.8%
Lowest (25%) 16.3%
T O T A L 100% 100%
The following scale will be used in determining by the final grade. Note: This is a guaranteed grade (no curve) though I reserve the right to lower the scale (in your favor)!
A 100 – 92.5
AB 92.4 – 87.5
B 87.4 – 82.5
BC 82.4 – 77.5
C 77.4 – 72.5
CD 72.4 – 67.5
D 67.4 – 60
F ................
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