|
Teaching: Curriculum Samples General Science 201: Honors/Biology - The Search for Order, New Preparation Fall 2006 Course Evolution Statement: This is the first time I have technically taught this course - or any, for that matter, in/for the Honors Program. After devoting a significant amount of preparation time on it, however, I decided to write up a statement. Mid-summer 2006, Dr. Karen Haberman (who has taught Honors/Biology before and mentored me on several aspects of this course) asked if I was interested in teaching this course and, within an hour, I said yes. I agreed, in large part, because I felt I could readily marry many ideas from my non-majors/majors "Emerging Diseases" course (since canceled and removed from the catalog) with testing out several things (e.g. bringing parasitology and virology into the microbiology lab) for my pending "Medical Microbiology" course (approved last year, to be run Spring 2007). Given the catalog description for this Honors course reads, "a study of major themes from the natural sciences selected to develop understanding of historical perspectives, current interactions and future potentials," I decided to finally develop a longstanding dream course theme of mine: systematically working through the top 15 worldwide infectious disease killers - the science of the agents and diseases, alongside their enduring and ongoing impact (with an emphasis on geography and notable history). The biology of the agents is such that - working low to high - we begin with the largest multicellular parasitic worms/flukes, move through the large-celled protozoal diseases, cover smaller/simpler bacteria for an extended time, and essentially end with viruses - the smallest and most conceptually difficult group of all infectious agents. Exam/discussion/lab units correspond with each of these taxonomic groups (i.e. animals, protozoa, prokaryotes, viruses) - something fundamentally simpler for non-majors to grasp (as opposed to covering diseases based on affected organ systems, with agents from all taxonomic groups). Course Materials Evolution Statement Given advice from both Drs. Haberman and LeMaster (who has also taught this course for the Honors Program), I did not use of require an explicit course text. Instead, students use all on-line resources, including CDC, WHO, and specific sections of Wikipedia that I have proofed. They read on-line journal article case studies from the CDC's Emerging Infectious Disease Journal, the Morbidity/Mortality Weekly Report, and various free on-line articles I or they locate. All my lecture materials, including short Word outlines and fully-illustrated PowerPoint slides are made available as well. As suggested by Dr. Haberman, half their grade is based on hands-on lab activities and writing/discussion/presentation projects, with the other half determined by traditional lecture-based exams. At this writing, samples of only lab and writing/discussion/presentation assignments are available. As with my other courses, I continue to write and provide my own original lab procedures. While 75% of the lab exercises are revisions of lab activities taught in 318 or 331, 25% are, as mentioned, intentional explorations of new activities - e.g. parasitology and virology - that will serve in my development of more advanced labs for Medical Microbiology. Provided Curricula Samples 2006 Introduction and Multicellular Parasites I (PowerPoint and outline provided for students) 2006 Protozoa (PowerPoint and outline provided for students) 2006 Eukaryotic Cells, Infectious Agents, and Insect Vector Laboratory Exercise |