(and other classes!)

A lot of information for ZO 250 is accessible outside of class.  There is a note pack from Tailored Texts as well as lecture outlines, sample tests, and keys posted on the web.  The lecture for any given day can be found on the CALS server in Powerpoint format, and then there is the text.  What is the benefit of coming to class then?  Clearly, both you and the citizens of the state pay for you to attend.  Also, my experience with approximately 2000 students here at N.C. State suggests that it is difficult to do well in my classes without attending.  Why should this be with all the information available outside of class?  For starters, the materials referred to above complementlecture material.  They do not replace it.  The students who do well in my class are those who use the lecture outlines provided as precisely that: outlines.  They take advantage of the reduction in writing these outlines allow to listen more closely and think about the questions I pose to the class.  Many of my best previous students also make extensive notes of their own in the space provided between points based on lecture and their reading (I don't put that space there because I dislike trees!).

Other points:

Questions in Class:
    This is a big class.  The reason we have large classes early on in the core curriculum is to cover the breadth we feel is important for a Zoology major while you define your areas of interest within this field.  You can then pursue these interests in typically smaller upper-level courses.  However, there are clearly drawbacks to large classes in terms of clarifying things that might be confusing you.  If you are confused, it is likely that many others are as well and they will likely be grateful if you ask me to stop and explain a point or process.  You will also find that it helps a lot to think about and really discuss questions I give you in class with your neighbors when I give you that chance.  Unfortunately, some students take this opportunity to talk about subjects other than ZO 250.  This is unfortunate for those students (and their neighbors) because when the same or similar questions reappear on exams, it is then the first time they have thought about them.  On a more positive note, many of the topics and issues we cover in these discussions are less about learning "factoids" than understanding processes and learning ways of thinking through problems of this nature.  This only happens through practice.

Office Hours:
    If I had my choice, I would love to teach this subject while drinking coffee with a few students and drawing on the board in my office.  However, my office does not hold 200 people and a little of that atmosphere would be lost even if it did.  You can, however, have this kind of interaction by coming to office hours.  I find it is a really good opportunity to learn where people do and do not understand concepts.  If you do not understand a concept, it seems better to me to discover and correct this in my office hours than to simply 'discover' it during an exam.

    It is also much better to talk to me about performance in exams and the class generally EARLY ON rather than late if you are concerned.  Remember that the low exam grade is dropped and there is therefore ample time to improve your performance provided you take positive steps towards doing so early enough that it will make a difference.  Unfortunately, many students wait until the last two weeks of the semester when two or three midterms have passed to take steps towards improvement.  It is often too late at that point to make an appreciable difference.  This is both because much of the course is already behind them in an assessment sense and simply because there are a lot of processes and concepts covered and it is typically not possible to master all of these starting when there are two weeks left rather than 14.  Be proactive!

Study Questions and "Q & A" sessions
    I hold question and answer sessions before exams.  Notice I do not call these "Review" sessions.  It is not possible to adequately cover the material of 8-10 lectures in a 60-90 minute period.  Instead, I usually work from the study questions available elsewhere on this website.  This often prompts questions about related issues and that is one of the best parts of these sessions.

• What works:  Thinking about, researching, and preparing answers for these questions before coming to the session.

• What does not work:  Not preparing and hoping to gain a full understanding of 8-9 lectures of material in 90 minutes and from the questions of prepared students.

Writing for Lab:
    There is a considerable amount of writing involved in the labs for Zoology 250 and 260.  The reason for this is simple: few of us are born as great writers. Writing is a skill that only develops with practice.  It is very important to us that you develop this skill since we want you to succeed.  Both employer statements and results from standardized tests that determine entrance to graduate and professional schools tell us that there cannot be too much emphasis placed on writing.  Your writing abilities are likely to play a large part in determining your future opportunities and career advancement.  You will also find that writing a clear introduction and discussion for experiments is also a vital and useful tool for you to learn the concepts and ideas covered in these classes.

    There are a variety of resources available to help you improve your writing.

• First (and most important): Pay attention to comments your T.A. makes on your papers.
• Second: You will be provided with 'rubrics' for the first few papers.  These are outlines of the sorts of issues you should address and points to think about as you write your papers.
• Third: The book "How to write and publish a scientific paper" by Robert Day is available as an 'e-book' from the library.  This superb book outlines exactly what should be included in each section of a scientific paper (Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion; it also outlines what should not be in these sections!) as well as what each section should accomplish.  Best of all, it is very well written, funny in places, and wonderfully concise in the sections that apply to this course (~15-20 pages total in the book: Intro, Materials and Methods, Results, and Discussion).
  
• Fourth: There are writing support services available to you at NC State.  Don't be shy about taking advantage of these.
• Fifth: There are literally hundreds of thousands of scientific papers available in the library you can use as examples of scientific writing.  Use them to learn (and cite them where appropriate to the report you are writing - your T.A. will be impressed!).