Microbiology Syllabus Spring 2017
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Microbiology BIOSC 1850 Spring 2017 (2174) Course Information & Syllabus Dr. Candice L. Damiani A352 Langley Hall Lecturer E-mail: [email protected] Office Phone: 412-624-4269 Taylor Gastner Oana Grigoras Ramzi Kurzum Undergraduate Megan Ulbrich Teaching Assistants The UTAs will be attending lectures, holding weekly office hours, and monitoring the Facebook discussion boards. You are welcome (and encouraged!!) to stop by my office during the following times without making an appointment. These are times when you can ask questions regarding material and discuss general class issues. Office hours will not be held on Exam dates. Office Hours TBD Office Hours I have an open door policy. If you stop by outside of the times listed above and my door is open, please feel free to stop in. If my door is closed, please stop by at another time. For issues that you would like to discuss privately, I do schedule individual appointments. This will allow us to confidentially discuss your specific areas of concern. These appointments are not for discussion of general class material. Please visit calendly.com/damiani for an appointment. Lecture: MWF 11:00 - 11:50 am A221 Langley Each class meeting will typically be a mix of lecture interspersed with Class Meetings in-class problems, activities, and writing. Several class meetings will be active workshops. As a courtesy to your classmates, please silence your cell phones during lecture. Textbook (required): Microbiology by Wessner, Dupont, and Charles (2013), 1st edition Required TopHat Course Materials The textbook is available at the Pitt Bookstore. You will be responsible for specific readings from the textbook, which I may or may not present during lecture. To ensure the free and open discussion of ideas, students may not record classroom lectures, discussions, and/or activities without the advanced written permission of the instructor. Any such recording approved in advance can be used solely for the student’s own private use. To record lectures, please see me for a recording agreement. Use of The materials I make available to you are my intellectual property. You Recording are welcome to use the notes and recordings that I provide for your Devices in the own private use. Posting my lecture notes, slides, quizzes, exams, Classroom practice questions, recitation assignments, answer keys or lecture recordings to ANY website without my express written permission is a violation of the academic integrity code. This includes all notesharing websites including Coursehero, Studyblue.com, Koofers.com, etc. Any student caught sharing my intellectual property (lecture notes, slides, quizzes, exams, lecture recordings, etc) will be charged with a breech of academic integrity. You must have passed Foundations of Biology 2 (BIOSC 0160 or Prerequisites equivalent) and General Chemistry 2 (CHEM 0120 or equivalent) with a C or better before taking BIOSC 1850. This course is a general survey of microbiology that will introduce students to the basic biology of bacteria, archaea, and viruses, with a concentration on bacteria. The diversity within the microbial world will be emphasized, as well as the relevance to the environment and Course human disease. The course will help students be able to make Objectives knowledgeable decisions when microbiology impacts everyday life (for example food poisoning, infections, and vaccinations). In addition, the course will prepare students for advanced study in microbiology and the health sciences. If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, you are encouraged to contact both your instructor Disabilities and Disabilities Resources and Services, 216 William Pitt Union, (412) Resources and 648- 7890/(412) 383-7355 (TYY), as early as possible in the term. Services DRS will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course. Each student is issued a University e-mail address ([email protected]) upon admittance. This e-mail address may be used by the University for official communication with students. Students are expected to read e-mail sent to this account on a regular basis. Failure to read and react to University communications in a timely manner does not absolve the student from knowing and complying with the content of the communications. The University provides an e-mail forwarding service that allows students to read their e-mail via other service providers (e.g., Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo). Students that choose to forward their e-mail from their E-mail pitt.edu address to another address do so at their own risk. If e-mail is Communication lost as a result of forwarding, it does not absolve the student from responding to official communications sent to their University e-mail address. To forward e-mail sent to your University account, go to http://accounts.pitt.edu, log into your account, click on Edit Forwarding Addresses, and follow the instructions on the page. Be sure to log out of your account when you have finished. (For the full E-mail Communication Policy, go to www.bc.pitt.edu/policies/policy/09/09-10- 01.html.) Several times have been scheduled during class when we will do activities, answer questions, work on problems, or evaluate case studies. In order to be prepared for the activities, some homework questions, outside readings, and online lectures/videos will be assigned. You are responsible for all preparatory work. In some cases, these homework assignments may be collected and used for participation points. In addition, quizzes may be used to assess the Workshops/In activities. Class Activities Participation points will be awarded for actively participating in classroom activities, including participation with TopHat. Credit can only be earned for IN CLASS participation. You are expected to bring a TopHat compatible device to each class and recitation. In class activity points cannot be made up. If you are caught answering for another student or submitting answers outside of class, you will receive a 0 for ALL participation points. All enrolled students have access to the course web site at http://courseweb.pitt.edu. Important course documents, including Course Web lecture outlines and recitation questions, are located on this site. Site/Facebook In addition to Courseweb, we will utilize Facebook and TopHat for discussion and classroom communication. You will receive an invitation to the group through your Pitt.edu e-mail. The instructor and UTAs will monitor the Facebook group. All postings should be classroom/microbiology oriented. Inappropriate postings will be deleted. Exams 1, 2 and 3 will be 50-minute midterm examinations, each worth 40 points. The Immune System Exam will be worth 20 points. Exam 4 is a cumulative exam and will be given the last day of class. Exam questions will be based on lecture material as well as assigned readings and activities. Exam dates are given on the course schedule. They will NOT change unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances that affect the professor or the entire class. Plan accordingly. Student ID cards will be checked when you submit your exam. NO MAKE-UP MID-TERM EXAMS WILL BE GIVEN. • If you miss an exam, you may substitute your cumulative Exam 4 grade for the missed examination. • This can only be done for one exam. If you miss more than one exam, you will receive a zero on the other missed exam. Exams • If you do not miss an exam, you can use your Exam 4 score to replace your lowest exam score. • You can not replace or miss Exam 4. Put it on your calendar. Challenging an exam question • An exam question challenge form will be placed on Course Web. Challenges must be submitted online via Courseweb ONE WEEK from the day that exams are returned in class. • Challenges will be considered only: o IF your grade is on the border and an additional 2 points would make a difference to your final letter grade o IF your exam challenge was submitted online within the ONE WEEK timeframe • If the above conditions are met, I will consider (but not necessarily grant) your exam challenge. I will only evaluate your exam challenge at the END of the semester when final grades are being determined. If you are caught cheating in this course, you will (AT MINIMUM) receive a 0 on the assignment. If you are caught cheating on an exam, you will receive a 0 on the exam, an F in the course, and a Academic Integrity Violation Report will be sent to the Dean. I do not take cheating lightly. Academic Integrity Students in this course are expected to comply with the University of Pittsburgh School of Arts and Sciences Academic Integrity Code (http://www.as.pitt.edu/faculty/policy/integrity.html). Any student suspected of failing to meet the student obligations of the code during the semester will be required to participate in the procedures for adjudication, initiated at the instructor level. This may include, but is not limited to, confiscation of the assignment of any individual suspected of violating the code. A minimum sanction of a zero score for the assignment will be imposed. Violation of the Academic Integrity Code requires the instructor to submit an Academic Integrity Violation Report to the Dean. You may not use unauthorized materials during an exam, including notes, dictionaries, calculators, pagers, telephones, PDAs, and any device that can connect to the internet. You must submit for grading only material that is written exclusively in your own words. A number of homework, participation, and quiz activities will be available through TopHat. You are responsible for all assignments. TopHat Once an assignment closes, it will not reopen. You should bring a charged, functional TopHat compatible device to every class. Your final grade will be based upon a total of 225 points distributed as follows: • Participation/Homework/In class assignments/TopHat (25 points) • 4 Quizzes (20 points) • 3 exams (120 points) • Final Exams (40 points (cumulative)/20 points (final chapters)) Total points: 225 These points are subject to change if extra assignments are necessary.