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Catalog Description:

Biological Principles I (coreq: Biol 101L) is a 3 credit hour introductory survey of cell structure and function, genetics, and evolution.

Major Course Objectives:

Biology 101 is an introductory course for students majoring in biology, pre-med, allied health and other sciences. It is the first of four courses in the biology core sequence for the USC System. The course is designed to present and encourage the mastery of the terms and concepts related to the chemistry of life, the structure and function of cells, genetics and evolution. The major emphasis of the course will be the scientific method, as well as, the diversity of life and evolution.

Class Attendance:

"Enrollment in a course obligates the student not only for prompt completion of all work assigned but also for punctual and regular attendance and for participation in what ever class discussion may occur. It is the student’s responsibility to keep informed concerning all assignments made. Absences, whether excused or unexcused, do not absolve students from their responsibility. Absence from more than 10% of scheduled class sessions, whether excused or unexcused, is considered excessive."

(The foregoing attendance information is taken form the USC Sumter Undergraduate Studies Bulletin. You may want to look at this publication for other policies, which may affect you).

Grading:

Your grade in the course will be based on exams and class participation.
The point distribution is as follows:

Three examinations(100 points each)       300 points
Final Examination                                    100 points
Library Research Assignment                  100 points
Quizzes and Assignments                    100 points

TOTAL points                                        600 points
 
 

90-100% = A
80-85% = B
86-89% = B+
76-79% = C +
70-75% = C
60-65% = D
66-69% = D+
< 60% = F

Exams and Quizzes:

Exams will be composed of objective, short answer and essay questions.
Material assigned for reading and lecture notes will be covered on the exam.

How to be successful in Biology 101:

1. Read the textbook BEFORE coming to class. This includes surveying the assignment before reading in detail. Read the headings, introductory sentences to each section, and summary at the end of the chapter. You should be aware that there are different type sizes and faces to indicate to you what is important and what is subordinate. Do not disregard graphs, drawings, tables, or technical words. What are the statements in the brown boxes throughout the chapters? How can you use them in mastering the material in a chapter?

2.  Take notes in class. Successful students view the textbook and class notes as sources of questions and answers likely to appear on their exams. Therefore, you might want to remember that if you are not reading and studying the textbooks and class notes as if you are preparing to take a test, you are wasting your time. Taking notes in lecture is one of the most educational activities you can master. What the instructor says in class gives an instructor's interpretation and points of emphasis of much of the course content. To learn successfully, you must run this information through your own brain and reword it. Taking notes is an effective way to do this. Be selective of your note taking. You do not need to take notes verbatim. You should record the major interpretations, points emphasized, explanations of key ideas and terms, and topics in text. Make sure your notes are legible or they will be of no use to you. Some students begin by writing the date and topic at the top of the page and write on every other line and leave substantial room for inserting supporting notes or insights. Write the logical steps used to illustrate an idea or prove a statement. If you lose track of an idea and are not able to frame a question, mark your place and keep writing and go back to it after class. Then you can look at the text, ask someone in the class, or go to the instructor and ask. The whole purpose of note taking is to look at your notes later, put the information together and make sense of it. Even parts of the lecture where you are not lost have aspects you will not grasp while hearing for the first time.

3. Re-read your notes the same day they are originally written. This permits you to add material, underline, and insert marginal notes. Periodically review your notes during the course. In understanding this work, you should be concerned about relating and integrating the lecture notes with materials in the textbook.

4. Be aware of effective review methods, The single most inefficient method of study that is characteristic of failing students is the reading of an assignment over and over and over, without checking to find out what you know or do not know. Unless you check your mastery, you cannot locate and remedy the weak points in your learning because you fail to discover them. The most effective review of material is RECALL instead of merely rereading material. Learning theory tells us that there is more value in distributed practice instead of one-time study of an assignment because of the curve of forgetting.

5. Recognize that the skills needed to learn science are somewhat different from the skills needed to learn in humanities, Reading ability is extremely important in success in science. You must read the textbook, slowly with pencil and paper in hand. This reading must be done more than once. Ideally, a chapter should be read once before it is covered in a lecture, once during the time it is covered, and once after it has been covered. Before reading, you should read the chapter headings and subheadings to get an overview of the material. At each step in which a new concept is presented, you must think it over to see if it makes sense. Work any examples and understand the figures and pictures so well that you can draw them without looking at the original. It is not possible to skim the material and master the content. Skimming provides a general overview but it cannot provide the comprehension of the logical process on which the material builds.

6. Coming to class is important. The purpose of the science lecture is to complement the text and to give the teacher's view of the material. It does this in several ways. First, it presents a logical overview of the material. Second, it emphasizes certain parts of the material over other parts. Thirdly, it presents related material not explicitly in the text and gives examples of the application of the concepts presented. A lecture in the science is not really self-contained in that it REQUIRES THE STUDENT TO BRING SOME KNOWLEDGE TO THE LECTURE-specifically gained from the text. The difference between the science and the non-science course is that in the latter it is often possible to follow the lecture and get the gist of it before reading the text. In a science lecture, getting the gist is well nigh possible without reading the text. The lecture format may be deceptive although it is intended to. The instructor may make the material look easy and the student may think it is possible to grasp material without the text. In general this is not so. The textbook provides the basis for the lecture, even if it doesn't appear that way. The text is the basis for lectures that are themselves digressions from text material. Without knowing the text, the student cannot get any feeling for why the instructor considers a particular digression important.

7. Class is a time for communication between the professor and the students. Lecture provides feedback from student to instructor in the form of questions. The student must be prepared beforehand to ask questions. The form this preparation takes is to read the text and decide which sections you do not understand. It is the professor's role to clear up these sections when he or she reaches that point. The best questions are those that are precise, well informed and explicit. While listening to the lecture you should ask yourself, " What is the instructor emphasizing? Leaving out? Why is this material important? How does this idea follow from the previous one? How different is this from text treatment?" Questions can help you to understand the lecture and make notes clearer.

8. Become part of a study group. One of the best ways to master areas of difficulty is to work with other students. This is actually a form of tutoring where you can help one another clarify what you do and don't know. A good way to see if you have grasped a concept is to lecture on it yourself. It is no accident that professional scientists tend to work in groups.