Hello everybody and welcome back to school! Down below you will find the syllabus for the semester with all of the rules and regulations (Word format) and all of the PowerPoint presentations that I'll be using in class. Please be sure to read the material in the syllabus carefully since it is a contract between you and me.
There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in this class. None of it is hard, really, but since most of you come to the course with little biological background you will pretty quickly feel overwhelmed. This is natural. Stay calm and I'll try my best to lead you through it all. It is imperative that you read from the text and review the PowerPoints prior to each class, be ready to ask questions (lots of them), and be sure that you are up to date regarding the material from the previous classes. I will be moving pretty quickly through this material. This is what makes the course a graduate level experience. Your ability to absorb and process quickly will be sorely tested. Never allow yourself to get behind. This is a kiss of death! I promise that I'll do everything in my power to make this an enjoyable and do-able educational experience.
On reserve in the library are several basic human anatomy and physiology texts. They are meant to supplement your understandings, not as a primary source of learning.
I'll be trying two new things this year. First, I'll be recording each lecture and then converting the recording into an MP3 file that I will post at this website (possibly on Blackboard, but I have to figure out how). You can then download the lecture and listen to it again at your leisure. Second, I will be recording the lecture as an audio/video file so that you can hear me and see the Powerpoint. With any luck these files will also be posted here.
Each of your four exams will be short answer written exams. The last exam is a 100 question multiple choice comprehensive examination. We'll talk more about this later.
The text we are using is Spence, Biology of Human Aging, 2nd. ed.
Good luck!