Tutorials
and associated assignments
Note the deadlines in the right-hand column
below. Assignments will not be accepted late
without a substantial, documented reason.
The assignments will not take much time to complete. In the case of the two larger assignments, a
substantial amount of time has been allocated for working on the assignment in
tutorial sessions. Do not leave it to
the last minute to complete the assignments.
If the deadline is “in your tutorial session”, you are obviously welcome
to submit it early, but send the appropriate TA an email to let them know that
you have submitted it.
All assignments must be typed, not hand-written.
Marks will not be given for attendance at
tutorials. However, attendance at
tutorials would be useful for the completion of the assignments, particularly
the “Web of Science” assignment and the “Design a better lecture” assignment. The use of Web of Science will NOT be
explained outside of tutorial, so if you skip
the tutorial you will have to figure it out on your own. The “Design a better
lecture” assignment must be completed in groups of three students.
Tutorial
Schedule
|
Week
of |
Activity
(descriptions below) |
Assignment/
Deadline |
|
Sep 5 |
No tutorial |
None |
|
Sep 12 |
None |
|
|
Sep 19 |
“What is the point of
studying physiology?” assignment due to Julian BY EMAIL by 5pm on Friday, Sep 23. Please include assignment within the text
of the email, and not as an attachment. |
|
|
Sep 26 |
Answer practice exam
question online by 5pm on Friday, Sep 30. |
|
|
Oct 3 |
Week before midterm – Practice
questions/ review session |
Peer review 2 practice
answers online by 5 pm on Friday, Oct 7. |
|
Oct 10 |
No tutorials (Thanksgiving on Monday + Midterm
is on Wednesday) |
None. |
|
Oct 17 |
Web of Science
assignment due in your tutorial session. |
|
|
Oct 24 |
Answer practice exam
question online by 5pm on Friday, October 28. |
|
|
Oct 31 |
Week before midterm – Practice
questions/ review session |
Peer review 2 practice
answers online by 5 pm on Friday, November 4. |
|
Nov 7 |
No tutorials (Rememberance
Day on Friday + Midterm on Wednesday) |
None. |
|
Nov 14 |
Design a
better/ more interesting lecture for BISC305, part 1 |
“Popularize a primary
research article” assignment due in your tutorial session. |
|
Nov 21 |
Design a
better/ more interesting lecture for BISC305, part 2 |
None. |
|
Nov 28 |
Preparation for final exam - Practice questions/ review session |
“Design a
better lecture” assignment due to the TA by Friday, Dec. 2 at 5pm. |
|
Dec 5 |
No tutorials |
|
Mark
distribution for tutorial assignments
|
Assignment |
Mark
allocation |
|
What is the point of studying physiology? |
1 mark |
|
Answer practice question online and peer
review 2 practice answers from others |
1 mark x 2 assignments =2 marks |
|
Web of Science assignment |
2 marks |
|
Popularize a primary research article |
5 marks |
|
Design a better/ more interesting lecture for
BISC305 |
5 marks |
|
The
tutorial assignments (15 marks total) will be scaled to 10% of the overall
mark for the course. |
|
Discussion
- what is point of physiology?
Rationale: You will be more
inclined to learn the material if you think it might actually be useful.
Activity:
Discuss
why studying physiology may be useful/ interesting to you given your interests/
career goals. Debate whether a course in animal or plant physiology should or
should not be mandatory for a biology undergraduate programme.
Related assignment
In 250-350 words, discuss why a
course in animal or plant physiology should or should not be mandatory for a
biology undergraduate programme. You will not be penalized for arguing
against the importance of physiology, as long as your arguments are well
thought out. Please include a brief
statement describing why you are taking BISC305 and what you want to get out of
it. “I am taking this course because it
is required and I want an A” is acceptable, but do not spend much more than 14
words expressing this sentiment (and think of something else to say for the
other 236 words). The assignment is due
BY EMAIL to Julian by 5pm on Friday, Sep 23.
Please submit your paragraph within the body of the text, and not as an
attachment.
Rationale: Many students focus on
details provided in lectures, without really understanding the main
messages. Explaining lecture material to
a peer in simple language will help to really understand the material (or
reveal things that you don’t understand).
Activity: Bring in print-outs of
the powerpoint slides and/
or your lecture notes from the lectures from the previous week. Team up in pairs. One student should explain one of the
lectures to the other student in simple language, going through each slide and
identifying the main point(s). The
explanation should be a summary of the main points/concepts, not a repeat of
the lecture. The other student can ask
questions of/ critique/ correct the student explaining the lecture. Do this for ~25 minutes and then switch roles.
Related assignment: none.
Practice
questions/ review sessions
Rationale: When under pressure in
an exam situation, students often write answers that simply don’t make sense
and/or don’t answer the question, even in cases where they know the correct
answer. Practicing writing answers, critiquing
the answers of other students, and getting feedback on your own answers will
help to improve how well you answer exam questions.
Activity:
A few practice questions will be provided. Team up in pairs or small groups and try
formulating answers to the practice questions (using your notes and text is
OK). Critique each other’s answers.
For the review sessions, it will be useful if
you email the TAs ahead of time about things you have problems with. That way, they can be prepared to answer your
questions.
Review sessions are also a good time for you to
give the TAs feedback about how the course is going (e.g., am I going too
fast/slow in lectures? Are there things
that I could explain better?).
Related assignment:
For each assignment, one practice question will
be posted online at turnitin.com (there will be 2 of these assignments
throughout the course). Answer it as if
you are in an exam situation (i.e., don’t refer to your notes, and give
yourself a time limit). Turnitin.com
will randomly assign each student’s answer to two other students for anonymous
peer review. Provide constructive
comments on the answers that you receive for peer review (e.g., is the answer
clearly written? Does it answer the
question? Is the answer correct?). Thus, each of the two assignments will
consist of answering one question and providing feedback on the answers from 2
other students. Do not include your name
in your answer or on your feedback. You
will receive full marks for the answer/feedback, as long as a reasonable effort
has been made and as long as the feedback is constructive. Copying someone else’s answer/feedback is not
allowed (the primary reason for using turnitin.com is the peer review function,
but it will also detect duplicated answers/feedback).
The first practice question must be completed by
5 pm on Friday, Sep 30.
The first peer review (of 2 other students’
answers) must be completed by 5 pm on Friday, Oct 7.
The second practice question must be completed
by 5 pm on Friday, October 28.
The second peer review (of 2 other students’
answers) must be completed by 5 pm on Friday, November 4.
Rationale: Web of Science is a powerful tool for
finding up-to-date scientific articles and you should know how to use it (it is
better and updated more often than Google Scholar).
Activity: One of the TAs will give a seminar on how to
use Web of Science, how to research a given topic, how to organise sub-topics
of a paper, and how to format a bibliography.
The use of Web of Science will NOT be explained outside of tutorial, so if you skip the tutorial you
will have to figure it out on your own.
Related assignment:
Imagine that you are going to write an essay on
some topic related to animal physiology.
Provide a proposed bibliography of 20-30 relevant, recent (since 2000)
papers on a given topic (of your own choice, but it has to relate to animal
physiology). Your bibliography should
include the title of your essay, and the references should be organised
according to “section” (i.e., sub-topics or sub-headings) of the essay. The references must be formatted
consistently.
If you
pick an obscure topic and there are only 5 papers on that subject, you will
have to expand the scope of your paper, or find other papers that would provide
relevant background/context. Similarly,
your topic should not be too broad in scope.
For example, do not do a search for “dog” and “physiology” and simply
list the first 20 papers that come up, as it would not be feasible to tie all
of these papers together in one coherent essay.
This
assignment will be marked on whether the bibliography includes the minimum
number of papers published since 2000 (i.e., 20 papers), whether the references
are all formatted consistently, whether they are organized by
logical sub-headings, whether all of the references are relevant to the scope
of the proposed essay, and whether the scope of the proposed essay is
reasonable (i.e., not a ridiculously narrow or broad focus).
You do
not need to write an essay; just the title, subheadings and bibliography.
This
assignment is due in your tutorial session in the week of Oct 17.
Popularizing
a primary research paper
Rationale: In many different
careers, it is necessary to convey technical information in simple terms,
preferably in an interesting way.
Activity:
Part 1
Pick one of the papers from your Web of Science
assignment from 2008-2010. It must be a
paper about animal physiology, and must be a primary research paper, i.e., not
a review. Bring a copy to tutorial,
discuss with others to get the main point of the paper, i.e., you can focus on
abstract, but will probably need to delve into the paper a bit to understand
parts. The introduction and discussion
will also provide background/context.
After tutorial, write a 250-300 word popular science article summarizing
the paper in simple language. Write in
the style of a newspaper article, i.e., don’t go into technical detail, and
make it clear why the study and the organism is interesting (you can include
other information about the organism, e.g., interesting ecology, behaviour
–have fun with it).
Part 2
Bring a draft of the article that you have
written to tutorial. Have others read it
and make suggestions on how it could be improved. After tutorial, fix it up and submit it.
Related
assignment:
Write a 250-300 word popular science article
summarizing a primary research paper in simple language (include a copy of the
abstract from the original paper with your article). This assignment will be marked on whether
your article is relevant to the original paper, whether you have included other
relevant background to make the topic more interesting to the general public,
and the quality of the writing (including grammar and spelling). Include a citation (authors, title, year,
journal, volume, page numbers) for the paper that you
summarize.
This
assignment is due in your tutorial session in the week of Nov 14.
Designing a better/ more interesting lecture for BISC305
Rationale: Designing a lecture will help to identify the
key points in a given topic, and so will help you to understand the material
better.
Activity:
Part 1
Get together in groups of three. Decide on a topic for a BISC305 lecture. It can be a topic that I have already covered
in lecture, or that I am going to cover, or it can be something that is not
covered in BISC305 but could be,
bearing in mind the prerequisites of this course. Brainstorm about (1) the most important
principles you should get across, (B) how to make this topic more interesting,
and (C) how to make confusing/complicated material more easy to understand
(e.g., metaphors, demonstrations).
Before the next tutorial, gather materials (e.g., review papers, texts)
on your proposed topic. Organise the outline of your lecture and start writing
stuff down.
Part 2
Each group should present their outline to the
other groups and seek feedback.
Depending on the number of groups in each tutorial section, it may not
be feasible for each group to present to every other group (i.e., if there are
6 groups, there would be less than 10 minutes for each group to present). In this situation, two or three groups can
get together and present to each other.
Related
assignment:
Provide a 1-2 page (single-spaced) outline of
the proposed lecture, emphasizing the most important principles that you want
to get across, ways the topic will be made more interesting (e.g., applied
aspects), and how confusing topics will be made clear.
Each
person should submit their own assignment.
It is OK if all members within one group (i.e., 3 people maximum) submit
an identical assignment, but this is not necessary, although all group members
must cover the same topic. Either way,
you must include the names of all group members on your assignment. Furthermore, all three students must submit
their assignment together (i.e., stapled together).
This
assignment will be evaluated based on (a) the identification of important
points to be covered, (b) a logical sequence of sub-topics and (c) creativity
used to make the topic more interesting and/or to clarify difficult
material. Do NOT just reproduce one of
my lectures, or a lecture outline that you find online. It is OK to get ideas for demonstrations,
metaphors, exercises, etc., online, but too much copying will be considered
plagiarism- ask the TAs for guidance if you are unsure.
This
assignment is due in by 5pm on Friday, December 2.