BIOL490HB: Senior Seminar, Winter 2013
Instructor: Dr. Kathy Szick-Miranda
Office: Science I, 316
Phone: 654-6165
Email: kszick-miranda@csub.edu Web: www.csub.edu/~kszick_miranda
Office hours:
Course Meeting Time: M W 8:30-9:45 am
Course Description
BIOL490 is a senior-level capstone seminar course. Student success or failure in the
course depends upon active participation. Students are expected to read all of the
assigned literature and be prepared discuss all of the assigned literature. You will work in
groups of two to act as discussion leader for an assigned article. As the discussion leader,
it will be your responsibility to provide an overview, lead the discussion and summarize
the assigned article. Additionally, each student will give one oral presentation and write a
review paper about an assigned topic. Students must actively participate by asking
thoughtful questions of the presenter. Students will also contribute to the grading of the
presentations of their peers.
Missed classes will count against the course grade (-20 points for each missed class).
Tardiness is unprofessional, disruptive and disrespectful to your fellow classmates,
especially since this is a student presentations course – therefore, tardiness will also count
against the course grade (-10 points for each tardy).
Academic Policies: It is expected that your work is YOUR work. In the unexpected
event of plagiarism and/or dishonesty during exams or for the research term-paper, the
student will receive a zero on that activity and be referred to the campus administration
for disciplinary action. Please refer to the campus 2009-2011 catalog page 82.
Grading: Grades will be based on the percentage of points accumulated in the course
using the scale shown below.
A = 94-100
B- = 80-82.9
D+ = 67-69.9
A-= 90-93.9
C+ = 77-79.9
D = 63-66.9
B+ = 87-89.9
C = 73-76.9
D- = 60-62.9
B = 83-86.9
C- = 70-72.9
F = 0-59.9
Assignment Point Values:
Oral Presentation
Paper
Discussion Leader
Annotated Bibliography
Participation
TOTAL
100pts
70pts
30pts
30pts
20pts
250pts
Oral Presentation
1. Each student is required to give a 25-minute oral presentation to the class. The
presentation is to be based on one of the autoimmune diseases listed below. The presenter
must use PowerPoint and must included the following categories: a) Description of the
disease (signs/symptoms), b) cause(s), c) pathophysiology, d) diagnosis, e) treatment, f)
current research.
2. All presenters are required to submit their PowerPoint presentations to me (by email)
by 5:00PM the day before their presentations. Late presentations will be penalized.
3. The format of the presentation is up to you, but you should have a title slide and
outline slide. Your presentation should also include an introduction that provides a brief
history of the topic. The only other requirement is that you must devote approximately
25% of your talk (~7 minutes) discussing current research on the topic. For our purposes
current research is that which has been published in peer reviewed journal articles
published 2007-present.
4. Limit your website sources to government or educational/university websites
only….yes this means you should avoid Wikipedia! Some pages on Wikipedia are
excellent and I have used them. However, many have errors or false information and
none of the pages have been "peer reviewed." Thus, the information does not count as a
source. All material must be properly cited in your presentations including pictures,
tables, and figures from other sources.
Acceptable topics: Celiac disease, type I diabetes, Guillian-Barre syndrome, systemic lupus
erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, rheumatoid arthritis, Grave’s disease,
Hashimoto’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, scleroderma, psoriasis, vitilago.
Paper
You will write a paper on your selected topic. The paper should be 6-8 pages, not
counting the literature cited page with 12pt font and 1 inch margins. Your paper should
mirror your presentation in that there should be a general introduction (history, mode of
inheritance, etc.) and ~25% of your paper should be a review/discussion of current
research (2007-present) being conducted on the topic. You may include figures and/or
tables from other papers, but use them sparingly and not as space filler. Please refer to the
CSUB catalog concerning plagiarism.
Annotated Literature Cited
On Monday January 28th you will turn in an annotated Literature Cited. This will be
comprised of 10 research/journal articles on your selected topic. Five of these journal
articles must be recent (2007-present). List the citations in alphabetical order. Under each
citation write 3-5 sentences (single spaced is ok) describing what the purpose of the paper
was and what the major findings were. (30 points).
Annotated Literature Cited example:
Germano, D.J., P.T. Smith and S. P. Tabor 2007. Food Habits of the Blunt-Nosed
leopard Lizard (Gambelia sila). Southwestern Naturalist. 52: 319-324. (a standard
journal that has both paper and online format)
The purpose of this paper was to examine the dietary habits of the endangered bluntnosed leopard lizard, Gambelia sila, in California. To determine what the lizards were
feeding on, the author’s dissected field collected lizard scat. The results indicated that
beetles and grasshoppers made up a large proportion of the diet. By knowing the dietary
habits of the lizard this may help with conservation efforts if lizards were ever to be
transplanted to new habitat.
Smith, P.T. 2005. Mitochondrial DNA variation among populations of the glassywinged sharpshooter, Homalodisca coagulata. Journal of Insect Science 5:41,
available online: insectscience.org/5.41. (an online/ejournal).
The purpose of this paper was to examine genetic variation within and among
populations of the glassy-winged sharpshooter, a serious pest of wine and table grapes,
and to try and determine the source population for the California infestation. The author
determined that there was genetic structure to the geographic populations and that the
sharpshooters in California most likely came from Texas.
Wk
1
Date
M-Jan 7
W-Jan 9
2
M-Jan 14
W-Jan 16
3
M-Jan 21
W-Jan 23
4
M-Jan 28
W-Jan 30
5
M-Feb 4
W-Feb 6
6
M-Feb 11
W-Feb 13
7
M-Feb 18
W-Feb 20
8
M-Feb 25
W-Feb 27
9
M-Mar 4
W-Mar 6
10
M-Mar 11
W-Mar 13
10+ M-Mar 18
F
Th-Mar 21
Topic
Course Intro
Topics Assigned/Discussion of Presentation Format
Discussion papers 1 & 2
Discussion papers 3 & 4
MLK HOLIDAY
Discussion papers 5 & 6
Discussion papers 7 & 8/Annotated Bibliography Due
Presentation Prep
Presentation Prep
Meeting with Presenters 1-4
Presentation Prep
Meeting with Presenters 5-8
Meeting with Presenter 9-13
Presentations 1 & 2
Presentations 3 & 4
Presentations 5 & 6
Presentations 7 & 8
Presentations 9 & 10
Presentations 11 & 12
Presentation 13
Paper Prep
Papers Due at 8am