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The textbook which will be used this semester will be Kuby Immunology, Fourth Edition, by Richard A. Goldsby, Thomas J. Kindt, and Barbara A. Osborne, published by W. H. Freeman and Company. Janis Kuby was a fabulous person – extensively informed, a gifted teacher, and a skilled writer. She wrote the first edition of Immunology in 1992; in that edition, she acknowledged "all the support from friends, extended family, and the grace of God that has seen me through an earthquake, a fire, and cancer during the writing of this book!" The third edition was completed in 1997 "literally days before cancer took her life" (said her Ph. D. supervisor). W. H. Freeman recognized that the text was outstanding and that the field of immunology (like so many aspects of molecular biology) changes with astonishing speed. Hence, the fourth edition is a revision prepared by three new authors. |
I chose "Kuby" because of its substance and the skillful presentation. My expectation is that you will use this book extensively and with great attention. Let me approach this from a "negative" perspective: do not look at an assignment and ask, "How quickly can I get through this?" Instead, use the book effectively. Open to the assigned chapter. Note that the major topics in the chapter are presented at the beginning of the chapter in light blue fonts. Pay attention to those topics; ask yourself whether you have prior knowledge or whether the topics are entirely new. If you see words which are unfamiliar, make a mental note so that you will be alert to meaning when the word is introduced in the text. Read as much of the chapter as you can comprehend. Pay attention to the figures and the captions as well as tables. When you have completed a chapter, return to the listing of topics and determine whether each listing represents a subject which you can develop accurately and substantively (in your own words). Go to the summary: read each of the numbered statements; ask yourself if you understand the claim and whether you can develop the summary in such a way that your exposition reveals good comprehension.
All that I wrote in the previous paragraph strikes me as activities that must be performed by individuals. At the end of the chapter, there are STUDY QUESTIONS. These might well be approached with study partners. The answers appear in the back of the book. So, you can examine a question, attempt an answer, discuss your reasoning, check the "correct" answer, and then discuss your agreement or lack of agreement.
Let me state my expectation another way: I expect that you will fully engage the material. I expect that you will find the information challenging and that to gain comprehension, you will need to be very committed to an effort to learn. If you have such an investment, you will (I expect) find using the book enormously beneficial and satisfying.
An example:
I have been declaring that reading the text is valuable. Let me give an example from Chapter 2 of the book. The authors have been writing about the ability of organisms to generate the various type of blood cells. The write:
"This can be demonstrated in mice whose hematopoietic systems have been completely destroyed by a lethal dose (950 rads; one rad represents the absorption by an irradiated target of an amount of radiation corresponding to 100 ergs/gram of target of x-rays.)"
I suspect that you know that X-ray irradiation is dangerous. Here is an explicit statement of the amount and how it is quantified. Does encountering that interest you? (You need to acknowledge an answer and reflect on its implication.)
The authors continue:
"Although a normal mouse has 3 x 108 bone-marrow cells, infusion of only 104-105 cells (i.e., 0.01% – 0.1% of the normal amount) from a donor is sufficient to completely restore the hematopoietic system, which demonstrates the enormous proliferative and differentiative capacity of the stem cells."
Again, the question is whether this type of information is interesting to you.
Perspective: One of my colleagues, Dr. Barbara Traister, former chair of the Department of English, has stated that one of the important capacities that students need to develop is the ability so "subordinate." Students need to discriminate so that they can recognize that some information is basic while other pieces of information are more peripheral. In the previous example, a student needs to know that there are pluripotent stem cells; likely, the student need not know that "950 rads is lethal for a mouse".
So, why the extra information about dosage and the units? If there are only the assertions (e. g., There are pluripotent stem cells.), students have no choice but to memorize the claim. Students claim that they hate memorizing; Kuby Immunology provides an opportunity to understand. But, it will take a lot of effort.
Here are the expectations: be fully invested, be committed to learning, read the text. (You might enjoy it.)
Depicted here is a color-coded calendar of the spring 2003 semester. Our classes are on Tuesday and Thursday; the rectangles for these days are in light green or light blue. The difference is that dates presented in light blue are dates on which there will be a twenty minute quiz.
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Schedule
of Classes: spring 2003
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Monday
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Tuesday
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Wednesday
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Thursday
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Friday
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| Week 1 | January 13 | January 14 | January 15 | January 16 | January 17 |
| Week 2 | January 20 | January 21 | January 22 | January 23 | January 24 |
| Week 3 | January 27 | January 28 | January 29 | January 30 | January 31 |
| Week 4 | February 3 | February 4 | February 5 | February 6 | February 7 |
| Week 5 | February 10 | February 11 | February 12 | February 13 | February 14 |
| Week 6 | February 17 |  |
February 19 | February 20 | February 21 |
| Week 7 | February 24 | February 25 | February 26 | February 27 | February 28 |
| Week 8 | March 3 | March 4 | March 5 | March 6 | March 7 |
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Spring
break: March 8 - March 16
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| Week 9 | March 17 | March 18 | March 19 | March 20 | March 21 |
| Week 10 | March 24 | March 25 | March 19 | March 27 | March 21 |
| Week 11 | March 31 | April 1 | April 2 | April 3 | April 4 |
| Week 12 | April 7 |  |
April 9 | April 10 | April 11 |
| Week 13 | April 14 | April 15 morning | April 16 | April 18 | |
| April 15 afternoon | |||||
| Week 14 | April 21 | April 22 morning | April 23 | April 24 | April 25 |
| April 22 afternoon | |||||
Five components will contribute to the overall grade: (i) performance on quizzes, (ii) performance on "five minute essays," (iii) performance in group presentations, (iv) performance on a comprehensive final, and (v) the "fudge factor."
QUIZZES: There will be nine twenty-minute quizzes. Nine quizzes may seem like a lot; but nine twenty-minute quizzes is equivalent to three hour exams; thus, the number strikes me (SK) as reasonable. Each quiz will be worth 50 points; thus, the nine quizzes contribute a maximum of 450 points.
The first six quizzes will be administered during class periods. After each quiz, a grading key will be posted for the quizzes. Use the following links: Quiz #1, Quiz #2, Quiz #3, Quiz #4, Quiz #5, Quiz #6 to access the grading key.
The last three quizzes -- which test material presented by the student teams -- will be "take home" exercises. Use the following links to access the grading key: Quiz #7, Quiz #8, Quiz #9. The purpose of the grading key is to provide a comprehensive perspective of the subject; your task is to generate an accurate and balanced understanding which will assist you in preparation for the comprehensive final exam.
"FIVE-MINUTE ESSAYS": In November 2002, Lehigh University invited Dr. Alison Morrison-Shetlar from the University of Central Florida to speak to Lehigh's faculty about techniques that engage students in learning. (Six of Lehigh's four hundred faculty showed up. Hmmm....) One technique that was demonstrated was the five-minute essay: without forewarning, students are asked to write an extemporaneous essay on a pertinent topic. Dr. Shetlar-Morrison suggested having such events occur frequently; some of the essays count towards a final grade, some do not. These essays are valuable for both the student and the instructor; both the student and the instructor find out if the information in the course is being understood; both the student and the instructor gain a sense of who is making what sort of effort in the instruction:learning enterprise. This semester, there will be a number of "five minute essays"; five will count towards the final grade; the five "five minute essays" contribute a maximum of 100 points.
GROUP PRESENTATIONS: The syllabus lists seventeen topics; the first ten are identified as topics which present immunology as a biological phenomenon; these topics will be presented by the course instructor during the first ten weeks of the semester. The last seven topics are identified as topics which "place more emphasis on clinical aspects of the immune response"; these topics will be presented by both groups (or "Teams") and by the course instructor (SK) during the last four weeks of the semester. The composition of "Teams" will be established after the tenth day of instruction (when course enrollment stabilizes.) Teams and topics will be assigned through a random process. Teams will need to submit to the course instructor the substance of their presentation (e.g., a PowerPoint file or a WEB-site constructed for the presentation) one week before the scheduled presentation.) The "group presentation" will contribute a maximum of 100 points.
COMPREHENSIVE FINAL EXAM: There will be a comprehensive final. The grade on the final exam per se will contribute a maximum of 250 points toward the final grade (i. e., 25% of the total grade). The final exam will likely have both short answer questions (like those on the quizzes) and a series of essays pertaining to the seventeen general topics listed in the syllabus.
"FUDGE FACTOR": The final component is the "fudge factor." I am reserving the final 10% of the final course grade for a component that can generally be characterized as "What I think." More specifically, "What I think of you as a student." Did you act like a student? Did you take responsibilities seriously? Did you exhibit attention and acuity? Did you formulate insightful questions? Did you have the courage to serve the class by saying, "Excuse me. That explanation was not clear to me. Could you offer it again?" Did you demand of yourself that you would master a challenging topic? Did you expect that you had the discipline to be in fine "intellectual shape"? (see Professor's Perspectives). Do these states of mind show? Are they visible to me? The "FUDGE FACTOR" will contribute a maximum of 100 points.
Make-up Policy (for missed quizzes): There are no make-ups. The reason that there are no make-ups is that make-ups are necessarily unfair. The make-ups are either easier or harder than the missed quiz; it is impossible to imagine that a make-up quiz has exactly the same degree of difficulty as some other quiz. If you miss a quiz, the value of the missed quiz is simply added on to the value of the comprehensive final. Thus, if you miss one quiz, the final counts 30%; if you miss two quizzes, the value of the final becomes 35%; and so on. Now here's in interesting twist: if you are taking a quiz and think that your performance may be damaging to your overall course performance, you do not have to hand in the quiz. Not handing in the quiz is no different from missing the quiz.
Let me note explicitly at this point that electing not to submit a quiz is not a good idea. Not submitting a quiz means (i) that you are unprepared (i. e., you have not "engaged" the material as you should have) and (ii) there is an increased premium on subsequent performances. In the several years that I have allowed the option – out of a sense of fairness – few students have improved their overall performance by skipping quizzes.
Make-up Policy (for missed "FIVE MINUTE ESSAYS"): There are no make-ups. If you miss this EXTEMPORANEOUS activity, you cannot compensate. A zero will be recorded for the grade.
So, what do all these numbers mean? Click here to see a table that shows the equivalence of numerical scores and letter grades. Note: The "equivalence" is sometimes approximate because of "rounding off". Also, the equivalences are guidelines; this is not a contract.
IV. Group presentations ("Teams"): Teams will offer thirty minute presentations between April 1 and April 22. The dates, topics, and composition of teams is presented in the following table.
| Team 1 | Team 2 | |||
| Hypersensitivity; April 1 | Infectious Disease and the Immune Response; April 3 | |||
Daria Blyskal |
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Ashley G. Mayer |
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Katherine A. Yasko |
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| Team 3 | Team 4 | |||
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Vaccines; April 8 |
Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome; April 10 | |||
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| Team 5 | Team 6 | |||
| Autoimmunity; April 15 | Transplantation; April 17 | |||
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| Team 7 | ||||
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Cancer and the Immune System; April 22 |
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