Spring 2000

Gerald S. Wasserman MW afternoons:

B153A PSYC drop by or

49-47671 call first

codelab@psych.purdue.edu

Amanda Bolbecker TBA

183 PRCE

49-48597

mandi@psych.purdue.edu

• Required Reading - (Note: all purchased books are paperbacks):

Any one of several standard textbooks (see list) which are on reserve in UGL

Neuronal Man, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Princeton, 1997.

Nerve Cells And Animal Behaviour, David Young, Cambridge, 1989.

Artificial Minds, Stan Franklin, MIT Press, 1997.

• Course Structure: On Mondays and Wednesdays, this course will use the Socratic method of teaching by asking questions as follows: The instructor will first present a question about the material which was assigned to be read for that day. The question will then be discussed within teams of about 3 to 4 students. After this discussion, one team will be asked to offer an answer. At first, any member of a team may present an answer on behalf of the team. As the semester progresses, we will begin directing questions to individual members of a chosen team. About 3 to 5 questions will be considered in each class. Fridays will be devoted to viewing videos with discussion and review, as time permits.

• Grading Procedure: Half of the semester grade will be determined by five hour examinations of the short answer type with 10 questions per examination. Half of a standard-size page will be available for you to write your answer to each question. The lowest score of the five will be dropped before computing the examination average. There will be no cumulative final examination. There will be no make-up examinations; students who can certify that they were unable to appear for an examination will be excused from that examination. The following scale will be used for grading: "A" = 80 to 100, "B" = 65 to 80, "C" = 50 to 65, "D" = 35 to 50, and "F" = 0 to 35.

The other half of your semester grade will be determined by your team’s class-performance average. Each response to a question asked in class will be graded on a three-point scale: a thoughtfully prepared answer will earn an "A" grade (= 90), a prepared answer will earn a "C" grade (= 60), and an unprepared answer will earn an "F" grade (= 30). The lowest score will be dropped before calculating the class-performance average. Students not present when their team is called on will have their absence recorded. The first 2 absences will have no effect. Each additional absence will reduce your class-performance average by 5 points.