Human Brain FAQ
The following are answers to frequently asked questions about the Human Brain course. This FAQ was last revised in July of 2024.
General information
Q: Who is the target audience for this course?
A: The human brain is a fascinating topic with broad appeal. It is the biological basis for our movements, perceptions, actions, memories, and desires. Many students come to the topic of the brain to learn more about themselves and the genesis of their own behaviors. Others come to learn how damage and diseases of the brain affects the lives of loved ones. For these reasons, I have structured the course to make it accessible to everyone. There are no prerequisites besides a willingness to learn. I don’t presume much beyond a familiarity with some basic concepts from high school biology.
Making the course accessible doesn’t mean making the course less rigorous. This is not neuroscience-lite. However, if you commit to keeping up week to week by attending class and completing the weekly open-book, graded question sets, you will do fine.
This course is also foundational and required for Neuroscience majors and Psychology majors (especially Psychology majors in the Neuroscience track).
Q: Is this course as much work as I have heard?
A: The course requires a consistent effort each week because there are weekly graded quizzes. I initiated weekly low-stakes assessments several years ago when I noticed that students were caught in a pattern of cramming and slacking that was synchronized with the dates of the midterm and final exams. The high-stakes midterms were causing undue stress and discouraging non-majors who were otherwise interested in learning about the brain. The weekly quizzes are designed so that a student can achieve a good final grade through consistent work. The quizzes do, however, require students to keep up with the course material, and they don’t allow much time to slack.
Q: What do you mean by the Human Brain course website and what will I find there?
A: There are two websites used in the Human Brain course. The first is the Canvas course site. All Yale courses are automatically assigned a Canvas course site whose functions are described in the following FAQ below. When I refer to the Canvas course site for the Human Brain, it is to this website to which I refer.
In addition, and more importantly, there is a course website that I have created for the Human Brain which is hosted on campuspress. When I refer to the Human Brain course website, I am referring to this campuspress site. While a new Canvas course site is created for each semester I teach the Human Brain, the campuspress course website is persistent across years. It contains the course syllabus, grading policies, blog posts, and most importantly, the notes I have prepared for the lectures. These lecture notes include links to videos I have prepared over the years.
Q: What is Canvas and how do you use it in the Human Brain?
A: Canvas is a LMS (Learning Management System) that is used by many universities. It provides many useful features such as maintaining the class roster, providing a location for me to post files such as lecture slide handouts and assigned readings, and providing a module for online quizzing. Canvas also integrates with several 3rd party applications, such as Panopto, Gradescope, and Ed Discussion. I use all of these applications in the Human Brain, and each is accessed through the application module menu for our Canvas course site.
Q: What is Ed Discussion and how do you use it in the Human Brain?
A: Ed Discussion is an online forum application that Yale licenses from a 3rd party developer. Ed Discussion is integrated into Canvas and students access Ed Discussion from the application module menu in Canvas.
Q: How will I receive up-to-date information regarding the course?
A: I post course announcements frequently in Ed Discussion. You can set your preferences to receive these announcements as emails. These announcements are also conveniently stored on the Ed Discussion website for retrospective review. It is your responsibility to keep current with the course announcements posted on Ed Discussion.
Q: What is Panopto and how do I use it?
A: Panotopo is a streaming service for videos that I have uploaded. It is available through the Media module on Canvas. However, the videos relevant to the course are available in the campuspress course website and are linked there. Consequently, there is little reason to use Panopto directly.
Q: What is Gradescope?
A: Gradescope is a third-party app that is accessible through the Canvas course site. Gradescope simplifies the logistics of assignments and grading for the course. I post the questions for the qSets and a rubric for the Teaching Fellows to use for grading. Students upload answers to Gradescope or directly type their answers into the online qSet template. I also use Gradescope for the final exam.
Q: How should I contact you and why do you discourage direct emails?
A: I receive a LOT of email. Email sent to me regarding course logistics and requests for extensions can be overlooked or lost simply due to volume. Please use Ed Discussion rather than email.
The Teaching Fellows and I quickly answer course content questions, respond to questions about logistics, and deal with extensions on Ed Discussion. Most importantly, requests through Ed Discussion are time stamped and are seen by the entire teaching staff. Questions posed to Ed Discussion can be made confidentially, anonymously, or publicly.
In addition, in Fall 2024 the Human Brain will have a head Teaching Fellow. This is a new program to help instructors with the logistics of large classes such as The Human Brain. The head Teaching Fellow will be Irene Zhou, and she will be responsible for coordinating much of the course’s logistics, including Dean’s Extensions, accommodations, and grading.
Q: Why do you require attendance for in-person lectures?
A: My experience (which is consistent with the learning research) is that videos are a poor substitute for an in-person lecture. When you attend a live event (be it a lecture, a poetry reading, theater, or a musical performance), your attention is fully devoted to the event. This is reinforced by being with others who are also attending to the event. When we watch videos, it is harder to attend and we often attempt to multitask.
Also, at a live lecture, you can ask questions of the lecturer, you can text for clarifications to the TFs in real time, you can talk about content with your friends as you leave the lecture hall, and you can talk to the lecturer after class.
Q: Why don’t you offer extra credit for students who wish to improve their grades?
A: By Yale College policy, extra credit assignments must be offered to all students in the course and not just to those students who are performing less well and wish to improve their grades. I did offer extra credit to the class in the past. The results were not what I expected. The students who took advantage of the extra credit assignment were already doing well in the class and received the most extra points. The students who were performing more poorly disproportionally did not take advantage of the extra credit offer, and those that did received fewer extra credit points. Thus, the unintended consequence of the extra credit assignment was to increase the grade disparity in the course by skewing the grade distribution. Put another way, the extra credit assignment improved the grades of students who would have received an A- to an A. The students who were going to receive a C still received a C.
Final exam
Q: Why do you give a cumulative final exam?
A: The content of the human brain builds upon itself. Principles learned early in the semester become the foundation for topics covered later in the semester. Studying for a final exam provides an opportunity for you to consolidate concepts that connect the different topics covered in the course, even though those topics may have been presented weeks apart. As a student, I didn’t like sitting for a final exam any more than you do. However, I did feel that systematically reviewing all of the material by studying for the final was very beneficial for integrating and retaining concepts that I still use today.
Q: Why is the final exam worth only 20% of my final grade?
A: The purpose of the final exam is to encourage you to review your notes, your qSets and quick quizzes, and the course notes that I provide in the service of consolidating the major concepts from the entire course. I do not use the final exam as the major determinant of your final letter grade, and so it is a relatively low stakes test. Think of it this way, 80% of your final grade is already determined by the weekly quizzes. Imagine that you do poorly on the final exam and only receive a score of 50%. Even with that low score, only 10% of your final grade is affected (roughly one letter grade). If you have been keeping up with the content all semester, you will do well on the final exam.
Q: I am taking the course Credit/D and believe that my grades are good enough for a Credit even if I get a zero on the final exam. Can I skip the final exam?
A: No, you cannot skip the final exam. You must take the final exam in order to pass the course. As I have said elsewhere, we mostly learn by testing our knowledge. Studying for, and taking, the final exam will solidify your mastery of the material.
Q: Can I take the final exam early?
A: No, you cannot take the final exam early. The reason for this is that I would then have to offer that same accommodation to all other students in the class. It is more work than you probably imagine to write a final exam. I not only have to write the exam questions, but I also have to write the answers and grading rubrics. Both are reviewed by the Teaching Fellows and there are back-and-forth revisions. Creating two equivalent exams at the end of the semester is not feasible. Giving the same exam twice would advantage the students who take the second exam. Thus, I will not be able to accommodate early exams.
The final exam dates for Fall 2024 have not yet been announced by the Registrar.
For students who need to miss the final exam, you may qualify for taking a delayed exam (and receiving a temporary ABX, or absent-from-exam, grade). This is something that only your residential college dean can approve. I am not able to provide ABX grades, so please do not ask. If you college dean turns down your request, there is nothing I can do as I do not have the authority to postpone a final.
Weekly quizzes (qSets)
Q: What happens if I miss one of the weekly quizzes?
A: If you have a dean’s extension, you will be given a make-up quiz. If you do not have a dean’s extension, you will receive a zero for the missed quiz. However, we will only count the top ten quiz grades of the twelve quizzes we plan to administer. So, you can receive two zeros for missed quizzes without it affecting your grade.
Q: Why do the quizzes frequently require students to create drawings and other graphical representations in their answers?
A: Research has shown that representing information originally presented verbally and/or textually in a different form (such as a drawing, a concept map, or a time sequence) enhances learning and memory. Also, drawings can improve your memory for brain anatomy and the mapping of function to brain anatomy.
Videos
Q: Why are you no longer posting videos of each of your in-class lectures as you have done in previous years?
A: In the last several years, I recorded each of my in-class lectures and posted them to Canvas/Panopto. This practice was simplified during the pandemic when ITS set up automated systems to record and post lectures. This automated system was implemented to help students in isolation for Covid keep up with class. However, once this became automated and routine, many students stopped attending class altogether. Indeed, my enrollment in Spring 2022 was >200 students, and class attendance averaged fewer than 50 students.
An argument could be made that class attendance is unnecessary if online material is available. However, my experience, like many other professors, was that students were not watching the recorded lectures. I analyzed the video logs kept by Panopto after the conclusion of the Spring 2022 semester. It showed on-average that the lower half of the class (in terms of minutes of video watched) viewed an average of 5 minutes of each 75-minute lecture video, and 14 students watched zero minutes. Thus, many students stopped attending lectures because the lectures were available as online videos. However, they did not then watch the videos.
