Esteban Fernández-Juricic

Meeting point: LA5-149

Meeting time: Tuesdays 5-6:50 pm.

Course Website (please, bookmark it): http://www.csulb.edu/~efernand/cogecol/

Instructor: Esteban Fernández-Juricic

Phone: 562-985-7597 (but you can reach me faster by e-mail)

E-mail: efernand@csulb.edu

Instructor's website: http://www.csulb.edu/~efernand/

Office: PH1-226

Office hours: Tuesdays 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM (or by appointment)

Course description:

Cognitive ecology is a new field that brings together animal cognition and behavioral ecology to study the effects of information processing and decision making on animal reproductive success. Topics will include: evolution of signals and neural representation, constraints on information processing, co-evolution of brain size and behavioral traits, evolutionary ecology of learning, song communication in birds, evolutionary ecology of partner choice, etc. Oral and written presentations of selected studies and discussion of their relevance/limitation to this new discipline.

My expectations of students:

• attend classes consistently,
• be prepared for class meetings (read the papers that are assigned for each class),
• participate actively in class discussions and group activities,
• be respectful of your peers (including myself), and
• take advantage of this course as an opportunity to learn and think!

What students can expect from the Instructor:

• strive to create a positive learning environment in the classroom,
• encourage you to be actively engaged in your learning,
• bring enthusiasm about cognitive ecology,
• be respectful and supportive,
• try to challenge you in positive and constructive ways to improve your learning experience, and
• show up to each class on time and well-prepared. 

Evaluation:

1- Attendance to classes (50 points)

2- Questions for discussion (50 points)

3- Involvement in class discussions (200 points)

4- Oral presentation of papers (200 points)

5- Leading discussions (100 points)

4- Review paper (100 points)

TOTAL: 700 points.

Grading system:

A: 90-100% of the points

B: 80-90% of the points

C: 70-80% of the points

D: 60-70% of the points

F: < 60% of the points

Slight adjustments may be made at the end of the semester according to the class curve.

Absences

Excused absences include: (a) illness or injury to the student, (b) death, injury, or serious illness of an immediate family member, (c) religious reasons, (d) jury duty or government obligation, and (e) University sanctioned or approved activities. The instructor should be informed about excused absences within 48 hours.

For more information, please read the CSULB attendance policy carefully at: http.://www.csulb.edu/~senate/Policies/01-01.html 

Make up exams

Make-up exams will ONLY be allowed for justified absences. I must be informed within 24 hours of missing the exam due date. Make-up exams may be oral exams.

Late work

Students will be penalized for late work by deducting 7% per day of the total point load of that activity for three days. Afterwards, the work will not be graded, and students will not earn credits for that activity (= 0 points).  

Policy on Withdrawals

It is the student’s responsibility to withdraw from classes.  Instructors have no obligation to withdraw students who do not attend courses, and may choose not to do so. 

Please, download this file to find information about withdrawing from classes.

Accommodation

It is the student’s responsibility to notify the instructor in advance of the need for accommodation of a disability.

Cheating and Plagiarism 

Written work that you hand in is assumed to be original unless your source material is documented appropriately. Using the ideas or words of another person, even a peer, or a web site, as if it were your own, is plagiarism.

Cheating and plagiarism are serious academic offenses. Students should read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the CSULB catalog.  

Furthermore, students should be aware that Faculty members have a range of academic actions available to them in cases of cheating and plagiarism from arranging a conference, to failing a student on that particular work, to failing a student in a course, to referring the case to judicial affairs.

Regular instructor-student communication out of class: Announcements and messages to the class may come by e-mail through BeachBoard. If you do not check your CSULB e-mail account regularly, but use another account instead, please set your CSULB account so that it will forward messages to your other account.

Computer Help! The CSULB Technology Help Desk is now available for students. You may check the Help Desk at: http://www.csulb.edu/divisions/aa/academic_technology/thd/ or call 985-4959.

Theoretical framework:

The following books constitute the framework of this relatively new inter-disciplinary field. These books are NOT requested for the class.

- Dukas, R. 1998. Cognitive Ecology: the evolutionary ecology of information processing and decision making. The University of Chicago Press.

- Shettleworth, S.J. 1998. Cognition, evolution, and behavior. Oxford University Press.

- Rodgers, L.J. & G. Kaplan (eds.). 2004. Comparative vertebrate cognition. Kluwer Academic.

We will read some chapters of these books along with other papers.

General Guidelines:

1- The reading material will be available for you to photocopy from the Bookstore or to download from this website. I will let you know in advance.

2- I will choose the reading material for the classes to make sure that most of the relevant topics are covered. However, I will be happy to accept suggestions.

3- EVERYBODY is expected to read ALL the papers and participate in ALL the discussions. Please, notice that a big portion of the grade is for discussions.

Written questions about reading material

Each week, you will be expected to hand in a list of 3 critical questions based on the articles assigned for that class. This assignment is due at the beginning of the discussion section of each class. These questions may focus on the rationale of the paper, analyses used, assumptions made, limitations of the study, appropriateness of conclusions, etc.  For each reading used as the basis for a question(s), provide author(s), title, year, and source. 

Reading papers

While reading papers for class discussions or presentations, focus on how the paper solves a problem / answers a question / tests a hypothesis.  

General assessment of a paper:

• Identify the novelty of the paper.

• Identify the hypothesis/es and prediction/s.

• Identify a flaw in its design or in the analyses or in the interpretation of data.

• Identify the relevance of the study to other areas.

 Some specific questions you are expected to ask/answer:

Oral presentation:

I would strongly encourage you to read thoroughly this online resource (Oral Presentation by Jeff Radel) in order to prepare a successful presentation.

You presentation should contain the following sections:

1) Descriptive title (be as descriptive as possible).

2) Introduction – Your presentation should begin with an introductory statement about the topic and its significance for cognitive ecology.  Presenters should provide some background on the topic! This can be broad at first, but narrow down towards a specific question or hypothesis.  It should include the development or rationale for your hypothesis(es) and a clear statement of your predictions.

3) Methods – you should give a brief description of your methods.  This is where diagrams, flow charts, or cartoons of an experimental design can be really helpful in illustrating what the dependent and independent variables or factors were and how they were compared.

4) Results – Results should be displayed using graphs and tables that summarize main findings.  Do not show raw data.  As scientists, you have all been trained on how to interpret graphical data.  This is the language we used to see patterns.  Always ask yourself what type of graph best illustrates the data presented by the author/s.

5) Discussion – Here is where you tell us what your results mean.  This can be bulleted text that can step through your explanations of the findings.  You should also be using other studies to back up or support what you found.  End with a take-home message of your talk that can lead to conservation action.

Finally, practice your talk for time.  Remember, you will only have 25 min. to give your talk.  The more your practice, the more comfortable you will become with the presentation and you will make fewer mistakes. 

Assessment criteria for oral presentation:

Leading discussions

Once you have presented your paper/s, you are expected to lead the discussion until the end of the class. I strongly encourage you to read any of these excellent guides to lead discussions:

http://www.hrea.org/pubs/tips-discussion.html

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/leaddisc.htm

http://www.ece.rutgers.edu/~parashar/Classes/04-05/ece572/lead.html

Review paper

Prepare a thought-provoking review paper on a topic within cognitive ecology. You can choose the topic; maybe something related to your thesis topic. In this review, you should also include an original idea that could be tested empirically (you ought to incorporate the hypothesis, predictions, experimental design (dependent and independent variables, replication, etc.) and statistical analyses that you would use). Limit your review to a maximum of 3 written pages (single spaced), not including the cited references.

Proposed format for review paper:

1- Title, name of the author (e-mail)

2- Introduction: describe the specific topic that you have chosen. Explain its significance for cognitive ecology.

3- Gap in the literature: based on your review describe the specific areas within your topic that require more research in order to enhance our understanding of cognitive ecology. Explain the proposed study.

4- Conclusion: what is the take-home message of your review paper and how the field of cognitive ecology will advance with your results.

5- References: cite at least 5 references from primary literature, without including review papers. There is not required format to cite the references.

Some hints:

Although this review does allow room for some speculation and debate, it should be made clear which ideas are supported by previous research and which are not.

Please, emphasize the ideas that make your term proposal NOVEL. 

You may incorporate Figures and/or Tables. If you decide to do so, please provide a legend to help the reader understand the Figure/Table without referring to the main text.

Selection of papers (primary literature)

You should select papers from primary literature (try to balance classic and recent papers). Many journals include ecological articles. You can search for these papers in databases (MY RECOMMENDATION: Web of Science).

IMPORTANT: If you do not find a copy of a paper at the Library, you could request it from the Library (free service for CSULB students, but it takes about 10 days to get the papers) or directly from the author through e-mail (stop by my office, and I will explain how to do it). 

Fall 2005: Class schedule

Please, note that occasionally adjustments in the course schedule or the course assignments may be necessary. Students will be notified about changes, if any, and, whenever possible, students will be consulted in advance about any changes.