Biology 354 – Basic Class Policies

PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY -- YOU ARE EXPECTED TO KNOW CLASS POLICIES.

Grading. There will be TWO mid-term exams (@ 35 points), equally weighted and each 50 min in length. Thus, there will not be a comprehensive final. The discussion section will contribute the remaining 30 points towards your final grade. Points in the discussion section will be based on participation in discussions and on written assignments.

Grades will be based on a curve, with the class average set (approximately) to the average UW grade for a 300-level science course.

Attendance. Attendance at lectures and discussion sections is strongly recommended. Over the years we have noticed a clear and highly repeatable trend -- students who attend class usually receive significantly higher grades on average than to those who skip class. Whether this is a cause and effect relationship can be debated, of course. [Perhaps students who skip classes are just poor students in general.] In any case, you are completely responsible for material that is presented in lecture, even if it is not on a handout.

Missing a discussion section is not recommended! We will have 10 sections, so each one you miss will potentially lower your total grade by approximately 3% (or roughly 0.1 to 0.2 in a 4.0 grade scale!).

Exams. By UW policy, exams cannot be given to anyone in advance of a scheduled exam. There is no exception.

Make-up exams. These are not permitted except under special circumstances. If you miss an exam because of illness, you must provide a written excuse from a physician. If you will miss an exam because of participation in a sports event, you must provide in advance a written note from your coach. If you want to miss an exam for any other reason, you must approach us well in advance and request an exemption (going to a friend's wedding is not an acceptable reason). If you miss an exam because you oversleep, miss a bus, simply forget, or weren’t in the mood, you are out of luck -- no makeup will be given.

Exam questions may be drawn from lectures, text, and any material on the class website. We will attempt to a schedule review session the afternoon before the exam. In our experience, students who attend these reviews get higher grades than those who do not. Of course, this might not be cause and effect.

Re-grades. We work hard to try to grade accurately and fairly, but even we will admit that we aren't perfect. So after each exam, we will post on the web an exam with correct answers. Consult this key if you don't understand why you lost points on a particular answer. If you still don't understand, you may turn in your exam for a re-grade. Please provide a written statement, explaining succinctly why you think a re-grade is appropriate. Also, be sure to check whether we have added your points correctly – arithmetic errors are of course the most common form of grading errors.

ALWAYS SAVE ALL EXAMS UNTIL THE END OF THE COURSE. On occasion, we do (unfortunately!) make errors in recording exam grades. The only way we can correct such errors will be if you have kept your graded exams. Note that on the second midterm, we will write down the scores we have recorded for you, so you can check whether we recorded the proper scores. [Incidentally, you should routinely do this for all classes -- we aren't the only profs who make mistakes! Don't assume that grades are always recorded accurately.]