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| A map of some of the Internet (source) |
It's for two main reasons: (a) seems like there may be enough high quality material available on-line for free to cover what this course requires, and (b) I don't teach the course in the order that any of the textbooks do.
Here's where I discuss my approach in further detail, although I've been modifying it since then. The key to my approach is starting with accessible observations of nature, first, not theory. Once we identify some key similarities and differences between humans and others we move on to explaining those similarities and differences. We start with common ancestry and change over time, including persistent mutation, before covering natural selection.
Although I'm about to submit an order for the same textbook I've always used to my campus bookstore for Spring 2014, I'm working on the textbook-free curriculum now. It's because I'll need to follow these on-line, open access readings behind-the-scenes along with a status quo run of the course, first. If it feels good, then I'll go for it in
Here's my working list, unit-by-unit, of readings that can replace a textbook and complement lecture material. There are too many already, and many may be better prep materials for a lecture than assigned readings for students, nonetheless I'll be continuing to update it as I find more.
If anybody has any suggestions to add to this list, please send them my way.
Note: I have not vetted all of these items. Many of them are brand new to me. Once I have a final list of readings for a textbook-free course in
Unit 1: Anthropological and Scientific Perspectives
- What is anthropology?
- http://www.aaanet.org/index.cfm
- http://saa.org/
- http://physanth.org/
- http://linguisticanthropology.org/
- http://www.anthgen.org/
- http://www.hbes.com/
- http://www.culanth.org/
- http://www.internationalprimatologicalsociety.org/
- https://www.asp.org/index.cfm
- http://www.paleoanthro.org/
- http://www.theabfa.org/
- http://www.paleopathology.org/BARFAA/BARFAA.html
- What's it like to be a Biological Anthropologist?
- Understanding Science
- Diversity of life, focusing on primates
- http://www.arkive.org/
- http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/
- http://ianbickerstaff.com/#/cousins/
- http://eskeletons.org/
- Old World Monkeys
- Primate locomotion
- Linnaeus and taxonomy
- http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/linnaeus.html
- http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/06/linnaeus-name-giver/david-quammen-text
- Time: http://preposterousuniverse.com/eternitytohere/faq.html
- Deep time: http://hereistoday.com/
- Darwin (for evolution only, no natural selection until Unit 4)
- Reading a phylogenetic tree
- Trait evolution on a phylogenetic tree
- http://www.onezoom.org/
- The Human Brain: http://www.livescience.com/29365-human-brain.html
- Bipedalism: http://elucy.org/Main/WhatIsBipedalism.html
- eSkeletons
- Mitosis, Meiosis and Inheritance
- Genetic recombination
- DNA transcription
- Genetic Mutation
- DNA damage and repair
- RNA functions
- Gregor Mendel and the principles of inheritance
- Mendelian genetics
- Hox genes in development
- Things Genes Can’t Do
- epigenetics
- What are genes "for" or where are traits "from"? What is the question?
Unit 4: How Evolution Works
- Evolution is the only natural explanation and it’s all we need
- Understanding evolution
- Mutations are the raw materials of evolution
- Neutral theory
- Natural selection, genetic drift and gene flow do not act in isolation in natural populations
- Negative selection
- Wallace
- Sexual selection
- Understanding Evolution
- Comparative genomics
- Molecular clocks: http://timetree.org/
- Teaching the Process of Molecular Phylogeny and Systematics: A Multi-Part Inquiry-Based Exercise (2.5 hour lab)
- Macroevolution: Examples from the Primate World
- Speciation
- Hybrid incompatibility and speciation
- Hybridization and gene flow
- Why should we care about species?
- Primate Speciation: A Case Study of African Apes
- The diversity of behavior
- What functions in living systems underlie behavior?
- Both environment and genetic makeup influence behavior
- How does social behavior evolve?
- Primate Sociality and Social Systems
- What Influences the Size of Groups in Which PrimatesChoose to Live?
- Mating systems in sexual animals
- Male Reproductive Strategies
- Measuring animal preference and choice behavior
- Primate Communication
- Primate Communities
- Primate Conservation
- Planet without apes?
- Rapid effects of steroid hormones on animal behavior
- Cooperation, conflict, and the evolution of complex animal societies
- Peace among primates
- Human Origins at the Smithsonian
- Becoming Human
- A Primer on Paleolithic Technology
- Dating Rocks and Fossils Using Geologic Methods
- Overview of Hominin Evolution
- The first hominins and the origins of bipedalism
- The evolutionary history of the australopiths
- Encephalized bipedal apes
- Evidence for meat-eating by early humans
- Origin of the genus Homo
- Homo erectus
- [more...]
- Studying function and behavior in the fossil record
- eFossils
- Challenges to human uniqueness: bipedalism, birth and brains
- Neanderthal behavior
- The transition to modern behavior
- What happened to the Neanderthals?
- Testing models of modern human origins with archaeology and anatomy
- mtDNA
- Anthropological genetics: Inferring the history of our species
- Using SNP data to examine human phenotypic differences
- Evolutionary adaptation in the human lineage
- Natural selection: Uncovering the mechanisms of evolutionary adaptation to infectious disease
- Legislative landmarks of forensics
- Forensics, DNA fingerprinting, and CODIS
- Understanding Race
- What type of person are you?
Unit 8: The Cultural Controversy
- We are not the boss of natural selection
- The F-words of Evolution
- Another F-word of Evolution
- In the Name of Darwin
- From the Belgian Congo to the Bronx Zoo
- A True and Faithful Account of Mr. Ota Benga the Pygmy, Written by M. Berman, Zookeeper
- The pleasures and pitfalls of teaching human evolution in the museum
- National Center for Science Education
- Answers In Genesis
- Institute for Creation Research
- Kitzmiller v. Dover Decision (pdf)
- Evolution's got a P.R. problem
- The Human Spark (three 50-minute episodes)
- Koko the gorilla: A documentary
- Molecular Visualizations of DNA
- A Biologist’s Mother’s Day Song
- Evolution of human lice, with molecular clock animation
- Desktop Diaries: Tim White
- Expedition Rusinga
- Your Inner Fish (many clips)
- 15-minute animal behavior sampling video (chimps)
- 15-minute animal behavior sampling video (capuchins)
Books (not textbooks)
- Darwin's Origin of Species: A biography by Janet Browne
- Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea by Carl Zimmer
- Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
- Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal
- Skin: A Natural History by Nina Jablonski
Amazing work!! Thank you very much for that list!
ReplyDeleteI hope it's helpful. I'd love to know if others are using completely free, open access, on-line material to teach courses.
ReplyDeleteJust to spread the word...All those articles at scitable.com are peer-reviewed and there are links to other Open Access peer-reviewed articles as well. Some are professional essays (like Anne and Ken's fantastic one at Aeon), a few are my blog posts that I know students enjoy.
...and some of those links are to websites where, if assigned as reading, specific tabs, pages, etc will need to be picked. They're also useful for homework assignments. Like becoming a primate expert, working on molecular clocks, thinking through a scientific problem, and doing the quizzes at Understanding Race.
ReplyDeleteThis is AWESOME, Holly! Thanks so much for sharing!
ReplyDeleteWow, Holly, what a service to so many! This post shows how the social networking sphere can really reach out and across a vast span....people around the world who may come to know of your ideas and links can teach way beyond what their local resources may provide.
ReplyDeleteHolly, that looks excellent. In fact, last week I was checking out THE NATURE EDUCATION KNOWLEDGE PROJECT and saw your name as an editor.
ReplyDeleteMay I make a request? I almost emailed you about this last week while I was doing some research. I was hoping to find a good summary of the the Neolithic Era / New Stone Age. I found what I needed elsewhere, but I would love to see your site have a basic and/or intermediate article on the New Stone Age.
I agree that more archaeology articles would be really useful! Thanks for the request... it will help when we try to convince them to do more in that area, but it's possible someone is already working on it.
ReplyDeleteI asked my students (in this course) today if they could think of any downsides to going to completely online readings. (Most, had none to contribute and just encouraged me to do it.) Here's a concern though: Many prefer to read on paper (like I do) and the cost of printing the articles out is something to consider. Not only that but students don't seem to have their own printers, and the community printers that freshmen and sophomores use (the majority in my course) are often out of paper and ink and charge too muc. So some sort of packet via the bookstore is what they highly recommend. Many profs have experience making these packets. Only 2/120 students had tablets for reading online or pdfs, by the way.
ReplyDeleteOops, I forgot that the NSA is not within the perview of paleontology :-)
ReplyDeleteI suppose that the cost of printing a packet with all of the articles in a readable font size is a key to this. You could do a simple feasibility study by printing all of the articles and then asking the university printer how much the packet would cost for the students. If the cost is drastically less than the textbook price, then you are golden.
ReplyDeletePackets are common and seem to be about 30 bucks.
ReplyDeleteI do not recall packets nearly the size of a textbook, but that is two decades ago. Can that $30 packet and links to video clips really replace an entire Introduction to Biological Anthropology textbook?
ReplyDeleteCertainly it can! Students largely don't read textbooks any more, and textbooks have become immorally expensive. The mix of materials including online will increasingly become the norm I think.
DeleteForgive me James if my initiation of this packet discussion seemed directed at you. And to answer your question. No videos ... Just articles to be printed and there's more than enough online to suffice and printing open source materials isn't costly.
ReplyDeleteHolly, I did not suppose you focused it on me. But as a parent of 2 college students and what might be 4 college students, this caught my eye. My first concern was the tediousness of reading everything online, and I thought your idea was good enough for careful scrutiny and consideration.
ReplyDeleteI'd love it if fellow educators or authors would suggest articles or links to add as potential student resources in Intro to BioAnth. I'll be adding to this list myself over the next several months and so you may want to check back here periodically for more ideas for your own courses...
ReplyDeleteHolly, Wow. This gives me so much to think about. Thank you for so generously sharing your work.
ReplyDeleteHave you checked out the efossils site. I like it for my online class because the photos show so much detail.
Very very interesting work! Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteApart from having to read it online - issue, my concern would be that any online resource can "decay", or go offline, or move, or something else. I guess it would be a good idea to have a copy stored somewhere locally to you.