Course Format:  Discussion: 9:05-9:55A, MWF

Course Requirements:  None.

Course Description:  STUDENTS’ QUESTIONS ABOUT CURRENT BIOMEDICAL
RESEARCH

	I think that it’s important to try to help students to get
better at inquiring and to help them to discover topics that they
genuinely want to inquire about in the first place.  The main goals
of this course will be to help students to improve their abilities
and inclinations to generate, analyze, prioritize, and investigate
their own questions about issues concerning current medical and/or
biological research that are most important and/or interesting to
them.
	
	In this course, students will do lots of talking and writing
about the questions that they come up with and want to address.  Most
of each class period will be spent in small-group and whole-class
discussions, and most of the homework assignments will involve
creation of rather informal, honest writings that are meant to help
students to analyze and investigate their questions.
	
	I would prefer that only students who enjoy and value
discussing students’ questions and interests enroll in this course.
Students who do not want to promote discussion will probably not only
fail to get much out of this course; they will very likely also
discourage the learning of others.

	We will try to organize the discussion groups in ways that
are most useful to students, realizing that some students will
probably tend to prefer usually being in groups with students who
have similar interests, while other students may tend to prefer
usually being in groups with students who have quite different
interests.

	I don’t care so much which specific topics students choose to
think and learn about in this course, as long as they find topics
that they consider to be sufficiently interesting and/or important to
be worth spending time and effort inquiring, writing, and talking
about.
	I suspect that many students will start off this course
without strong interests in any particular topic and will tend to
become interested in topics that they see that other students are
interested in.  I’ll be curious to see what topics students do end up
choosing to learn more about.  Genetic predispositions to certain
behaviors or certain diseases?  Genetic testing?  Evolution?  Genetic
modifications of foods?  Cancers?  Allergies?  AIDS?  Discovery,
testing, and pricing of pharmaceuticals?  Diets?  Stem cells?  Gene
therapy?  Other topics?

Required Text:  None.

Typical Weekly Assignments:  There will be short writing assignments
for many of the class meetings.  The main roles of these writings
will be to help you to improve your abilities to inquire and to
become genuinely engaged in your learning.  Most of these writings
will probably be rather informal; it’s the thought conveyed in them
that I care most about.  Some of these writings will develop into
larger documents.

Exams/Papers:  There will be no quizzes or exams.  Students will do
lots of writing, though. (See above.)