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A zoology professor focuses the first part of the course on fundamentals and the second part on "state-of-the-art" research. "The first six weeks cover the basic concepts and fundamental processes all students must learn about the subject," he says. In this segment he eliminates many "nice to know" concepts in favor of going over the basics in a very thorough way.
"Because the students are very heterogeneous (including undergraduates who have taken only introductory biology as well as graduate students in zoology), I spend the first six weeks making certain that everyone is brought up to approximately the same level of understanding of the fundamentals. Then in the last weeks of the course, I introduce the latest research experiments in the field. In effect, the first half of the course is made up of `little white lies,' that is, the simplified constructs of the field. In the latter weeks, the emphasis is on how research is actually done and how little we really know."
A professor of physics uses a similar strategy throughout his lower-division course. He divides course topics into three groups: those which are "Basic" (i.e., should be mastered by every student); those which are "Recommended" (i.e., should be mastered by every student seeking a good competence in the subject); and those which are "Optional" (i.e., should be mastered only by those students with specialized interests).
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