Welcome to Evolution and Human Behavior

I am really happy that you are in this class!  My hope is that you will become more interested in learning about why humans behave the ways that they do, and what an evolutionary perspective can bring to the understanding of human behavior.  This is a HUGE field.  It encompasses fields such as psychology, neurobiology, genetics, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary anthropology, cultural evolution, animal behavior, ecology and more.  Whew!

Ok, so now I want you to understand that the structure of this class is, well, not very structured!  With this class, I am making some radical changes from the way that I have taught it in the past.  The reason that I am doing this is that there is some good evidence that shows, that students (like you) learn more when you are really interested in what you are doing and I am implementing some techniques to help bring out your natural curiosity.  I am asking you to commit a big chunk of time and energy to learning more about human behavior and evolution (which I think is fascinating!), and I hope that you will be happy to do it, not feel like it is a terrible chore.  I am chucking out some old ways of managing a class by making it more about your exploration of and engagement in the subject, and much less about me giving you little hoops to jump through like assignments, quizzes and prescribed discussion posts.

I have ONE learning outcome for this class:

“To increase your depth and breadth of interest in the evolution of human behavior”

So, by getting rid of the highly managed nature of a class, I am putting you more in control- of what you learn and how you learn it.  

I am a big fan of the world wide web and using innovative technology.  I am teaching this class online, because as you are already aware there is a WEALTH of information, and engagement with that information, on the web.  And because it makes the course more 'Open' (more about that later).  Now, if you haven’t taken an online class before, I say, “that’s great, because in all likelihood, this class won’t be like any other online class and so you won’t have any particular expectations”.  And if you have taken an online class before, I say “suspend your expectations because, in all likelihood, this class won’t be like any other online class you’ve taken before!”

Alright now…don’t get scared because I am going to ask you to use some free online web-based tools to discover and engage with the material you are going to find on the web.  These tools are really EASY to learn.  I mean it.   My colleagues at Keene State who know me, know that I am all about ‘demystifying’ technology.  It isn’t that hard to use!  I am not a programmer or a coder or an engineer or any of those things and I certainly don’t expect you to be either.  The tools that we will use have been created by those people that can do programming, etc. so that we don’t have to. These tools are user-friendly and only take a little practice to learn.  I think that you will find them quite fun in fact.  Some of you may be very familiar with these already, and some of you may not – either way, it is all OK!

Many more details are in the canvas module but main tools you will use are:

Wordpress  (a place for you to have your own blog)

Twitter (for having a public conversation)

Both of these will require creating a FREE account.   I hope we have a great summer session together! 

Dr. C