Across the animal kingdom, intelligent behavior requires long term storage of the structure of the spatial environment to enable efficient navigation between goal locations. Given this, it is perhaps unsurprising that the brain evolved systems for generating, storing, and using spatial information. This course will examine the neural circuits that mediate spatial cognition and navigation, with strong focus on neurophysiology and behavior. Special emphasis is placed on comparisons of navigation between species and consideration of the overlapping nature of spatial and episodic memory processing.
3
UnitsOptional
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeGraduate students only
Level LimitLetters and science
Collegedo not take this class. the questions are not worded well and very confusing.
For his lack of teaching experience, and his first time teaching this class, I think he did fairly well. He posts all powerpoints online before lecture, but he gives participation points for attendance due to this fact. Most of class time is spent creating examples for students of the concepts. I tanked the midterm & recovered to an A-. No curve.
Don't bother taking a class by Swan. His lectures are completely all over the place and he often goes on irrelevant tangents which make me feel like I am completely wasting my time by attending lecture. But you can't skip class because he takes attendance, what other upper division courses take attendance? People are obviously skipping for a reason
He seems like an okay guy but his tests are horrible. The are some of the worst written tests I have ever seen. He glances over topics in lectures and then asks detailed questions about them on tests. If you do get stuck with him, Google the terms to make sure you understand them, you won't get the answers from lecture. Took his upper-div class.
Participation is essential and a grade booster. Lectures are based mostly off the book so you can still do well without it. His examples are really basic and his pacing''s bad he skims over a lot of topics. He gives study guides for the tests practice making concept maps on everything and you''ll be okay. Fair grader strict curves cheesy jokes.
Decent teacher. Didn't go to lecture much. test questions mostly came from lecture. posts power points online. Multiple choice and short answer test for both midterm and finals. Tests difficult but fair. Can get easy extra points through small online assignments. He was a bit sarcastic and used swear words which came off a bit unprofessional.