How Your Brain Works and Weird Stuff That Happens When Things Go Wrong

My classes are lecture-based but student-interaction is much encouraged and much-appreciated. I use power-point slides as visual aids and love watching student's brains work so questions are always encouraged. Student's will leave this class with a solid understanding of basic anatomy, neurology, and neuropsychology -- and not be bored by any of it. There are fantastic and bizarre cases in history of how behavior can be changed by damage to the brain -- and who doesn't love something fantastic and bizarre! I easily adapt the material to suit the age of the students in the class, and I make a point of ensuring that the youngest and the oldest students have equal understanding.

First Class:
1) Students will introduce themselves and explain their interest in taking this class
2) Neurotransmitters and receptors
3) Why does the brain have two hemispheres?
4) The three main parts of the brain: Cerebrum, Cerebellum, and Brainstem
5) Homework: Find an adult and teach them three interesting things you learned today. Take notes about how it went, what they said, and anything that felt confusing to you when you were trying to teach them.

Second Class:
1) Homework Review
2) Review what we learned in the last class
3) The four lobes: frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, parietal lobe
4) A man is driving a car. As he pulls up to the stoplight, it changes to red. He understands that this means stop. He takes his foot off the gas and puts it on the brakes. He waits until the light turns to green.Then he takes his foot off the brake and puts it on the gas -- how in the heck does our body and brain communicate? (We will review step by step the parts of the brain that make this small event occur)

Third Class: 
1) The temporal lobe and the occipital lobe: What's wrong with my eyesight?!
2) The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Patient DF, It's On The Tip of My Tongue, The Woman Who Can't Identify Faces
3) The parietal lobe and the frontal lobe: The One-Sided Clock
4) The frontal lobe and Phineas Gage
5) Confabulations
6) Homework: Can you think of a time when you might have unknowingly engaged in a confabulation?

Fourth Class
1) Blindsight and the cerebral cortex
2) Daniel Levitin: the cerebellum, music, and memory
3) Proprioception and the nervous system: The Disembodied Lady, The Man Who Can't Walk Upright
4) Phantom limbs and the mirror box