One of the major challenges instructors face in Animal Behavior is engaging with an audience that has a wide range of backgrounds and academic aspirations. Many students taking this course are pre-meds and fail to see the relevance of the subject to their future careers. Rubenstein’s AnimalBehavior, the best-selling text in the market, addresses this challenge by introducing students to a rich array of fascinating examples of animal behavior and uses a vivid narrative voice that conveys the excitement of the subject. To further address this course issue, the upcoming 12th edition’senhanced eBook will make the subject come alive with numerous video and audio clips that will be presented in-line as students read. The enhanced Ebook will also include 50 new interactive figures. Another objective instructors have is to help students master concepts and then demonstrate thatmastery. To assist instructors with this goal, the 12th edition enhanced eBook will incorporate all-new inline self-assessments, as well as gradable chapter assessment quizzes. Another essential challenge in the course is helping students realize that animal behavior research is rooted in rigorousscientific methodology. The new edition will include an all-new “Behind the Scenes” feature, in which sections in each chapter will highlight a single research paper and take an in-depth look at how the research was conducted. Related to this course issue, instructors want to introduce theirstudents to a balanced view of the ultimate and proximate causes underlying how and why animals behave as they do. Rubenstein is renowned for its empirical presentation of the ultimate causes of animal behavior, and the 12th edition will do an even better job of integrating concepts across levelsof scale at the proximate level. This need will be address by including an even greater focus on Tinbergen’s “Four Questions” and by including more integrative studies that cross levels of analysis. Finally, a significant course challenge is helping students get through the information overload,and the new 12th edition will be streamlined by approximately 10%, a re-design of the chapter summaries, and the addition of synthetic sections that link topics across the text and media resources.
