INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology 100, Section D2, 9576
Fall 2008
Online


Instructor: Brian Holt

Office: IB 2425-A

Phone: (206) 528-4513 (e-mail is preferred and more reliable)

E-Mail: bholt@sccd.ctc.edu

 

Office Hours:  Tues:    10am - 11:50
                          Wed:   11:30am-12:20pm
                          Thurs:  11am- 11:50

                                      2:30pm -3:30

Required Text: Bernstein and Nash, Essentials of Psychology 3rd or 4th Edition.

Course Description:
This course intends to provide an understanding that psychology is a science that attempts to explain human experience, thought, emotion, and behavior. Throughout the course, you will learn the questions asked by psychologists, the methods they use to answer those questions, as well as the terms and concepts used to answer them. In general, after successfully completing this course, you will have gained a broader and deeper understanding of psychological issues and questions over and above the common explanations given by "pop-psychology."

You should also be able to: Recognize the value intellectual inquiry, personal responsibility and ethical behavior; Discover the interdisciplinary nature of knowledge; Demonstrate a willingness to learn from many cultures, persons, methods and viewpoints; Think critically in reading and writing; Work and communicate effectively in groups; Understand the nature of the individual and of the relationship between the self and the community.

Course Requirements:
Readings
Readings from the text (as well as occasional handouts) will be assigned for each class meeting. If a given chapter is covered in multiple classes, you should have the chapter read by the first of those classes. The field of Psychology requires students to learn VOCABULARY, and to use these new terms to think more clearly about psychological phenomena. You will not do well if you simply read your book once and study some new words (which will be frequent). Vocabulary is necessary, but so is the ability to learn relationships between ideas. You will find it necessary to read, re-read, and read again, the text in this course. It will help you compare and contrast abstract concepts, which will lead you to hone your critically thinking skills.

Written Assignments
There will be several written assignments due. Most will be relatively short, and will be based on a question that I will post. Each of these assignments will be worth between 10 and 20 points. Some of these assignments may include group work.

Exams
There will be four (4) non-cumulative exams and one (1) comprehensive Final Exam on material covered throughout the course and in the text. Make up exams are not offered. But the good news is that you can take the exam at times that is most convenient for you, provided it's done by the due date.

Grades:
Final grades will be based on all 5 of the exams and all of the written assignments. Each exam will be worth 100 points; each written assignment will be worth 10-20.

Grades for the course will be assigned on a decimal grading scale. The scale is based upon the total earned from exams and written assignments:

 

%

Decimal

Grade

%

Decimal

Grade

%

Decimal

Grade

95%

4.0

A

83%

2.8

B-

67%

1.6

C-

94%

3.9

A

82%

2.7

B-

66%

1.5

C-

93%

3.8

A

81%

2.6

B-

65%

1.4

D+

92%

3.7

A-

80%

2.5

B-

64%

1.3

D+

91%

3.6

A-

79%

2.4

C+

63%

1.2

D+

90%

3.5

A-

78%

2.3

C+

62%

1.1

D

89%

3.4

B+

77%

2.2

C+

61%

1.0

D

88%

3.3

B+

75%

2.1

C

60%

0.9

D

87%

3.2

B+

73%

2.0

C

59%

0.8

D-

86%

3.1

B

71%

1.9

C

58%

0.7

D-

85%

3.0

B

69%

1.8

C-

57%

0.6

F*

84%

2.9

B

68%

1.7

C-

 

 

 


* Grades below 0.7 do not satisfy the minimum requirement for course credit.

Attendance:
Obviously you won't be attending class; but you will be expected to participate in online discussions (not chat rooms).

Academic Honesty:
Cases of cheating, plagiarism or other types of academic dishonesty are unacceptable in this course and are subject to disciplinary action. Plagiarism is submitting a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work, or taking someone's words OR ideas and using them as if they were your own without giving due credit. Students may feel very threatened by writing a "perfect" written assignment and feel compelled to cheat by having others give significant help. If you are concerned about your writing ability, there are several options for you. You can see me outside of class where I can help, or even better would be to make an appointment in the Loft, which is a writing center located in the Library. The Loft has highly trained English professionals to help.

Accessibility:
If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, or if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please provide me with the Letter of Accommodation you have received from the Office of Retention & Student Success Services.

Online Course Guidelines:

Working online has its benefits, but there are some drawbacks. The first is that everything must be read. Instructions, assignments, and all correspondence. If you struggle with the written word, online courses may be difficult. You can't simply get a quick verbal clarification, either. If you work at 2am and you can't follow the instructions, you are going to have to wait a long time to get clarification. So, the following guidelines should make the online course experience better:

1. Read the instructions. If they are unclear, read them one more time. If they still seem confusing, ask a question of the class--either myself or another student may be able to explain. If it's a really unclear instruction, I'll probably re-write it.

2. Plagairism is cheating, and I keep an eye out for it. With Wikipedia and other online sources, it's very easy to get sucked into copying and pasting text. Here is how to avoid plagairism:

Instead of copying other people's work, use your own words, cite personal
examples that demonstrate the principle or point you are trying to make, and if (and only if) that is insufficient to make your point, either provide direct quotes or summaries of direct quotes with giving proper credit to the source. This usually includes providing a reference so that the reader can find the source his or herself.

From the course Syllabus: "... Plagiarism is submitting a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else
and presented as being your own work, or taking someone's words or ideas and using them as if they were your own without giving due credit. ..."

3. Discussion Guidelines: Understand and practice Miller's law.

Miller's Law comes in two parts:
"To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true."

The second:
". . . try to imagine what [that truth] could be true of."

The first part gets you to listen to (or in our case read) what is being said. Most people don't listen as well as they could. They instead wait to pounce during a pause in speech and say what is on their minds instead of relating to what was just said. Assume (don't accept) what they say as truth, and you will naturally begin to really listen. This takes practice, but many arguments have been avoided by following this simple rule..

The 2nd part of Miller's law helps you understand what people are saying. In other words, think about the consequences of the the listener's 'truth.' Questions will naturally arise which will create more interesting and fruitful dialogue.

Regardless if the speaker seems wrong, "really listen to him, without judgment, and try to figure out how he could think that way," says George A. Miller, Princeton's James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Psychology, Emeritus.

4. Writing Guidelines: Generally I believe less is more. More enjoyable to read, and more likely to improve your thinking and writing.

5. When sending an email or posting a message, please use informative subject lines. It is easy to forget to update or change subject lines, but doing so does several things. For one, it provides context to the reader. For two, it helps searching for messages. For three, it makes it easier to organize the discussion threads.

6. Be sure that when you reply to an email or a message post that you include the material of that post. Most email programs, by default, include quoted material. WEBCT does NOT. It's a hassle, but it can be avoided easiy by hitting the 'quote' button when responding to messages.

7. Most correspondence ought to occur through webct. There may be a power outage at school which shuts down the webct server, but otherwise we should keep correspondence through webct.

8. Don't use attachments. Copy and paste your assignments into your message box. Attachments take up too much space and are cumbersome to use and grade. Of course, sometimes you won't have an option, for example, a PDF document that you want others to see.

 9. If you find a link that is "bad," let me know by actually copy the link and sending it to me. Otherwise, I have no idea where to begin looking.

10. You may not look at exams early.  When you ‘begin’ an exam, a timer starts and does not stop.  You must complete the exam in the allotted time, usually around 1.25 hours.  So, if you click on the exam on Tuesday to get a little ‘peek’ to study with the intention of taking the exam on Friday, you will get a zero for the exam.