Philosophy 101

Psychology101

Instructor:

Richard Reardon Department of Psychology & Communication Studies

NOTE:  In all email communication, We will use your official UI email address or BBLearn.  This is university policy.  So, please get into the habit of checking your address regularly.  If we make any course-relevant announcements, we will use your UI account to let you know. Course Description:

This course is designed to give you a broad overview of the field of Psychology.  Psychology is the science of behavior and mental activity.  To do it justice, we will start from the basic units of the nervous system and carry through to the complexities of social and personal cognitions and actions. To better understand the coverage of the course, simply look at the range of issues identified in the course schedule.

Learning Outcomes. When this course is over, you should:

1. Understand the scientific method as it applies to comprehending the behavior and mental processes of humans and other animals.

2. Understand the basic biological processes underlying cognition and behavior, and how those processes interact with the energy provided by the physical world.

3. Understand the complexity of human and animal cognitive activity, and how cognition is related to intelligence, complex social behavior, and performance.

4. Understand the processes of human intellectual, social, and personality development.

5. Understand the mechanisms behind the maintenance and manifestation of normal and pathological mental activity and associated adaptive/maladaptive behaviors.

Required Text:

Feist, G. J, & Rosenberg, E.L., (2014). Psychology, Perspectives and Connections (3rd Edition). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

You will need to access the McGraw-Hill site for this class. The text is available as an eBook when you sign in to McGraw-Hill Connect. (If you wish a hard copy, sometimes one is available from resellers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. But the online eBook is cheaper because it is bundled with the other McGraw-Hill teaching aids. If you do purchase the hard copy separately, you will still need to purchase access to Connect (at a reduced price).

Grading:   

There will be 5 multiple-choice exams.  Each exam will be worth 20% of your grade.  Each exam will test you only over material covered since the previous exam. The exams will be “open-book”.  You may use whatever materials you wish to answer exam questions, but the exams have a time limit; so, only those of you who prepare well will be able to benefit from having all your materials handy.

The multiple-choice exams will be administered through BBLearn. The exams will open a couple of weeks into the semester—usually by the day we recommend you consider taking Exam 1 (see "Schedule", below). All exams will remain available until the Wednesday of Finals week, May 11. The dates associated with the exams, chapters, and lectures are to assist you with your planning.  Conceivably, you could take all of the multiple-choice exams the first day they are made available to you.  I recommend you not do this.  Nor would I recommend that you put off all of your exams until the last day, even though that is possible.  Keep in mind that you will be allowed a limited time (about 45-50 minutes) to complete each exam and, once started, you must finish the exam.  Logging in and out and back in again will not be possible.  Because of the broad, fairly continuous availability of the exams, there will be no make-up exams for any reason.  Please note that BBLearn often shuts down for routine updates/repairs.  Avoid logging in for your exams at those times (there is a reminder about this at the BBLearn login page). I will allow you to retake each exam one time , and I will use the higher grade in my computation. However, the exam you retake may differ from the original exam you took, and I will charge you a small penalty (3 percentage points off that exam) for the privilege.

In the belief that hope springs eternal, we will also make available an extensive and unpleasant essay assignment the last week of the session.  We call this assignment the "Amnesty Exam" because it comes at the end of the semester and can be used to help bail you out.  If you took all 5 multiple-choice exams, and you complete the Amnesty Exam, we will drop your lowest score and replace it with your Amnesty score.  If you took only 4 multiple-choice exams, the Amnesty exam can be your fifth score.  The Amnesty Exam can be long and difficult (several pages over 2-3 days), but some of you might find the payoff worth it.  It is purely optional (unless you need it to replace a missing multiple-choice exam).  Scores on the Amnesty Exam tend to be high for those who put the effort in and complete it in the time frame allotted.

To earn an ‘A’ in the course, you need to average 90-100% over your 5 exams; similarly, 80-89% will guarantee a ‘B’; 70-79%, a ‘C’; 60-69%, a ‘D’; the grade of ‘F’ may be “earned” by obtaining less than 60%, or by taking fewer than 4 exams.

The 5 multiple-choice exams (and the Amnesty Exam, if you take it and it becomes one of your 5 scores) will be used to calculate the bulk of your grade. However, there will be an opportunity to earn a little extra-credit through completion of some odds and ends assignments and questionnaires. We will announce those as they become available.

Finally, because the Amnesty Exam is comprehensive, if you have not completed all, or even if you have not completed any of the multiple-choice exams, but you take and score 85% or better on the Amnesty Exam, you can earn a ‘D’ in the course. This also applies if you have flunked every multiple-choice exam, or have a failing average.

Outreach Course Fee:

The University of Idaho charges a $35 per credit hour course fee for all of our WWW outreach courses.  We sincerely regret this charge.  The budget we receive each year is barely adequate to meet the regular teaching needs on the Moscow campus.  We are given no money for outreach—the outreach program is supported solely by enrollments.  Without the fee, we would not be able to offer the courses.   About $10 of the $35 collected is used to fund the technical infrastructure and support involved in internet hosting; the remaining $25 is used to support instruction.  (Note that students in off-campus outreach lecture courses, such as those on our Coeur d’Alene campus, pay only for instruction, thus the fee is only $25 per credit hour.)  Please also keep in mind the refund policy.   After 2 weeks in a regular semester (or one week in summer), if you drop a course, the bursar will not refund your fees.  This is a university policy, not a departmental one.

Drop Deadlines:

If you get in a bind and find that you must drop this course, please understand that there may be financial implications for the timing of your decision, as noted above.  Also, depending on the semester, dropping a course within the appropriate window makes the course disappear from your record.  However, at a certain point, dropping will leave "W" on your record (I don't think a "W" or two is particularly worrisome on a student's record, but there are limits on how many "W"s can be earned, so pay attention to the drop dates).   After a certain date, dropping is not permitted.  The key dates for drops are given in the university's Academic Calendar, which can be found here: http://www.uidaho.edu/registrar/classes/calendar

Schedule—Sum, 2016

Note: Dates and times suggested are guidelines.  You may proceed through the chapters and multiple-choice exams at whatever pace you’d like . As noted above, there will be a lag on when all the Exams start becoming available, but once available they will remain open until the date posted below.  Only the window for the Amnesty Exam is fixed and firm.  Just make sure you complete the chapters (both text reading and web lectures) before you take the test for those chapters.  Also notice that we don’t cover the chapters in exactly the same order your authors (e.g., we jump from Ch. 4 to Ch. 6; Ch. 5 is pushed back to later in the course).  So, pay attention to the chapter numbers and titles.  I have done my best to limit your "official", i.e., scheduled, activity to weekdays, but like any course, you may have to use some of your weekend time to keep up with the lectures and reading.

Psyc 101 Schedule - Sum, 2016

Note that in the schedule below, I have not indicated any assignments or exams on weekends of holidays. However, this is summer, and we move at twice the speed of a regular semester. So please assume that you will have to do at least some work on weekends and the holiday to keep up.

Jun 13-14 Chapter 1: Introduction

Jun 15-16 Chapter 2: Conducting Research in Psychology

Jun 17-21 Chapter 3: Biology of Behavior

Jun 22 EXAM 1 Covers chapters 1-3; BBLearn; available Jun 22-Aug 3.

Jun 23-24 Chapter 4: Sensation & Perception

Jun 27-28 Chapter 6: Consciousness

Jun 29-30 Chapter 7: Memory

Jul 1 EXAM 2 Covers chapters 4, 6, & 7 (remember, ch. 5 was skipped until

later in the semester); BBLearn; available Jun 22-Aug 3.

Jul 4 Independence Day

Jul 5-6 Chapter 8: Learning

Jul 7-8 Chapter 9: Language & Thought

Jul 11-12 Chapter 10: Intelligence, Problem Solving, Creativity

Jul 13 EXAM 3 Covers chapters 8-10; BBLearn; available Jun 22-Aug 3.

Jul 14 Chapter 11: Motivation/Emotion

Jul 15 Chapter 12: Stress and Health

Jul 18-20 Chapter 13: Personality

Jul 21-22 Chapter 5: Development

Jul 25 EXAM 4 Covers chapters 11-13, and 5; BBLearn; available Jun 22-Aug 3.

Jul 26-27 Chapter 14: Social Psychology

Jul 28-Aug 1 Chapter 15: Psychopathology

Aug 2-3 Chapter 16: Treatments

Aug 4 EXAM 5 Covers chapters 14-16; BBLearn; available Jun 22-Aug 3.

Aug 4-6 Amnesty EXAM Covers all chapters. A list of essay items will be posted.

You will be asked to pick a certain number of items from the list. You will have 2-3 days to submit your answers to those items. This is a long and arduous assignment. During regular semesters (not summer) this is a no-test week, but this exam is permitted because it is optional, and this is web class. Let me say again, this exam is completely optional for those who have taken the 5 multiple-choice tests; try not to put yourself in the position of needing it. Exams will be due on the 5th, but late exams will be accepted with a late penalty of 4% per day late. Also, as noted earlier in the syllabus, a grade of 85% or better will allow you to pass this course with a D, regardless of other scores.