History and Methods of Psychology Psychology 130 (Class under construction, anything might change: Last edited Oct 12 2009)

Chuck Huff	M,W,F Class: 12:55 - 1:40 RNS 310 Lab: Weds 2:00-5:00 RNS 240	current as of 10/12/09
Regents Science Hall 120, 786.3169		Mail to the Prof
Office Hours: by appointment		Mail to the class

Welcome to the First flight of the new History and Methods of Psychology class! This syllabus will evolve as we put the class together over the term. But you will be notified of the thing you need to do in time for their completion.I appreciate your patience as we continue to figure out how this course best works and change things on the fly.

The class has been designed by the entire department to introduce students to the methods and history of psychology as a discipline. Thus it has a series of labs as a major component. These labs are taken from the old 126 course, but many are completely reworked, and some are new. The point of the labs is to give you an idea of the many different ways we collect data in psychology, with human and with other animals, from questionnaires to observation, from self report to sophisticated electronic measurement, from experimental design to simple naturalistic observation.

Most of your grade (60%) will come from things you do in the lab. But the division is not so easy, since some of the lab is outside the building and lab procedures will extend into the classroom.

Assignments

Lab Notes

You will receive a lab instruction manual on the first day of lab. In addition to this, you will need to purchase a lab notebook (see the manual for more on this). For every lab session we ask that you keep notes about the procedures,apparatus, the data collected, unusual occurances, etc. The lab notes will be graded by the preceptors for the class as 0, √-, √, or √+. Most times you should receive a √ for this, with significant deviation in either direction resulting in a + or -. A zero is for any week that you should have had lab notes and did not. These informal lab notes will be graded every time you hand in your formal lab writeup (that is, 3 times in the semester).

Formal Lab Writeups

A formal rewrite of your informal notes in APA Style. The three labs that are listed in red require a formal writeup. I have provided an example of a good lab writeup and a checksheet to use as you create your formalwriteup. Here is a checksheet. The preceptors for the course will be grading your lab writeups based on this checksheet. Do note that the grade for the lab writeups are stepped so that the first does not count much, but the last counts 15% of your grade.

Lab Poster

Don't like the labs we have? Good! You get a chance to propose a better one. Over the course of several lab periods, you will design a lab that could be done here in psych 130. The reference lab is devoted to helping you find the literature you need for this assigmnment, and then there are two lab times to allow you to construct a lab protocol in consultation with the instructor and the preceptors. Then there is a final lab time for you to write and format a poster. These posters will be presented during the finals period for the class.

Electronic Portfolio

You will use some of your work in this class to begin an electronic portfolio. The idea is to produce a portfolio that you can share with graduate schools, potential emloyers, and perhaps even your advisor as you document your skills and achievements in the major. We ask that you indclude at least two lab reports and one paper, with some annotations about why each one was included. You can add other papers or objects from this or from other other classes. Jake Kurczek has produced a useful sample portfolio for you to use as inspiration. But do not feel like you must copy his organization or layout.

Integrative Paper

The labs in this course are the central learning experience for the course. But they can seem disjointed, one d@mn thing after another, without some way of integrating them into your understanding of psychology as a discipline. I will be taking several oportunities throughout the term to give lectures on what I think are some "red threads" that connect all the disparate labs together. So you will hear me reflecting on how moral psychology, perception, and pedagogy are three themes that connect to almost all of the lab experiences. But what I want from you is the red threads YOU can draw through the labs. So, the integrative paper is this assignment. It should consist of three short essays (3 to 5 double spaced pages each) each of which draws a red thread through the labs. You will be graded on the extent to which your thread actually connects the labs (or at least the lab areas) and on the coherence and breadth of your argument. Since these are essays, they need not be APA papers, but they should use APA style referencing. After the midterm break I will have a grading rubric for this so you will know what to expect.

Grading Weights

Preceptors

There are four preceptors that will help in running the labs and grading lab notebooks: Stephanie Andren, Luke Dueffert, Jamie Klein, Amanda Schilling. You will be assigned to one of them as your "grader" for the term, and you will probably interact with all of them throughout the semester in labs. These students have taken the lab before and come highly recommened for their work in the major. They will be giving presentations in the labs and helping you as you step through the procedures and make decisions about what to manpulate and measure. In addition to serving as preceptors in this class, they are also taking a class from Prof. Thorsheim on how to teach. So their work in class is grounded in careful supervision and study.

Disability Accomodation

If you have a documented disability that will impact your work in this class, please contact me to discuss your needs. Additionally, you will need to register with Student Disability Services located at the Academic Support Center in Room 1 of the Old Main Annex. All such discussions will be confidential.

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