Introduction to Psychology
Documentation of lectures, exams, tools, and activities I utilize during Intro Psych
Syllabus
The syllabus I utilize for my Introduction to Psychology course includes details on the required text, grade breakdown, assignment expectations, and a tentative course schedule. The course schedule includes planned lectures/activities for each class as well as homework assignments due for that class period. During the semester I use the preplanned schedule to the best of my ability, but each class runs a bit differently. I adapt my course at the moment to adjust for unplanned absences, snow days, additional assignments, and especially adding time to chapters that students are particularly interested, in and engaged in.
Please click the links below to view the documents!
Interactive Lectures
Neuroscience and Behavior is a historically challenging chapter for students. Thus, I like to share the way I break down the complicated processes and examples we use in class to help students grasp the terminology and processes.
Please note: these examples were adapted from PowerPoint to Google Slides for access on this website. For a PowerPoint download please click here.
Sensation and Perception is another chapter that challenges students when learning/retaining information. This lecture looks to provide detailed explanations for the complex process of the eye and ear to help students learn the components of each and how they function.
For a PowerPoint download of Sensation and Perception please click here.
Motivation and Emotion is a chapter a lot of students (as do I!) look forward to. This chapter contains a lot of different theories that can be difficult to differentiate between. So I am highlighting the ways I keep the example consistent across the theories (particularly for those of emotion) to show the small similarities and differences between theories.
I encourage you to view the PowerPoint as well, as a variety of examples are dynamic and do not translate to Google Slides. For a PowerPoint download of Emotion and Motivation please click here.
Action Potential Activity
During our Neuroscience and Behavior chapter, we learn about Action potential. An action potential is the process of neuron communication, where one neuron sends neurotransmitters (e.g. dopamine, serotonin) to the next neuron to communicate the needs of the brain and body. This process can be challenging for students as there are often a lot of new concepts and terms that students are unfamiliar with. To help with learning, students are paired together with the task of “building a neuron” and physically demonstrating the process of action potential. These two video examples are submissions from students who built a physical neuron and walked the viewer through the process of action potential.
Example Exam for Chapter 1-3
As the more challenging chapters of the semester are chapters 2: Neuroscience and Behavior and 3: Sensation and Perception, I want to demonstrate the styles of questions students receive for this and future exams in my course. My exams are commonly made up of multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and 1-2 short answer questions.
Please click the link below to view the document!
Example Exam Corrections
After each exam, I evaluate the overall success of the class and provide guidelines for exam corrections where students can earn back partial credit. Exam corrections are used to provide students a place to see their earlier mistakes and work through the content to provide a correction to help their overall learning. For exam corrections students are required to provide three main components: 1) an explanation for the original answer, whether they had a rationale, or they just guessed I want students to explain how they concluded the incorrect answer, 2) the correct answer and 3) the reasoning for the correct answer. I require these three components because I want students to think through the material in a new way. Explaining their original answer lets me see how they were thinking during the exam. In one case a student provided a very detailed explanation, and I realized their line of thinking was correct and they earned back the full points for that question. Not only are exam corrections beneficial for students they also provide me with a secondary form of evaluation where students can explain their thought process when they are unable to do that on the traditional exam
Please click the links below to view the student examples!
Exam Corrections for Exam 1: Chapters 1-3