Psychology of Learning
Summer, 2007
Professor: Dr. Travis Langley
Faculty e-mail: langlet@hsu.edu Homework e-mail: tamutlearning@yahoo.com
Required textbook: An Introduction to Theories of Learning, by Hergenhahn & Olson
Lefrancois textbook website: http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&product_isbn_issn=0534641520&discipline_number=24
Powell textbook website: http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20b&product_isbn_issn=0534634516&discipline_number=24
OVERVIEW:
This course is designed to provide an
overview of the psychology of learning.
TEST/QUIZ
SCHEDULE
|
Hergenhahn
required reading |
Online
tutorials |
Due
date |
|
PART 1 Chapters
1-3 |
Lefrancois tutorial quizzes 1, 10 Powell mult. choice 1,2 WebCT syllabus quiz |
by
Thursday, July 12 (Internet
days are italicized) |
|
PART 2 Chapters
4-6 |
Lefrancois tutorial quizzes 3, 4 Powell mult. choice 6, 7, 9 |
by
Thursday, July 19 |
|
PART 3
Chapters 7-9 |
Lefrancois tutorial quizzes 2 Powell mult. choice 3, 4, 5 |
by
Wednesday,
July 25 |
|
MIDTERM TEST Chapters 1-9 |
|
on
Thursday, July 26 |
|
PART 4
Chapters 10-13 |
Lefrancois tutorial quizzes 6, 7, 11 Powell mult. choice 12 |
by
Monday,
July 30 |
|
PARTS 5-7 Chapters 14-16 |
Lefrancois tutorial quizzes 8, 12 Powell mult. choice 11 |
by
Thursday,
August 2 |
|
FINAL EXAM Cumulative,
especially. chs. 10-16 |
|
in class Thursday, August 9 |
INTERNET DAYS
Lectures and tests will be held in class on Mondays, Tuesdays, and
Wednesdays. We will NOT meet in class on Thursdays (except for the last
Thursday of the term) and certain other days. Thursday classes will officially
be held over the Internet. Each week you will be given Internet-based study
assignments (like the textbook website tutorial quizzes) to be completed on Thursdays,
for which you will receive a grade. Unless specifically stated otherwise, the
official deadline for each assignment will be the end of classtime that Thursday,
although any assignment completed before midnight will be accepted. Because you
can do the assignments as early as you like, NO late work will receive credit,
and yet you will still be required to complete all assignments or you will get
an incomplete for the course. These are easy assignments, so this should not be
a problem.
Your total points for the tutorial quizzes and other online assignments
will be weighed at the end of the semester to make them equal in value to one
test.
TEXTBOOK
WEBSITE TUTORIAL QUIZZES
When required to take the website tutorial
quizzes, go to the required websites. Take each quiz repeatedly until you score
100% on it, and then click "End quiz and review summary" and tell the
system to e-mail your results to tamutlearning@yahoo.com.
Do not send the results to your professor's personal e-mail, or they won't
count. Do not send any other e-mail to the Yahoo address because that address
will be used only to tally your tutorial results.
SYLLABUS
QUIZ
To make sure that (1) you understand the
syllabus and (2) you know how to use WebCT, you will take the syllabus quiz and
repeat it until you get a score of 100%. The WebCT system will track your
scores. If you do not score 100% by the deadline, you will not get credit for
doing this and yet you'll still have to complete it anyway. If you do not score
100% on the syllabus quiz before you have to take the midterm test, the WebCT
system will not let you take the midterm.
MIDTERM
TEST
The midterm test will be a 40‑point
test, mostly multiple choice questions that cover lecture notes, assigned
readings, and class discussion. Because the exam is conducted through WebCT, it
is open book, open mouth, open Internet, open world. This is not as easy as it
sounds. People who do not really know the course material find that they really
cannot find enough of the answers in the allotted time.
You get ONE chance to take this test. Make
sure you are in a location where you can reach a backup computer if anything
goes wrong. If your computer freezes up, if the power goes out, etc., restart
the test immediately. Once you begin the test, the timer keeps running until
your time runs out. I must point out that the timer varies a little on when it
cuts you off. It might cut people off up to a minute or so before the timer
runs out, so do not wait until the last second to enter an answer. To balance
out for these concerns, you get more time to take these tests than people get
when they take these tests in a regular classroom.
FINAL
EXAM
Bring a #2 pencil with a good eraser. If you
have trouble erasing answers completely, ask the professor for a clean answer
sheet. Any answer marked wrong due to your smudge is simply wrong. The final
will have more than questions than the midterm, but the grade will be adjusted
to the same 40-point scale.
COMPUTER TIPS
To make sure your computer can interact with our system, you must (1)
make sure your computer has the most current version of Internet Explorer, and
(2) check for available Windows & Java updates.
PARTICIPATION AND OTHER STUFF
A participation grade will be based on attendance, appropriate involvement in classroom discussions (contributing without monopolizing), demonstrations that you know your assigned readings, and other stuff. This grade will be equal to one test. It will be weighed more heavily for people who are not doing what they are supposed to do or maybe for someone who has participated exceptionally well.
ATTENDANCE
The #1 correlate with poor grades in any
class is absenteeism. Poor attendance, therefore, punishes itself. If you aren't
here when roll is taken, do not tell me why. If you didn't participate, you
didn't participate. Anyone who misses class is responsible for getting copies
of the notes from fellow students. Class participation will be more likely to
help your grade than signing a roll sheet. Because
doing Internet assignments counts as attendance on the Internet days, missing
an assignment counts as missing class. People who miss three assignments could
be dropped from the class without notice.
GRADING
Test questions range in difficulty to get an
accurate idea of exactly how much you know and understand about the
course material. They provide a very accurate indication of how much each
person does and does not know compared to everybody else in the class. I do not
feel it is right to establish a curve based on the highest grade in the class,
in which case only one score would determine everyone's grade. The scale on the
40‑point midterm and final is simply this:
F <‑‑ 20.0
D 20.1 ‑ 25.0 C 25.1
‑ 30.0 B 30.1 ‑
35.0 A 35.1 ‑‑>
The professor also reserves the right to
subtract any number of points from the grade of someone who disrupts class, or
to assign a course grade of F to someone caught cheating. Anyone caught
cheating will also be referred for University disciplinary measures.
APA
STYLE PAPER AND NOTEBOOK
You will each choose a behavioral topic of
interest to you, subject to instructor approval, and keep a notebook/binder
throughout the semester in which you relate that topic to course material. For
example, if you were interested in how violence is learned, you could record
thoughts on how individuals become sensitized or habituated to violence, and
look up what past research has found regarding those relationships. Store
related articles, abstracts, etc., in the notebook/binder. Keep this updated
daily. Your professor may ask to see this at any time. Turn the finished
notebook in to the professor on the next to last day of class. If it's
late, your course grade will drop a letter. Don't be late.
You will organize this information into a
paper in APA (American Pscyhological Association) style. In addition to doing
some tasks to guide you and help you learn how to write this along the way, you
will turn in two complete drafts: one due July 31 and a final draft due on the next
to last day of class.
COURSE GRADE
The course grade has five equal parts (except that participation would
weigh more heavily, as noted earlier):