PSYC 1000: Introductory Psychology Course Overview Welcome to this introductory course in psychology! This course will provide you with an overview of how psychologists attempt to discover how we think, feel, and behave. I will introduce you to psychology as a science and to its subdisciplines, and I ll expose you to psychology s various theoretical orientations, methodologies, and applications to society. In addition, I will challenge your preconceptions about psychology by helping you think critically about its issues. Throughout the course I will help you enhance your understanding of yourself and others by relating to the material and applying it to your own life. Course Objectives Successful completion of this course will enable you to accomplish the following: 1. Gain factual and conceptual knowledge of psychology. Psychology is a broad discipline. I will provide you with a general survey of the fundamental concepts, principles, and theories underlying human behavior and mental processes. 2. Understand how and why psychological research is conducted. Psychology is a social science grounded in research. I will help you learn about the discipline s various research methods, and recognize the interrelatedness of theory, research, and applications. 3. Appreciate broader applications of psychology. I will help you become aware of how psychology relates to your life and the lives of those around you, and how psychology draws upon and contributes to numerous disciplines such as philosophy, physiology, sociology, neuroscience, and medicine. Course Format This is a self paced course. There are no class meetings or formal lectures. The course is taught entirely online using this Sakai site as well as PsychPortal, the course management platform associated with our textbook. You have elected to take an online class. Inherent in your choice to take a course of this nature is a claim of technological proficiency and access. You are expected to complete all required coursework independently. The final exam will be proctored either at a proctoring center where you live or at the Friday Center.
Required Materials Current texts are listed in the course description. Instructions for obtaining the text and access to PsychPortal are in the actual Syllabus. Communication If you need to speak with me, we can schedule a phone appointment. I will try to respond to emails within forty eight hours Monday through Friday, 8 am 5 pm EST (excluding holidays). If you email me on weekends, I will try to respond by the following Tuesday. If you have questions about assignments or the course, please post them on the Question and Answer Forum (use the link in the left navigation bar). It is sometimes difficult to clearly convey all of the instructions online, and I may need to elaborate on some instructions. Check the Forum before emailing me to see if your question has already been asked and answered. Grading and Evaluation You may earn up to 1000 points in this course. Your final grade will be determined by your performance on ten quizzes, twelve sets of chapter assignments, and a cumulative final exam. Component Percent Points Chapter assignments 40% 400 Chapter quizzes 40% 400 Final exam 20% 200 Total points Grade 900 1000 A = 90 100% 800 899 B = 80 89% 700 799 C = 70 79% 600 699 D = 60 69% 0 599 F = 0 59% Each lesson includes a worksheet that you will complete offline. You will email the worksheet assignments to me and to the Friday Center s Student Services office. A submit button at the end of each lesson will assist you in sending in your worksheets. I will review your assignment and send you an email reporting your grade for the assignment. Some of your work will be graded automatically by PsychPortal; your grades for this work will be available in the Gradebook immediately upon completion. For coursework that is not graded
automatically, I will assign your grade within two weeks of submission. All grades will be posted in the Gradebook on PsychPortal. Your grades on the final exam and worksheets will be emailed to you in addition to being posted on PsychPortal. You must pass the cumulative final exam to pass the course. Coursework Lesson assignments Each lesson has a set of assignments that you must complete. These include activities such as watching videos and answering the accompanying questions, engaging in interactive activities, and completing a worksheet to submit via email. The assignments are available under their respective chapters in the Assignment Center section of PsychPortal. These assignments will count toward your grade. Together, each set of assignments is worth 31 37 points. I will combine your sets of lesson assignments for a total of 400 possible points, which will be 40 percent of your final grade. Some assignments can be completed fully online, but your worksheets will require you to work offline and email your work to me and to Student Services at the Friday Center. All emailed assignments must be Microsoft Word, PDF, or JPG documents. If you email assignments using a different document type, I may be unable to open and grade them; thus, the assignment will be considered incomplete. A note about plagiarism: I caution you against including information word for word from your text, tutorials you complete, or videos you watch without citing them properly. Copying the words of others is a form of plagiarism. You must use your own words to answer the questions on the worksheets. Putting your answers into your own words will help you learn the information at a deeper level. There will be a harsh penalty for plagiarism. You may wish to take this tutorial on plagiarism that was developed by librarians at UNC, Duke, NCSU, and NCCU. Quizzes Each lesson has two quizzes, located in the Assignment Center of PsychPortal. One is a self help diagnostic quiz that does not count toward your grade. Its purpose is to design a Personalized Study Plan for you based on items that you miss on the quiz. The other is a graded mastery quiz that counts toward your grade. Each mastery quiz is worth 40 points. I will combine your best ten mastery quiz grades for a total of 400 possible points, which will be 40 percent of your final grade. Steps for taking mastery quizzes: For each lesson, read the assigned chapter and Lesson Notes, and complete all of the lesson assignments. Then take the mastery quiz. Each mastery quiz consists of approximately six multiple choice questions. You have three opportunities to take each quiz (there are different questions on each quiz) and only the highest score will go into the gradebook. Dropping lowest quiz grades: I will drop your two lowest mastery quiz grades. If you miss up to two quizzes for any reason, these will count as the quizzes I drop for you. You do not have to inform me about missing up to two quizzes or provide any reason for doing so.
Final exam The final exam is cumulative and therefore should be completed after Lesson 12. The final will consist of fifty multiple choice questions. It is worth 200 points, or 20 percent of your final grade. However, you must pass the final exam to pass the course. Scheduling your exam: The final exam must proctored and it is your responsibility to make arrangements to schedule the exam. See Scheduling Your Final Exam. You may wish to use the resources at UNC Online to help locate a proctor in your area. The exam is closed book and closed notes, and you must complete it independently without help from anyone else. A strict time limit of ninety minutes will be enforced. Preparing for the final exam: All of the resources and activities assigned for lesson completion are designed to help you learn the material of the course. You are expected to use these resources to prepare for your final exam. Given that the exam is closed book and closed notes, it is critical to your success that you study for this exam in the same way you would study for an exam in a face to face class. Technical issues Computers can malfunction and Internet service can become unavailable. Have a contingency plan in place so that you are able to continue working on the course at your desired pace even if your usual computer and Internet access methods fall through. When taking a quiz or completing an assignment that is automatically graded on PsychPortal, it is always a good idea to make sure your grade appears in the Gradebook after submitting your work. If you have a technical problem with PsychPortal, always contact technical support first. If technical support cannot resolve the problem, contact me. You should keep a copy of all of your coursework on your hard drive and on a CD or flash drive. That way you will not have to redo an assignment if it does not transmit correctly. Make a note of my contact information so that you are able to contact me as necessary. Study Strategies and Resources An introductory psychology course covers a lot of material. Often, this can make the course much more difficult than the 1000 level course number might imply. There are two important keys to doing well in psychology and most other academic areas. First, you must be an active learner, not a passive sponge. Second, you must organize course information and understand how it all fits together. In order to remember information, you must actively process that information at more than a surface level. Listed below are three study don ts. These are study methods that rob you of the chance to process the information you are learning beyond a surface level. Don t study by simply trying to memorize material. It is easy to fool yourself into believing that you understand material when you actually don t. Don t cram for the exam. Engaging in many relatively short study sessions distributed over a period of time has been proven to aid memory better than engaging in one long study session just before an exam.
Don t confuse the amount of time you spend studying with the quality of your studying. It doesn t matter how many hours you spend studying if you don t understand what you are studying. Instead of doing these don ts, I suggest that you follow the study recommendations below. They are more likely to help you learn and remember course material. Following these suggestions requires a time investment, but it is time well spent, and it will pay off when you take your quizzes and exams. The earlier you begin to use these strategies, the better they will work for you. Read the Tips for Studying Psychology section at the end of Chapter 1, starting on page 29. Complete the assigned reading in your text. Read the assigned chapter and utilize the learning tools embedded in the textbook (described below). Review each chapter when studying for the final exam. Take the Diagnostic Quiz and use the Personalized Study Plan. Based on your quiz results, PsychPortal will create a Personalized Study Plan for you with recommendations for specific sections of the chapter and related study aids for you to review. You are not required to use your Personalized Study Plan, but it will guide you toward areas of the chapter that you need to review and study aids to help you learn that material. Answer the numbered Preview Questions at the start of new major topics in each chapter. These questions help you focus on the key information in each section. The answers can be found in the corresponding text material, and are summarized at the end of the chapter in the Review section. I suggest that you read a section and then attempt to answer the corresponding learning outcome questions. If you cannot answer a question or if you answer it incorrectly, then you know you did not fully grasp the material. You should then read the section again for better understanding. Take the Rehearse It quizzes at the end of major sections. These questions offer you the opportunity to review key ideas and practice the multiple choice test format. The answers are at the end of each Rehearse It section. Know the Key Terms (defined in the margins and the glossary), which are highlighted for ready reference. These key terms are the most important ones for you to understand. Read the Chapter Review section at the end of each chapter. This section summarizes the chapter material. Answer the Preview Questions presented along the way and list the key terms that are important to know. Read the Thinking Critically About and Close Up boxes, which help you develop your critical thinking skills and apply the new concepts. Try the Test for Success: Critical Thinking Exercises at the end of each chapter. They challenge you to think scientifically while reviewing the key concepts of the chapter. Suggestions for answering the questions can be found in Appendix D or by clicking Show Answer in the ebook. Read the Lesson Notes. Each lesson has notes that are designed to build on and reinforce your understanding of the material. Some of the information in the notes elaborates on material in the textbook, and some of it is new. The notes include questions to help you think critically about the material and relate it to your own life. Take the diagnostic quiz to check your initial understanding. These quizzes do not count toward your grade, but the Personalized Study Plan that is generated after you take the quiz
can help you identify areas that need further study. Complete the chapter assignments. As you read the Lesson Notes you will encounter self help activities (some of which are on PsychPortal) and graded activities (all on PsychPortal) to enhance your understanding of the material. The graded chapter assignments are designed to help you gain a deeper understanding of the course material. Completing the graded assignments will help you prepare for the mastery quiz. Take the mastery quiz. The mastery quizzes are designed to assess your knowledge of the material. Prepare for the mastery quizzes as you would prepare for a quiz in a face to face class. Utilize PsychPortal s study aids. In addition to the study aids listed in your Personalized Study Plan, there are additional resources available on PsychPortal to help you learn the material (flashcards, simulations, weblinks). Click on the Course Resources tab in the toolbar at the top of the homepage to find these resources under the heading PsychPortal Course Materials. These are also accessible at the end of each chapter in the ebook. I also make other study aids (such as PowerPoint presentations) available for each chapter in the Chapter Resources folder. Address learning objectives (create your own study guide). There are learning objectives posted for each chapter on our PsychPortal course under Course Resources in the respective chapter folders. Address each of these learning objectives to create your own study guide for the final exam, elaborating in detail for the areas identified as weak on the mastery quiz or that you still feel unsure about. I base exam questions on these learning objectives. Apply what you learn. Some exam questions require you to apply the concepts you have learned. If you have only memorized definitions without understanding how the concepts fit together and how they are applied, you may have a difficult time. To help you think more deeply about course content and how it can be applied, I offer the following suggestions: Come up with your own examples of the various concepts. This enhances your understanding and memory of the concepts. Include these examples in your study guide. Try to relate the concepts you ve learned to your own personal experiences. This also enhances your understanding and memory of the concepts. When possible, I ask questions in the Lesson Notes to help you think about how the material relates to you and your life. Include information about how the information relates to you in your study guide. Academic Policies Courtesy code Rules of common courtesy must be followed online. All interactions (email, postings on Forum) must be appropriate to the course and respectful of other individuals. When communicating in writing, we need to take more care than might be needed in conversing face to face. Please take a moment to re read your communications before submitting them; it is easy to write something carelessly that could be misunderstood or could be offensive. Academic integrity As a Self paced Courses Online student, you are responsible for obeying and supporting an honor
system that prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing in relation to the academic practices of constituent institutions of The University of North Carolina. The honor system also requires you to refrain from conduct that significantly impairs the welfare or the educational opportunities of others in the University community. An especially serious Honor Code violation is plagiarism. The UNC Chapel Hill Honor System has found that 90 percent of the cases brought to its attention involve plagiarism. Please take this Plagiarism Tutorial from UNC Libraries to help you understand how to avoid it. Course Outline The course schedule is up to you. You can complete the course in as few as twelve weeks or take as long as nine months. The important thing is to get a good start, then maintain your momentum. Begin by clicking the link for Lesson 1 in the left hand navigation bar. Lesson Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Lesson 7 Lesson 8 Lesson 9 Lesson 10 Lesson 11 Lesson 12 Final Exam Reading Assignment Chapter 1: Thinking Critically With Psychological Science Chapter 2: The Biology of Mind Chapter 3: Consciousness and the Two Trace Mind Chapter 5: Developing Through the Life Span Chapter 7: Learning Chapter 8: Memory Chapter 9: Thinking, Language, and Intelligence Chapter 11: Emotions, Stress, and Health Chapter 12: Personality Chapter 13: Psychological Disorders Chapter 14: Therapy Chapter 15: Social Psychology Schedule your supervised final exam. The University of North Carolina Send comments and questions to fridaycenter@unc.edu.