PY-201, General Psychology

Grand Rapids Community College

Fall, 2003

INSTRUCTOR: Frank L. Conner, Ph.D.

OFFICE: 310 Main

PHONE: (616) 234-3612

EMAIL: fconner@grcc.edu

HOME PAGE: web.grcc.edu/fconner

OFFICE HOURS: By Appointment

TEXT BOOK: Wood, S. E., Wood, E. G., & Boyd, D. (2004). Mastering the world of psychology.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Human behavior with respect to learning, motivation, emotion, intelligence, perception, personality, and human relations; psychological principles applied to life situations.

STUDENT OUTCOMES: Upon successful completion of the class, student will be able to:

EXPECTATIONS: This class requires a personal and social commitment to succeed. On a personal level, you are expected to ingest the readings prior to class. This suggests a thoughtful and critical approach to the material. Don’t just read the words, but search for the meaning within the body of the text and compare the authors worldly perspective to your own. You may want to consider some of the following questions along with the model for critical thinking introduced in the text book.

·        Does what they are saying align with my own way of knowing?

         Does it differ? If so, why?

·        Does it inform me about the world or my life in some way?

Does it have little value to me? If so, why is it important to the authors?

Reading the material in this manner implies that you will come to class prepared. Prepared means cognitively, physically, and emotionally. While all of us have bad days, to succeed in this class (as with college in general), you must commit your life as a whole toward doing the required work. Know yourself, all of us are different. Some of us come with more background knowledge, others require less sleep, some of us have children, others work, some of us are very confident, while for others this is their first experience in college. Take the time to understand what works best for you and arrange your life for success.

On a social level, as a community we will be creating new knowledge. What will happen in our class has never happened the same way in the past. We each bring different bits of knowledge, history, personality, and experience to our class which is situated in a specific culture and moment in time. All of this and more will affect how we construct our knowledge of psychology. Given this, we must honor the significant role our small community plays in the individual success of each student and the class as a whole. This will manifest itself the way we behave when interacting with each other. Part of this is respect for the diversity in the class while another part is a commitment to help the community succeed as well as the individual.

ATTENDANCE: To meet the expectations of the class you must attend class. There is a very high relationship between attendance and success in all college classes. You will not be fulfilling your personal and social obligations to this class if you are not in attendance. My assessment of your fulfillment of this obligation is integrated into the grading process.

If a class is cancelled for any reason, check my web site for information about future classes.

Use of telephones, pagers, audio players or other electronic devices that disrupt the learning process or teaching environment is prohibited in the classroom.

REQUIREMENTS

Quiz (9)

Quizzes are short factual tests. They are designed to assess your understanding of basic terms and concepts in psychology. Quizzes will be multiple choice, true-false, and fill in the blank.

Test (2)

Tests are more comprehensive, looking for both understanding and application. Tests will be two short answer questions in which you will need to apply a concept in psychology to an identified issue or problem. You will be given a bank of questions before the test from which the two test questions will be randomly selected.

Final Examination 

The final examination is a comprehensive assessment of your attainment of the student outcomes as identified at the beginning of this document. It will integrate the material from the quizzes and other factual information, along with two, written application questions.

Date of Final Examination: TUESDAY, December 16, 8:00am – 10:00am

Internet Exercise

The internet exercise requires you to access an on-line, psychologically related assessment instrument. You will take any one test and write a two-page paper describing the test you took, the results, and your personal interpretation of the results. A suggested web site for this exercise is http://www.queendom.com. You can access the internet at the GRCC library or any open computer lab. (See the paper guidelines below.)

Application Exercises (2)

The application exercises are two, two-page papers applying a concept introduced in the class to issues in the real world. One of these issues is anything reported in the media (television, newspaper, film, etc.). The second issue is something from your personal life.

Format

The format of this paper is to first introduce the issue. Provide sufficient detail such that a reader understands what the issue is without having preexisting knowledge or without having to read the source.

 

Once you have introduced the issue, introduce the psychological theory or concept you will use to interpret the issue. Again, provide enough detail so that a novice reader would have a sense of the theory.

 

Apply the psychological theory to the issue. This application should help the reader better understand the issue from a psychological perspective. (e.g. Why the person behaved the way he or she behaved. How this helps you understand your relationship with another person.)

 

Lastly, critique the applied theory or suggest another theory that may explain this phenomenon.

 

Paper Guidelines

The document must be typed. The document is to be two pages double spaced. Use standard 1” margins and a font size of 12.

 Team Work

Much of the work in this class will be done in teams. The assessment of your success in your team will come from a 10-minute communiqué (paper, presentation, skit, etc.) that answers the following question, “What has the team done to insure that every member has been successful in this class?”  The paper guidelines are the same as an application paper.

GRADING: Grades will be based upon the following scale:

"The above schedule and procedures in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances."