The SPOT (Winter, 2025) Part I

By popular demand for my...um, ones of followers! Here is feedback I received in my PSYCH 258: Cognitive Psychology course in Winter term. The SPOT tool asks for a lot of feedback, so below is a sampling of the responses I got. I have not edited them for clarity, spelling, or grammar at all.

⚠️ Warning! Some of my comments may contain sarcasm. My intent is not to belittle or humiliate anyone. (Of course, all of these comments are anonymous.) Sometimes student demands are impossible to fulfill, and that can be frustrating. Like getting comments of “course is too easy” and “course is too hard” for the same course. So I let off some steam via sarcasm. I think the world of my students--you are smart, hardworking people, and I highly respect that. But pleasing everyone is really, really hard.

Course Design

at times it was difficult to attain notes from the class if a class was missed due to outside reasons because although a discord was set up I wasn't able to access it for the duration of the course.

(I don’t understand why you weren’t able to access the Discord. I understand there was quite the thriving community of learning there.)

Getting to lectures is stressful because of the blanks in the notes when I need to ask questions in my other class before this one. I felt like it was mostly read off the slides and reading the notes was too complicated and hardly made sense going over them.

(“Stress” does not equal “bad”. Like eustress, which is actually good stress. Stress makes us focus on things. Like coming to class. Yes, I actually want students to come to lectures. As I have explained, the fill-in lecture notes style is my way of doing that. If you miss a word here or there, I’m happy to help you out with those at the end of class. I will not demoralize you or make you feel stupid, I promise.)

This course is my worst course, the access to notes, writings, and clarity is harder than average for a student, who by the way is working! The note packages he expects us to follow entirely through fill-in-the-blank, which is awful for missing one key detail and the concept's entire meaning. If you miss, you're EXPECTED to email classmates, but no one here wants to assist anyone and why would they? His exams are off-topic and don't have direct detail to what is taught in class and studying is a shotgun of textbook, textbook slides, the slides, and more than needed information. He emailsafter every exam what the top student did to improve their score, and its almost like saying "fuck you, do better", with emails stating talking in class is "frankly pissing him off", but back to my point of missing one part and trying to beg someone to give you information is absurd. - make the slides accessible - make the tests fair to what you test, contrasting the slides you teach in class. If I wanted to learn the entire textbook, slides, and more I wouldn't be in school asking some wanna-be professor for information. - he's unapproachable for questions, demoralizes you, and makes youfeel stupid for asking after class like I should already know it. - overall this class is awful, and you should look into a new scheme for it. - also what the hell, a minute per-question exam? what is this? My LSAT? give me time to read the question and debate on it, I've never taken full time for exams and I seem to be a part of the last 2/3 of this class finishing with 20 seconds left on the clock. It's not only me, more than half of this class is still writing at finish.

(Whoa, take a moment and touch grass. I want to address your concerns, and some errors.

• No, my exams don’t have “direct detail” questions because that’s just memorization. My exams assess a deeper understanding of the material, an approach that some students may not be familiar with.
• Yes, I share success strategies from the student who earned the top mark on every exam. Your reaction to this is truly sad; I am sorry for you.
• Yes, I posted a message about the egregiously rude behaviour of two students who had conversations that went on for the whole class time, several times. I posted the message because I got complaints from many students about this incredibly disruptive behaviour. You wouldn’t be one of the chatty people...would you?
• You don’t want to learn from a textbook--or  me--because that’s not why you’re in school? I’ve been teaching and reading about pedagogy for 30 years, but I guess I’ve been doing “school” wrong all this time. I realize that many first-year classes do not have required textbooks any more. But maybe they’re the ones that are doing school wrong.
• No, the end of the exams, 50-66% of the class were not still writing; about 10% of the class had not handed in their exams. This is typical of nearly every course I’ve taught in my career. Some students will just stay to the end, no matter how much time is given.
• No, the exams were not one minute per question. There were 45 questions in 50 minutes, so you actually got more time than previous classes, who actually did have 50 in 50. If you know and understand the material, that should be enough time. The questions are not long so there is not a lot of reading required. If you need accommodations (e.g., for more time), that’s a separate issue that is handled by the Academic Success Centre.)

The design of this course leaves much to be desired. The instructional materials could be significantly improved. The notes are visually outdated and lack engaging elements

(Some people say that books are outdated. But many people love reading books. Even books without “engaging elements” whatever those might be. Irrelevant pictures? Cartoons? Help me out here.)

I feel as though the course is designed in a way that is almost too straightforward compared to other psych classes. There is an overarching topic, and then there are studies talking about concepts. I would appreciate it if there was a shift in focus towards more explanation of concepts, rather than the studies used to conduct them.

(I feel you are missing the point of, y’know...science. Doing research studies is how we describe and explain phenomena. I wish I could tell you exactly why, say, people’s cognition follows the normative model instead of the descriptive model, but I don’t know. No one does. All we know is what we get from the results of research studies. That’s why the course is the way it is.)

The structure of each lecture feels very intentional and beneficial, no topic seems too rushed and the experiments used really enhance the learning experience.

I found that splitting the content 50/50 textbook and the lecture was smart. As doing so allowed me to elaborate and have other examples for the concepts learnt in class. However, putting it together for studying was a bit tedious. Overall it was good.

The course structure is well designed with relevant assignments following learning of content in lecture.

He encouraged reading the textbook by incorporating questions based on the textbook , it was a lot of work but I feel it really encouraged my learning

It is a very well designed course and I thorougly enjoyed it

(Thank you for your feedback! I’m glad the course worked for you.)

Course Resources

there are no interactive elements such as discussion boards, tutorial videos, or external links to enhance learning.

(But what about the, er, discussion board on eClass? What about the videos I posted on eClass? What about the web page of over 250 external links to websites relating to cognitive psychology? The uniquely interactive online textbook? You can see that I have a really hard time swallowing criticism when it is detached from reality.)

The textbook sometimes did not match up with the material in class and on exams.

there was alot of overlap between the textbook and the content presented in class.

(There’s never going to be complete overlap in any course--ever. There’s never going to be a complete difference between textbook and lectures in any course--ever.)

always think it is great when tophat is an option for the textbook material, as it has practice questions available, and the website is very user-friendly.

I found the textbook to be slow to load as there were so many additional resources (A.I assistant and retrieval questions), and not the most user friendly to navigate. Would not recommend using this text book again.

Tophat was very glitchy as and app and website

did not like the textbook, the site is not organized in a way to make it easily navigable by students. The AI integrated into the textbook was more of a hindrance then helpful. The questions the textbook provided were not helpful for studying as they were too easy.

Tophat textbook seemed entirely unneeded for this course, and the fact that 50% of material on exams are from an $80+ textbook is wild.

(Tophat was new; I wanted to try something different. Thanks for your feedback on it, it is valuable. What’s so “wild” about $80 for a textbook? Print textbooks go for around $200. When I was an undergrad, I paid around $80 per textbook, which is--calculate calculate calculate--$207.92 today. Did you want more exams questions from the textbook? Or fewer?)

the TA that graded my work took off marks for absolutely ridiculous reasons like not having the proper line on a graph, this was a common complaint and prof refused to do anything about it when asked.

(It was not the TA’s fault that you were deducted marks--this was in my marking guide. Graphs must have an X- and Y-axis. All required components for the graphs were specified in the labs document. I “refused to do anything about” this because it was a requirement.)

We spent 20 minutes just talking about the definition of a car/vehicle; considering that the course has so much content, I would prefer for that time to be spent covering actual content.

(But, see, see? You remembered that. That’s because of: active learning! Many students had a misconception that we worked through, which led to a deeper understanding. It worked!)

Dr. Loepelmann was constantly asking for our feedback, however he never actually took any of it into consideration. The whole semester he talked vert fast, barely projected his voice, and did not give us material to help prepare for our midterms or final exam. Being in his class made me feel very inhumane, as he barely even acknowledged us, he would start the lecture without even a simple "Hi."

(I asked about the pace of the lectures, and the vast majority said it was good. I also asked if I was loud enough, and again almost everyone said it was fine. And maybe you missed it, but I started every class with “Good morning!” Every. Single. Time.)

Course Delivery

In all, it was the sort of class where if you put in the effort, you did well.

Exams were on the harder side, but the questions were all fair and applicable and the difficult exams were made up for by the grading scheme of the class.

It required us to think beyond memorization.

The labs were graded very fairly.

Labs were straightforward with clear instructions, which I appreciated. I think a rubric would be more helpful and less ambiguous

Honestly one of the most engaging profs I've had (...I am a just first year student, but can confidently say Dr. Loepelmann has been one of the best). I've always looked forward to attending lectures, as Dr. Loepelmann covers the content very well, but also makes sure to sneak in a joke or funny comment to keep us all interested and listening. There have also always been some sort of little activities to get everyone actively participating. Dr. Loepelmann's delivery of the content, as well as overall lecture environment made the course one of my favorites this semester!

Dr. Loepelmann's tone is very enthusiastic and easy to follow. He is very knowledgeable and kind.

Made sure to ask if the speed if he was going was okay at the start of the semester, which was very helpful and admirable for communication sake.

His explanations of each concept was incredibly helpful, along with little activities to keep us engaged but also to help further understand the material being covered. All the videos he showed were also great in helping understand what we learned during lectures! Going off of that, the online labs were incredibly helpful but also very fun. All of the activities were fun to do, and even more interesting while analysing my results and applying content covered in lectures to explain the outcomes.

The strong focus on different actual studies allowed for many different examples of applications of the material, as well as the instructor's own examples and sometimes interactive demonstrations.

I really like his approach on teaching and how involved it is. The e polls are quite nice and I like how he does them immediately after we finish a topic. They aren't graded for marks, so I feel like I'm encouraged to learn from my mistakes in a stress free way. I really appreciate it.

An EXCELLENT instructor who stays focused on a research backed approach, and presents studies in a fun and understandable format.

Really liked the Professor's lectures. His mode of delivery was very engaging. He was also very nice to talk to during his office hours and gave me thorough feedback on my work when needed.

(I can't really come up with any snarky, sarcastic responses to any of this. That means I should just keep my mouth shut and say thanks.)

Class Climate

Often missed hands that were in the air to ask questions.

(If I missed hands, it’s because I didn’t see you. I wasn’t trying to ignore you. It’s a big classroom. It's kind of dark. I’m genuinely sorry!)

I’m not sure why it felt like the prof acted like he was better than us? It bothered me a lot.

(I'm not sure why, either. I don’t know what to make of claims like this. There’s no specific evidence or examples. Was it just a “vibe” you got? I don’t know what to do with that.)

The amount of talking that occurred during the first 3/4 of the semester was overwhelming and made class a really horrible experience. This is not necessarily the fault of the instructor but I feel that he should have done something about it much sooner. I honestly dreaded coming to class and felt exhausted afterwards due to the amount of talking that was going on and changing where I sat made no difference.

(Although I did eventually notice it, if it’s bothering you to this extent: let me know. I’m not so young anymore. I listed to a lot of loud 80s music. I cannot hear every whispered conversation in the classroom. Do not make the fundamental attribution error and assume that I’m not doing anything about it because that’s my personality and I don’t care. The fact that a very small number of people were so incredibly rude and wouldn’t stop made me honestly dread coming to this class, too. And that is a profoundly shitty feeling for an educator. I’m sorry for your experience.)

prof was so proud of himself when he was talking about tomato not being a vegetable when it literally is, a vegetable is defined as any plant that we eat

(That was a...joke. I was...joking. I know what a tomato is, and I know the difference between botanical and culinary categories.)

I appreciated that Dr. Loepelmann dealt with issues that arose in class (ie. students taking in class) and did maintain a proper and respectful classroom environment for learning.

have felt welcome in this class since the first day because of his joyous and funny spirit that he always brings to the classroom, I thoroughly enjoyed his class

The material was difficult, but I would absolutely listen to Dr. Loepelmann talk shop any day of the week. Very engaging and funny

Very supportive throughout the class and encouraged talking with peers, haven't needed to, but I believe he was pretty easy to reach if questions did come up. I actually ended up liking the class itself a lot more than I thought I would. It was like a breath of fresh air after having a lot of previous professors that would drawl on and on monotoned and uninterested. I went in thinking that he wouldn't be that good of a prof, but I ended up liking his style more than other professors I had previously.

Professor Loepelmann was absolutely hilarious, gave great examples, and made sure to have fun with us. He addressed problems very well and I would definitely take his class again.

Dr. Loepelmann created a casual and relaxed environment, while also maintaining respectful boundaries (I appreciated the email being sent out to address disruptive classmates during lectures to maintain expectations and a respectful space during lectures.) There were always little jokes being made that kept things feeling relaxed while learning, making the experience so much more enjoyable. It was an environment of mutual respect, and always feeling welcomed in classes. Thank you for the great semester!

(Right back atcha: thank you so much!)

The design and structure of the course is based on actual research of what makes for most effective learning, which I think is awesome.

The use of the interactive textbook allowed for good at-the-time practicing when going through the material, and the labs forced us to actually apply an active understanding of the material in order to complete. Overall, the distribution of resources supported learning well.

absolutely loved the examples you gave in class, always fresh and funny which helped my learning. Doing lots of the experiments we talked about with us was fantastic and lots of fun and knowledgeable as well.

(I put these comments at the end for a reason: they all mentioned the process of learning. Although I am gratified that so many of you find the course interesting, engaging, and fun, my main purpose is to facilitate learning. The thing is, learning is typically time consuming, effortful, and difficult. Whether or not you enjoyed the course, I hope you learned something about cognitive psychology. Best of luck in your future learning journeys!)

Why aren't you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2025 edition)

In these “Summer Vacation” posts, I’d like to show you the glamorous, amazing behind-the-scenes happenings in the world of a glamorous, handsome, and rich professor. Sadly, I can only show you the stuff going on in my life. Hey, it’s all I got. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I also strive to structure these posts around an interesting, unifying theme. Last year, it was (apparently) “doing something different”. This time, it’s supposedly “the working vacation”. Let’s see...

My family kicked off the summer by heading to tropical Hawaii. Ha ha, just kidding! Due to certain, ah, global circumstances, I am not comfortable traveling to any place that rhymes with “Shmunited Shmates”. Heck, I’m not even buying Hidden Valley® Ranch dressing anymore, because on the label it says that it’s made in the Shmunited Shmates. My decision is a deep cause of concern to my daughters, who consider Hidden Valley® Ranch dressing to be one of the essential food groups. (Seriously, one of them even dunks pizza in it.) Just buy Renée's dressings instead. 🍁

So, if not Hawaii, then what domestic destination is most similar to Hawaii? Vancouver. Yes, Vancouver. It’s been 18 years since we last visited, so it was time to spend some tourist money in Vancity.

We hit all the hotspots: the Museum of Anthropology!

The Raven and the First Men (Bill Reid, 1980)

The Bloedel Conservatory! The VanDusen Botanical Garden! And the utterly charming Shaughnessy Restaurant, located right in the garden. If you’re lucky, you’ll see hummingbirds right outside the window. (I’m not lucky.)

I overcame my fear of heights by being forced onto the Capilano suspension bridge!

Capilano suspension bridge: It's super wobbly! That means it's safe!

 

Granville Island! (Lee's Donuts FTW!)

 

Grouse Mountain! Perfect for those with a fear of heights!

They’re allowed to do cool stuff in Vancouver restaurants, like set off small nuclear explosions!

Osaka Teppanyaki!

Stanley Park! The Vancouver Aquarium! Horse-drawn tours! Canada Place!

Look how artistic this photo is!

And (not to brag) the airport parkade. (Sorry, no photos.)

This was the summer of two important cultural moments. One was the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws. It’s hard to understate just how big of an impact Jaws had when it was released. I got a Jaws-inspired shark joke book, and was the most popular kid in school for about a week, telling hilarious shark-themed jokes about people being killed in the most bloody, gruesome ways possible. (No, it wasn’t Jaws Jokes, it was 101 Shark Jokes, a much more hurriedly written book slapped together to make money off of the Jaws phenomenon as quickly as possible. Sample joke: “What hobby does a shark like? Anything it can sink its teeth into!” That passed a humour in the mid-1970s. I blame Watergate.)

To celebrate Jaws’ release, I bought the Blu-ray containing the documentaries: The Shark is Still Working, and the modestly titled but highly regarded The Making of Jaws. (The latter has a newly released sequel of sorts, made by the same director: Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story. Despite the title, it’s not as good as The Making of Jaws. Look how into Jaws I am: I even bought Shark Attack flavour ice cream! Made in Canada! It has blue raspberry (to symbolize the ocean) with grey vanilla ice cream (to symbolize the shark), and a raspberry swirl (to symbolize blood floating in the water). It's yummy, if you’re not at all squeamish about these sorts of things.

The other important cultural moment, for some reason (probably involving TikTok) was: Dubai chocolate. Yes, it’s good. But it’s not good enough for me to be on TikTok.

I took my youngest daughter to KDays where it was cloudy and drizzly, but that didn’t dampen our spirits. Thankfully, she’s not into terrifying rides that I’m sure are completely safe but nonetheless threaten to kill you the entire time.

So, it clearly seem that I have a dynamic and exciting life that most people could only dream of, I’m sure. But it’s not all fish-themed ice cream and exotic vacations. The painful reality is that (returning to my supposed “working vacation” theme) I spent the vast majority of the summer working. Those of you keenly interested in this behind-the-scenes blog will already have read my previous post on all the technology updates rolling out this year. I’ve been struggling mightily with all of the upgrades and replacements: Canvas, Microsoft Office 2024, Wooclap, Simplicity Accommodate, and Simple Syllabus.

How is the shift to this new and different technology going? Not well. Not at all. I’ve discovered bugs in Wooclap that no one has previously noticed. And I’m having so many problems with Office 2024, that the IST person who knows all the things about Microsoft actually told me (I’m not making this up): “I’m confused.” Brother, you and me both.

Dear readers and soon-to-be students in my classes, please be gentle. I know I’m going to struggle with technology this term. I’m going to mess things up. It’s going to be frustrating and confusing. I may break the classroom computer and have to wait for tech support to undo my mistakes. But maybe while we’re waiting for the technician to finish their repairs, I’ll read you some shark jokes. I have 101 of them.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Technology Updates

AI-generated image by Copilot

Teaching requires the use of a lot of technology. Not only am I comfortable with that, I like harnessing information technology in the service of teaching. Some aspects of it, though, are bothersome. Having tech crap out is the worst. It wastes time, is frustrating, and gets in the way of teaching and learning. I could write several blog posts on that. The other difficult aspect of technology is change. I’ve come to know the software that I use inside and out. That makes change hard.

Some software is constantly changing, which is bad enough. (Does even a week go by without yet another update to Google Chrome?) Sometimes I find myself in the ridiculous situation of using a browser to search for problems I’m having with that browser. Fortunately, major changes don’t occur frequently. Even better, I generally can choose what I want to use. Goodbye Google Chrome, hello Vivaldi!

But then there are the things that I have no control over. If the university decides to switch over to different cloud software, I have no choice but to figure out how to use it. But at least they’re not going to change everything, everywhere, all at once, right? Right?

I’m dreading the upcoming academic year. Five of the applications I use the most are being replaced or hugely updated. 

First, there’s the new LMS, Canvas, which is replacing trusty old (and outdated) eClass. Ah, eClass ole buddy, you crashed on me at the worst possible times. You were cranky, slow, and hard to figure out. I’m going to miss you as much as you’re going to miss me. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

I’ve already attended uncountable seminars/webinars/tutorials about Canvas. I’m doing an online course about Canvas that’s running on Canvas. I bought two books on using Canvas. Canvas, Canvas, CANVAS! Thoughts and prayers, people. I’m going to need all the help I can get. Apologies in advance for all of the screw-ups that are inevitably going to happen. Not if, but when. I'll have more to say about Canvas in the coming months, I'm sure.

Next, classroom computers have been running Microsoft Office 2016 since, um, 2016? Ten years is a long time for desktop software, although Microsoft has been releasing new features over the years. Now, all classrooms will have Office 2024. When classroom computers were upgraded to Office 2003, it broke almost all of my PowerPoints. So I’m going to be updating all of my computers to this new version and doing a lot of testing over the summer.

Since 1997, I’ve been creating my course documents (syllabi, assignment documents) using Microsoft Word. I know it inside and out, front and back, top to bottom. I could probably use Word with my eyes closed. My documents are highly structured and organized, I’ve finessed the fonts, and I apply best practices of information design throughout. And (I believe) my documents look pretty good--at least in comparison to some syllabi I’ve seen, which are butt-ugly. (Seriously, you can change the default font! It’s not hard!) So imagine my dismay to hear that we’re being strong-armed into using some garbage called “SimpleSyllabus” to create syllabi now. (I get a twitch in my left eye whenever anything is called “simple” or “simplicity”. You know if they have to call anything “simple” that it's going to be anything but.) It’s cloud-based (argh) and has built-in boilerplate text (all the fine print stuff). I hate it already. It’s probably going to ugly as sin. Can they fire me for not using this?

ePoll is the in-house polling software that you’re probably already familiar with here at the UofA. Remember? In your first-year classes? It, too, is also starting to show its age. (Hey, whoa! What’s wrong with showing one’s age? I’m not tryna be ageist here. I’m aging myself.) I have to do a two-screen dance when using ePoll with my phone and PowerPoints, mostly to show images, which ePoll can’t do. ePoll hasn’t been updated in a long time, it has awful usability, but I know how to use it. Again, with my eyes closed! So of course they’re going to replace it now. With a cloud-based (grr!) app called “WooClap” (ugh). I kid you not, that is actually what the crazy Belgians who created it have named it. (Maybe it means something different in Belgian?) I’ve been testing it this Spring term. I’m going to have to change everything about in-class polling now because of course. Not looking forward to that.

Lastly, the software platform used by the accommodation/proctoring office is being replaced. I’ve given them loads of usability feedback on the current platform, ClockWork, which was all promptly disregarded. Even though They. Asked. For It. If you ever see me walking around on campus with a grumpy face, now you know why. Over the past few months they have asked me (grr!) and other front-line teaching staff to step through a redesign process. What would a perfect system be able to do? What would it look like? I’ve gone to some seminars and meetings, putting in quite a few hours on this. I can’t wait to see what the replacement, Simplicity Accommodate, is like. (Oh look! It's got the word simplicity in the name!) I’ve volunteered to help them test this, but I’m still waiting for them to set that up. So far, nothing. Which is not a good sign.

(Another bonus update is the Library Services Platform change, including--but not limited to--a complete revamp of the interface. Why are they changing everything all at the same timeeeee? 😭😭😭)

If you see your instructors walking around with grumpy faces or twitchy eyes, one of the above changes--or maybe all of them all together--is probably what’s causing it. We’re all doing our best to learn and try these new systems (I’m going to be spending all summer, including my vacation time, doing my best to figure and test all of this new technology.) But there are going to be problems. For that, I’m apologizing in advance. Sorry!

At least a couple of things are not changing. Good ole GMail isn't being redesigned soon. And although the software I use to create multiple-choice exams (ExamView) has been replaced with a cloud-based (yes: awful) update, I am not going to use it, partly because it requires a subscription. I'm old-school enough that I feel paying to use software every year is a travesty. I've bought it once, I'm not going to keep buying it.

I'm willing to accept some change; it's inevitable. But it should be up to me to decide. If that means using a software tool last updated in 2017, so be it.

Why aren't you studying?

The SPOT (Fall, 2024) Part II

There were too many comments to fit into one blog post, so here are the remained from Fall, 2024 term. ⚠️Caution! Someone could have hacked this post an inserted snarky, sarcastic responses.

First up, PSYCH 367: Perception:

While Dr. Loepelmann was open to some questions there was more than one occasion where he was condesending to a question asked by a student. Also, have you seen his blog and his responses to student criticisms? https://whyarentyoustudying.blogspot.com/

(I wish you had given specific examples of me being condescending. Without knowing exactly how I offended you, I don’t know how to respond to this. I never set out to try and belittle a student, or be patronizing or arrogant. Miscommunication can occur in the sender, the medium, and the receiver. In other words, it’s not just me. If I came across as condescending in response to your question(s), I apologize fully and completely.

BTW, I have seen that website! It’s neat because it shows that he actually reads student feedback. It’s also clear that it’s impossible to make everyone happy, no matter how hard you try, and how good your intentions are. But OMG, his responses are so condescending. But he never, ever uses ad hominem arguments.

I’m wondering, are you drawing attention to my blog to try and get me in trouble with my boss, who reads all of your SPOT comments? LOL. He actually posts student comments on his website, too, and did that years before I even started this blog.)

It was a safe space to ask questions and Dr. Loepelmann was very responsive and on-the-ball for answering questions or fixing mistakes! One of my favourite profs of all time!

(See what I mean? I can’t possibly be both condescending on more than one occasion but simultaneously also be a safe space.)

Despite the mistakes in the textbook, I loved this textbook! It broke things down in an incredibly straightforward way, especially for a course that can get complicated. It used many examples, and the ISLE examples on top of everything to play around with and get hands-on experience with what certain illusions (for instance) looked like, were immensely inclusive.

make the textbook cheaper plz :,(

I didn't find the textbook to be overly helpful. Professor Loepelmann was honestly better at explaining the course material than the textbook was. For the first midterm I read the textbook and for the second midterm I did not. I scored about the same on both exams.

The textbook is very important in this course and has a lot of information that the lecture doesn't cover. Do I wish the lectures covered more stuff? Yes, ofc! But then again, I realize that there is simply not enough time to cover everything in the lectures alone. The books adds on to and compliments what's already talked about in the lectures.

The textbook was very helpful for my learning and reinforcing what we learned in class.

kindly provide a downloadable version of the textbook

(This was a new textbook that I was trying out this term. Thanks for the feedback. Sorry, but I don’t have a downloadable version of the textbook, and if I did I won’t break copyright law by giving it to you.)

I like the course theory but I honestly don’t care about the 29374783 studies that prove each theory and each studies problem

(I know, right? Well, that’s science for ya!)

Maybe just let the students that are being distracting know that they are and respectfully make them stop. For example there is this group who would always talk while he is explaining the epoll questions and it was incredibly hard to make sense of what he is saying. Or they'll just be making loud sounds while he is explaining the material. It is very annoying

Some people are very loud which distracts from my learning and affects my ability to focus on the instructor

(I don’t insist on absolute silence. And during ePoll questions, there is frequently chatter about the question. I’m fine with that, if it’s on-topic. If it was bothering you so much, you should have let me know before the end-of-term evaluations so that I could have addressed it.)

LOVED the fill in the blank notes! Anyone else who argues is silly. As someone who usually is frantically taking notes and unable to really pay attention to the content because I am trying to write down as much as possible, this helped me develop a baseline so I could actually listen and absorb what you had to say. Then, if there is anything that I wanted to write more about to clarify, I could.

(Shockingly, in this class not a SINGLE person complained about the fill-in-the-blank notes. This may be a first.)

Thanks for giving us an actual break during reading week!

(I have a bit of a beef with this. Not with the comment, but with instructors who make assignments due on weekends or during reading week. What’s up with that? My promise to you is that I will never do that. Never have, never will.)

Highlight the words on the slides that are fill in the blanks in the student slides

(Yes, yes, I know. Here’s my story on that. I did this once years ago, but the class became so noisy and chatty that I had to threaten to walk out of the class. That’s the one and only time I’ve ever had to do that. Things are way better now (take that, students-were-better-in-the-olden-days trope!) so I am starting to do this. When I do it, though, I carefully review whether it’s even necessary or logical to have a particular blank. So it’s taking me a while, as I have to review every single lecture in detail. Thanks for the suggestion.)

Professor Loepelmann seemed to enjoy tricking students with his ePoll questions. I understand that the motive is to get students to apply the course content instead of just recalling it, but it lead me to constantly second guess my answers. I 100% agree with the ePoll questions at the end of each chapter, but making them tricky and complicated can effect a student's confidence in knowing the course material.

(You’re right, I do and I admit it! I want the questions to be tricky and challenging; I want them to show you what you think you know but maybe actually don’t. The ePoll questions are not there to stroke your ego and show you how smart you are, but to facilitate learning. You don’t learn much from things that you get right--you learn from things that you get wrong. I create these questions intentionally and use them in ePolls, which are very low-stake assessments: they’re only worth participation marks. Better you find out what you don’t understand before an exam than during one!)

I liked the labs, they were fun and engaging!

I really enjoyed having the lab components! They all were simple to follow, and you provided us with several resources and links to learn how to do things like make a graph if we still needed to learn how.

I honestly really enjoyed the lab assignments, some of the questions were more critical thinking based. I enjoyed the fact that I got to think outside of the box!

The online labs were instructional and reinforced my learning without being overly difficult and adding stress to the semester.

I ejoyed that the labs forced you to look at concepts in ways that we might not have considered.

The labs were easy to follow and feedback was useful if I am being honest the labs could be longer for better review of material.

The online labs were instructional and reinforced my learning without being overly difficult and adding stress to the semester.

I prefer to have more assessments that are worth less. For example, have 8 labs but only take the top 6 marks. This also gives students a opportunity to replace a bad lab grade.

i don't understand some of the lab questions or maybe they don't understand me

(It’s a lot of work to find free websites that actually tie into course content and create labs that are resistant to answering by AI chatbots. Thanks. I’m not a big fan of making students do work that may not count toward their final grade. Then there’ also the increased marking burden. The mean on the labs was 83% (A-), so that’s pretty great overall.)

The first midterm was incredibly difficult, the second one was more reflective of what we had learned and the course material.

once again the exams were poorly written.

could see how carefully crafted each question was and I appreciated any changes to the exam that may have been super confusing (ex. taking out that one question since so many people got it wrong).

(The complexity of the material being tested does vary within the course.)

The instructor was wonderful and funny!

I'm so glad that you took a course that gives you the ability to include lots of photos and video examples and included them into your lecture content!

Dr. Loepelmann always used extra resources to help us understand concept and theories better, which I was a very big fan of. Even though theories might be hard to remember outright, the extra resources used in class like the different videos/gifs/jokes helped us understand and remember them better.

The biggest thing that helped my learning in class was the videos/examples in each topic because it made the topic much more memorable when I looked back on my notes.

As a more visual learner, I really appreciated the amount of videos shown throughout our lectures. I would like more links to suggested YouTube videos that will help supplement my learning.

(I have a unique opportunity in a perception class to present unique stimuli. I hope you also enjoyed the mini candy canes that I gave out as an example of a “cool” taste illusion. And thank you again for the kind and generous gifts of chocolate that you gave to me!)

I loved how it felt like the prof was telling a story in each class that really helped with the flow of logic

I enjoyed the lectures. Getting used to balancing textbook content took a bit of time as my previous classes did not make use of the textbook much if at all. The division between tested readings and lecture content was fair.

Excellent lecturer Funny, very engaging and enthusiastic which makes class fun and the content more easy to digest Fair late policy Helpful in answering questions Makes fair exam adjustments

This Professor knows how to teach and is good at it. The course content is complicated, and I think I would struggle no matter who was instructing, and I think he did a good job.

I found your lectures to be the most engaging of all of my classes.

(Thank you. Here’s feedback from PSYCH 494: Human Factors & Ergonomics:)

Dr. Lopelmann's mini circular curriculum provided excellent scaffolding.

(Not many people notice that.)

The textbook for the course just felt a little lost in the overall class. Norman's book was relevant for the first part and then after a while it just kind of disappeared and we never talked about it after the midterm. I read it for the midterm and then after I never touched it again because all of a sudden we started talking about disaster analysis which somehow fit into this class for some reason. Not at all what I thought I would be learning about in an ergonomics class. The book did not help for this part which is why I say it kind of got lost in the overall content after a while.

(I only assigned readings from the book in the first half of the course. There are a few chapters that are just not relevant, so it didn’t make sense to have you read them. Yup, understanding large-scale technological failures is an important part of human factors, if not physical ergonomics.)

He also then complains about how much marking he has to dobut there is a TA in this class and maybe if he didn't make us write this huge term paper where the minimum is 12 pages he would save some marking time by using smaller and easier to complete assignments

(Correction: there was no TA assigned to this course, and there hasn’t been one since 2017. I beg and plead just to get a marker for the applied project paper, but everything else is all me. Having a minimum 12-page term paper is absolutely appropriate for a 400-level course. My requirement used to be a minimum of 15 pages, which is what it commonly used to be pre-Internet. Now, you have access to all of the materials you need online, slick word processors, and all the Google; it's easier now than ever before. Some other instructors have their TA mark the term paper, which I do not think is right. Also, many profs cap the size of their class way below the 30 that I have. Yes, the marking is enormous, but I strive to give you detailed, accurate, elaborate feedback on your term paper to help you improve as a writer.)

Dr. Loepelmann provided excellent feedback, and so did his TA! I appreciated the high standards set for the assignment, and how the grades were set up to enable this feedback without tanking our grades. I saw this as an opportunity to challenge myself in an environment with a safety net when I looked at the syllabus, but I don't think all students caught onto this, and I think it maybe caused them some anxiety when they got their midterm grades back. I think highlighting this opportunity may be helpful.

Dr. Loepelmann's delivery of the course is and has been an absolute delight. His engagement with the class was always inclusive and highly interactive, and always left a smile on my face, while still maintaining a focus on the major points that we had to cover in class.

Notes, videos, readings and lectures all provided good info, enabling nuanced understanding and strengthened learning through requiring synthesis. The Syllabus and course website made following the schedule easy.

I really appreciated how easy the access to the notes were, and the format of the notes themselves. Having them provided before the class allows me to look at the concepts before and tie them to the readings. The fill in the blank was nice as well as I don't have to worry about taking a bunch of notes down while trying to listen, but rather worked as checks to keep me focused, and writing in the important terms helped me remember them.

Thank you for making coming to class consistently enjoyable. Your passion shows through, and has greatly inspired my passion for academia. classmates seemed

(Thanks to everyone for taking the time to give me their feedback: good, bad, or ugly!)

Why aren’t you studying

The SPOT (Fall, 2024) Part I

I asked for a lot of feedback in PSYCH 258: Cognitive Psychology in Fall term because I was using a new textbook so this one’s gonna be extra long--I got 13 pages of feedback comments. Here are some carefully selected ones. And ya know what? There may be some degree of sarcasm contained in my responses. Ya never know.

Kinda hated the whole second website thing for the extra steps that the students have to do.

(The extra step of clicking a link? That's nothing! You should see all the extra time and effort it takes me to maintain that whole second website! I hate that! Boo! Boo I say!.)

The discrepancy between the layout of the professor's fill-in-the-blank notes and the textbook was quite confusing, making it harder to know what information was important to learn for the exams.

(I literally rewrote all of my lecture notes over the summer during my holiday time so that they would match the chapters in the textbook. No, I didn’t lecture on every single thing in the textbook. Does anyone? Plus, sometimes learning is hard; it is effortful. That doesn’t mean it’s not working; in fact, the opposite is true.)

The textbook is expensive and it is impossible to get a good grade (above 60%) without it.

If the professor wanted to take at least 50% of the exam questions and lab readings from textbook-only materials, he should have had the tuition cover the textbook fee as well, rather than forcing students to purchase an expensive subscription to an online textbook. I should be using a textbook as a supplementary tool to help me understand lecture materials, not to learn new materials that the professor did not cover or mention during classes.

Not a fan of all the required readings, majority of which were in an online resource that cost 60+$, however if I didn't pay the money for it, I would be at a disadvantage on exams were part of the questions came directly from readings which weren't covered in class.

I just hate how the textbook was a big part of this class. It was so inconvenient.

Awesome textbook -- really appreciate the integrated practice questions

(As usual, I get a lot of complaints about having a required textbook. Firstly, not to put too fine a point on it: you signed up for this course. I can only assume that means you want to learn about cognitive psychology. So I want to do the best possible job teaching that. I can only present a very limited amount of the breadth and depth of the field in lectures. Textbooks provide a valuable second perspective on things. Please don’t ask me to teach everything that’s in the textbook. That is literally impossible--and would not be enjoyable for anyone.

But I get it: a textbook means that more work, time, effort, and “inconvenience” is required. If I didn’t have a textbook, boom, less work! But I think some students don’t consider why I have a textbook at all. To make your life harder? To make the course harder? Why on earth would I do that?

Could it be that there is some value in, say, reading a textbook? Maybe…developing your skill in reading long-form text? This is, after all, how psychologists communicate with each other. Research studies are written up into papers that are published as articles. Improving your ability to read complex material like a textbook is a scaffolding to reading actual scientific journal articles. This is something you will certainly do in higher-level courses. Do you just want your first experience reading about psychology to be an incredibly complicated, dense, technical article? You’ll probably look back and be pissed off that no one helped you get to this point.

Most university-level courses require a textbook, especially science courses (French et al., 2015); OnCampusResearch has found that the majority of faculty require some kind of learning materials. This means that I am not an outlier.

The online textbook costs $83.50. This is one of the costs of attending university. It’s nothing new or different. I told you in the first class that if you are not able to afford that, you should talk to me and I’ll work something out. Exactly one person took me up on this offer. I was able to give them a free access code to the textbook. I know that textbook are expensive; I have been sensitive to this for a long, long time. (Check out this post from 2013). The print textbooks that I used to use in this course costs over $200 for the print edition; the ebook is $75. I wanted to try something different and hopefully better when I switched to my current choice, TopHat. It includes an AI tutor, and dozens and dozens of interactive questions based on textbook content. (Retrieval practice FTW!) It’s also written at a lower level (read: easier) than the previous textbook, and it’s also shorter. I figured it was worth a try. I do not take these decisions lightly.

Maybe we should consider the counterfactual. That is, what if I did not have a required textbook? My exams would still be the same number of questions. Now I would have to drawn on more and more obscure and less and less relevant material as a basis for my exam questions. In other words, the exam would get harder. I don’t think anyone is asking for that--but that’s what the result would be.

I could (and probably should) also bring up the fact that I have oodles of data on the multiple-choice questions I use on my exams (point-biserial correlation, anyone?). If I have to write a bunch of new exam questions, I don’t have any data on them. They may be especially difficult (newly written exam question tend to start out being too difficult, as opposed to too easy). Again, I know that no one wants to take a course in which the exams may be unreasonably hard (i.e., low averages).)

The tests were hard. I would not say they were unfair, but I get why the cutoff for an A in this class is so low.

The tests are difficult relative to Farley or any other instructor’s class, but it’s scaled accordingly such that an 83 is an A. That’s pretty fair. Loepelmann’s classes are for learning, not GPA padding, and despite the rigor I’m always pleased to retain more applicable knowledge.

The exams seemed far to hard for the students. The average was constantly in the 60’s. To compansate for this the grading scale was pushed down so far. Anything above a 87 was an A+.

Tests were difficult but fair. I think if you put in the study time, it is possible to do really well on them.

The exams helped me realize that I needed to change my studying strategies for this course.

I felt like Obi-Wan taking on a Sith Lord while writing the midterm exams. That may be a slight over exaggeration but what I am implying by saying that was that they felt challenging but in a satisfying way that really encouraged me to carefully think through the different possible answers instead of purely relying on rote memorization and regurgitating information.

(In the emergency remote teaching and learning during Covid, I restructured all of my exams according to best practices. I pared down the basic memorization questions and replaced them with more challenging application and conceptual questions. Yes, the exams are hard. They’re supposed to be. I’m teaching at one of the top-five universities in Canada. Should the exams be easy? (Have you had a lot of easy exams in your courses so far?) The exams are designed and structured to increase your learning. They do take effort to prepare for, and to write. But, fittingly, in this course I am giving you the tools you need to success: retrieval practice, spaced learning, interleaving, elaboration, generation, context effects. In this very class over 20% of students got a mark in the A-range. Less than 3% got an F (and that includes four students who just did not write the final exam).

Yes, I have adjusted the grade boundaries to ensure that my challenging exams are not punitive in terms of grades. You can get a D with a total of 40%. You can get an A-range grade with a weighted mean of 79%. You’re welcome.

You have much to learn, my young apprentice.)

I don't enjoy being tested on both the textbook and the lectures equally. Essentially this means that there isn't enough time to cover all the material in class, so the student has to learn the other portion by themselves, which takes up more time than is fair for this course.

Requiring a $80 textbook to be tested 50% on top of paying $800 for the course is extremely financially unfair.

(You’ve literally made me look up a definition for the word “fair”. Here it is: “based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice; kind, considerate, or reasonable.” You don’t enjoy being tested. My friend, here’s a secret: No One Does. Would the exam have been a joyful delight if it had tested on the lectures alone? And I’m sorry that tuition costs as much as it does. If tuition is high, there are a number of reasons for that. The UofA spends has a disproportionately high amount on salaries for administration, at the expense of paying front-line staff. (Faculty salaries at the UofA are at the rock bottom of the U15 comparators.) But I do what I can: I vote in every provincial election. The UCP government has choked off funding since 2019 to the tune of $222 million and counting. So: I’m sorry about the tuition thing. One of my kids is in a post-secondary institution and another will be soon; I feel your pain.

But am I being “unfair”? Unreasonable? Inconsiderate? Unkind? What if I make you buy an $80 textbook and it was tested only 10%--is that unfair? What if it were 90%? Then you’d say that the lectures are not worth it for the money you’re paying. You may not like the way things are, but they are not “unfair.”)

I also found it astounding that a textbook I paid $80 could be filled with so many typos and errors. As someone who is not in Psychology it begs the question of how many content errors there were that I didn't notice if they couldn't catch these typos.

(I really hate to be a pedantic ass, but a leopard cannot change its spots. It’s actually “raises” the question, not “begs” the question; here's an explanation by an actual book editor. Anywho, I agree with you completely. I mean, I give out a toonie for each error that a student finds. That book has nearly four dozen errors. That’s expensive for me, and embarrassing for the publisher. At least with this online textbook I can go in and make changes to almost everything, but still. My evaluation of the textbook is ongoing, and this factors into it prominently.)

Wish expectations were set more clearly for first midterm

(Like, what exactly? I told you how much time you would get; how many questions there were; that there was a 50/50 split between textbook and lecture; that I don’t favour memorization/name/date questions; and that the number of questions was proportional to the length of the corresponding lectures/chapters. The textbook contains embedded questions, and I did dozens of ePoll questions in class to direct your attention to important concepts. What, exactly, are you looking for? What was unclear or vague?)

It's preferable to not have a final exam on the whole course, which is hard and overwhelming with the lectures in class and the chapters of the book, and if that's the case, we should at least have access to a cheat sheet on the final exam.

(It’s preferable to get an automatic A+ without attending class, reading a textbook, or writing exams at all. But here we are.)

I think the labs could have been slightly more challenging.

The labs though? a bit insane. They are described to take "10 minutes of your time, they are not that hard" and then half the class struggles with them.

The online labs were marked hard. The TA's seemed to take off marks for things not included in the rubric and not stated clearly enough. There should really be a way to discuss with the professor or make it known if we are allowed to ask the TA's about the marks dropped. They were also not helpful during midterm reviews.

The labs were fun and really helped my understanding of some of the concepts.

(What’s wrong with struggling? That’s learning: “Embrace the struggle.”

Here’s some objective data on the difficulty of the labs: the class mean was 78.5%. Over 13% of students in the class skipped doing one or more of the labs. So, if they had actually attempted them--even if they ended up doing poorly--the mean would be even higher, as it currently assigns a zero to missing labs. In my grading breakdown, 78.5% corresponds to A-. I don’t think that’s too low; the labs are increasing the grade of the vast majority of the class.

Um, yes, you can discuss things with me. There’s email, my weekly office hours, or talking with me after class. I am working on a comprehensive Teaching Assistant Manual than will help TAs be better prepared for exam viewings, and give better feedback on assignments. It’s just taking a really long time to write.)

I especially found ePolls to be beneficial and engaging, with explanations as to why each option was either correct, not fully applicable, or wrong, being given, further aiding in my deep understanding of course content.

(It’s good to hear that you see value in them.)

I felt that the assessments in the course served no purpose.

(I’m sorry--what? Exams, assignments, ePolls all…pointless? Really? FYI, they are how I assign final grades. Hope this clears that up.)

need midterms worth less

(No problem, I’ll just make the final worth more. Thanks for your feedback!)

[...] felt that the 133 pages of Google docs notes + the entire textbook is a bit excessive and think there could be some cutting down of the unnecessary material

(First, not the entire textbook. I did not assign the chapter on language. But what is unnecessary? It really hurt to cut out that chapter. I do feel it’s valuable. Those who go on to take higher-level courses on psycholinguistics or the psychology of language may be at a disadvantage. I actually have less content in my course now than I did six years ago: I had to cut a bunch of things out to make time for ePolls. As for what's left, again, what is "unnecessary"? Maybe material that doesn't overlap with the textbook. But I guarantee you, you don't want me to just lecture directly out of the textbook. What's the point of that?)

The lab due dates were spread out a few weeks apart from each other which gave plenty of time to complete them. The instructor was always well-prepared and started class promptly at the top of the hour. There was never a single occasion of there ever being a time where there was an extended period of silence or the Professor being flustered or incapable of explaining something. The ePolls presented at the end of every major topic kept motivation high and helped people stay present and attentive during lectures.

Karsten is an entertaining and excellent lecturer.

It was great! So fun I love all the in class examples/mini experiments!

Great lectures, I genuinely enjoyed them, some of the material was boring but he does try to keep the class engaged with jokes!

Love his classes and teaching style, sometimes moves in too quickly in slides

His genuine interest for the material was contagious. He’s also very witty and it’s just really mentally stimulating/lighthearted fun to attend class.

I appreciate the professor asking the student with the highest mark to give advice on studying, however I feel like there wasn't enough review and the style of note taking is very specific and may not work for everyone.

The single best prof I have had at U of A. Brilliant engagement with students, excellent comedic timing and so good at answering questions and maintaining student attention. I don't know how much Dr. Loepelmann makes, but he needs a raise. Also answered emails so fast and so thoroughly. Seriously, outstanding instructor!!!

Dr. Loepelmann is the greatest prof I have every had. He is so confident in the things he's teaching. His lectures are incredibly engaging and feels well planned and thought out. Very often profs feel like they just are reading from the slides. It never feels like he is just reading from the slides. I hope he gets to read this because he should be very proud of the effort that he has put into teaching. You can feel how much he cares in how organized and excited he is to teach this material. Thank you for being you Dr. Loepelmann!!

I really enjoyed being part of Professor Loepelmann's course this semester! He is a really amazing teacher and I find that he is very easy to listen to (which is surprisingly difficult to find). He explains things really well, allows us to do interactive activities in lecture, and has a great sense of humour. I always look forward to his lectures.

No surprises here. This is my second course with this instructor and will not be my last. His use of labs, tests, epolls, as well as the examples he puts together for lectures are so well done, it's rare that I don't understand a concept once he's explained it.

Professor Loepelmann is very diligent at answers questions and giving additional feedback when necessary. With the class sizes he instructs, this is impressive feat.

Approachable during office hours, and by email (even on weekends). Thank you!

He always answers my emails/questions with depth, even if the questions are a bit abstract and not directly in the course material. I enjoyed learning from him a lot. I’ve also noticed that whenever my peers ask questions, if he doesn’t know something, he acknowledges that and then will answer the question later in a discussion post on EClass. Just overall very respectful and level-headed—many professors get a complex when they don’t know something/make students feel out of place for asking a question that may go beyond course material. He’s very good at fostering intellectual curiosity.

Your method of teaching is absolutely amazing. I took a course with you last year, and am taking one with you next semester as well! Your way of teaching is incredibly insightful and you are clearly very knowledgeable in this field. My only suggestion, and I do not know if this is even applicable, is I think you would benefit from understanding the neuroanatomy and chemistry behind the field. Essentially, explaining the science behind why the brain works the way it does would be greatly beneficial to you as a professor and your students. Note that I am not saying you don't know theyinformation - I am just saying to include it in class more.

(Thanks for all the kind words and suggestions. I made the deliberate choice to teach this course based on a traditional approach to cognitive psychology. I have to be careful not to overlap too much with our PSYCH 375: Cognitive Neuroscience course.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Overload

Information Overload! (Copilot AI)

In university-speak, "teaching overload" means going over the normal course load. For me, normal is three courses per term. This Winter, though, I'm teaching a staggering four courses. Why would I do such a thing?

On the first day of classes in January, a TIME CRITICAL email went out to psychology instructors. Okay, this is not normal. Things generally move at the pace of maple syrup in winter. So this got my attention immediately.

A bunch of things came together in the worst possible way. One instructor had to drop their teaching due to medical reasons. (Best wishes for a speedy recovery!) And then there was some...miscommunication about a few other courses. Wired were crossed. Emails were misplaced. And suddenly, the Department of Psychology had cancelled a bunch of courses. This is not taken lightly, as it has an enormous impact on students--and to do this on the first day of classes is a special kind of nightmare.

The email from the Associate Chair of the Undergraduate Program contained a plea to instructors--especially of 400-level courses--to open them up to more students, if possible. Sometimes, there's nothing that can be done about this. The room can't hold any more bodies. Or the instructor is at the limit of how many exams/papers/assignments they can mark. The email also asked if anyone could spin up a 400-level course and teach it at the last minute.

I wasn't able to add any students to my classes, unfortunately. I wasn't teaching my PSYCH 494: Human Factors and Ergonomics course in Winter term. I've been teaching it every Fall and Winter term (and even some Spring/Summer terms) since 1997. I wanted a break from the immense load of marking the exams and term papers. It takes me two full weeks of more than full-time work to mark term papers. That means, every year, I spend 2+2=4 weeks of doing almost nothing but eating, sleeping, and marking term papers. That's a whole month's worth of time. And I've been doing that since 1997. A break would be nice. But...

But I felt...responsible. As a longtime member of the Department of Psychology, I thought this situation reflected really poorly on us. And I felt really bad for the students who were planning on graduating after this term, only to have courses cancelled out from under them. So I offered to teach my PSYCH 494 course on literally one day's notice--under one condition. I asked for teaching overload.

If I teach four courses in one term, the usual way that I get "paid back" is that I will teach one fewer course in a future term. But this time, I wanted to be paid by...getting paid. That is, getting paid the equivalent rate of one course. This request had to go way, way above my pay grade, but was finally approved. Look, I don't want time off. I wouldn't know what to do with it. And considering that I haven't had any substantial increase in pay in over 10 years (yes, read that again: it has been that long despite whopping increases in inflation), I honestly need the money.

So I spun up my new course, spending 8 hours straight writing an updated syllabus, assignment documents, and setting up eClass--and waited for students to flood in. It turns out, many other instructors had somehow raised the caps on their courses, which accommodated a lot of the need. But still: I got a small but very enthusiastic band of students.

This course is designed for ~30 students. I haven't taught a course of less than 10 students in over 24 years. Usually, courses with less than 10 undergrads are cancelled. (Yikes!) But this was a special case, so it was granted an exception.

It's been a different experience. Pretty fun, actually. With so few people in the room, I don't have to use my Professor voice, but can talk more naturally. I end up not being completely exhausted at the end of class, which is nice. And the marking load won't eat up two weeks of my life.

However, I still need some time away from this course. So I won't be teaching it in Winter term of 2026. No! Don't ask! Unless...how much extra will I be paid...?

Why aren't you studying?

The SPOT (Spring, 2024)

Working my way through my backlog of SPOTs, I now come to Spring, 2024. Months ago, I read these comments and highlighted which ones I want to address here. But it's a slog to copy and paste them here and then reformat everything. (People, Blogger sucks. Out of all of Google's products, it's gotten the least amount of love. It has not changed anything since I started to use it in 2008.) I have to switch to HTML view and hand-edit the mangled garbage that the Blogger editor barfs up. I need to find something better.

I got a really high response rate in this class (96.4%). That's abnormal. If you're lucky, you get over 70%. So how did I convince almost the entire class to do the SPOTs? Everyone got a bonus mark if a certain percentage of the class did the SPOT surveys. I don't know who does or doesn't do the SPOTs; I just have access to a running total of the class. Occasionally, students claim that I don't care about feedback and am not open to change. That is false. I go to great lengths to get feedback from as many students as possible--good, bad, or ugly (comments, not students).

On to the comments from PSYCH 258: Cognitive Psychology! (Trigger warning: there may be sarcasm ahead. You have been warned!)

"Lots of information packed into a small time frame but that’s unavoidable."
"The general course quality is challenging but because of Professor Loepelmann’s efforts and interest in the course he teaches, it is challenging and stressful but in an intellectually interesting way. It is quite heavy in textbook readings and content memorization, but not impossible to excel in the course.The heaviness of the workload when preparing for exams makes the course quality stressful."

(Please, spread the word on this. Students sign up for a Spring term course, and they don't realize how much has to be packed into six weeks. Its. A. Lot. You are going to have to work hard.)

"We pay for the whole course so I do think its an instructor's job to cover all course content that are testable in the exam. Its a spring course and there is already too much to cover. Even he barely covered the topics right before the exam days. So to expect us to study everything he teaches in class and the textbook feels not right because if we can just teach ourselves why are we paying for the course? P.S lecture and textbook has a good chunk of non-overlapping content."

"Base exam questions more on lecture content than textbook material"

"put more content from the textbooks to the lecture, slower"

"It's OK. There's a lot of material at a fairly surface level making it difficult to fully grasp, especially in the 6 weeks. It feels very fast and like the value for my money isn't there because of it."

"No textbook-specific questions. If I wanted to learn by myself, I would have gone to Athabasca"

"I understand why he wants us to read the textbook but I don’t really like it. But that’s ok I guess, not everything in this world you’re going to like."

(I don't particularly like the 'paying customer' trope. It's my course; I am the subject-matter expert; I have extensive knowledge of pedagogy. So I have decided to have a required textbook. The textbook is a part of the course. Period. I know it's more work: I went to university for 10 years. Every course I took had either a textbook or an extensive coursepack. Every. Single Course. You took this course because you wanted to learn about cognitive psychology--at least, that's my presumption. Being able to read long-form text is a skill. I am helping you to develop that skill. This is how science works: we (mostly) communicate with the written word.)

(This one student made the same comment about "Athabasca" (Athabasca University) over and over. What do you expect from me? To be spoon-fed content? Part of university is putting in the work required, and part of that is reading a textbook. I know that many instructors are removing required textbooks from their courses. I (and many others) feel that they are not best serving their students. This is what's driving my decision: I'm not being a dick. I'm not trying to punish anyone. I'm not getting kickbacks from publishers. I 👏🏼 am 👏🏼 trying 👏🏼 to 👏🏼 help 👏🏼 you. Check out this story in the Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books. Would you take a course on Shakespeare expecting to...not read Shakespeare?)

"maybe on the first day give guidance on how to read textbooks properly, i think a lot of us struggled with that. Due to experience from other courses, we all know how to approach lectures. But reading the textbook is something not all of us are really familiar with."

(I hate being right so much. See? This is what I'm talking about. At least this person had some insight. I actually don't think it's my job to teach anyone how to read a textbook. But what I have done is put together some resources that will help guide you, including--sigh--a YouTube video.)

"I do not think that the course needs improvement."

(That's nice, but check out the comment below.)

"We have midterms on Fridays. I think it would be better to have them on the following Monday and learn new information that won’t be on the midterm on the original midterm day of Friday. Having the weekend to study would definitely benefit everyone."

(This was great feedback that a lot of people gave. This upcoming Spring term, I've asked student if they would prefer the exams to be moved to Mondays. I'll see how the marks go. Thanks for the suggestion.)

"Instead of epolls, may I suggest Kahoot? Also,I suggest make the difficulty level of the chapter quizzes match the difficulty level of the midterm exams."

(No, you may not. Because it would cost me over $500 per year to run Kahoot. I have no control over the chapter quizzes; they're written by the same people who write the textbook questions. It's usually not the questions that are different, it is because you are not writing chapter quizzes under the same conditions as an exam.)

"The one thing I would say is that in lecture, the hierarchical organization of concepts does not always read as such, which can be confusing when trying to determine the relationships of the information we're learning. For example, occasionally in the slides it is unclear that a subsequent concept (ie. functional fixedness) is a subtype of a previous one (ie. mental set) and not a separate one. Or, the following concepts are the levels/components of a broader concept (ie. tri-level hypothesis). That one may have just been me being an idiot BUT I can assure you I am paying attention and not missing any classes/information."

(You are not an idiot. This is wonderfully specific, concrete information that I have used to restructure how I presented the information described, but I also spent hours last summer going over every single PowerPoint slide to enhance their clarity. Thank you for such great feedback. This is the kind of specific information that I need!)

"give us a way to get the blanks if we missed a lecture"

(Like the class Discord server? The eClass discussion forum? Shooting me an email?)

"I think it would be better if there was an easier way to look at the midterms rather than having to go to a review every time. I'd prefer having access to the answers so that I can review whenever I want."

("Every time"? My dude, it was twice. I need to maintain exam security so this is the only way to do it.)

"Review sesh before midterm would be nice. I miss some things when taking notes so my understanding of certain areas may be spotty. Review sessions are the best"

(I barely have enough time as it is. I don't have time to re-teach things that I've already taught. Review is an individualized thing that you do, not me.)

"I would love to see an even higher diversity in the psychologists mentioned in class (ex. more from outside of North America or Europe)!"

(Yeah, me too. It's really hard to do this in practice. Someone who is teaching at, say, the University of Lagos may be from a WEIRD country: white, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic. All I have to go on is where they work and what their name is. I don't want to make any (incorrect) assumptions about anything. Sometimes I don't even know the gender of the person. Still, I strive to be more inclusive of BIPOC and, well, people who aren't cis-gendered WASP males.)

"I was unsure about having lectures go until 11:10 as if there were kids who had 11 am classes they may have been late for them"

(Um, I did not go over time every day. The class is officially scheduled by the official Office of the official Registrar to go until 11:10. I don't get to decide when my classes are held, or where.)

"Love it, it’s engaging and fun. I work before class from 5:00-9:00am and since it’s so fun I hardly fall asleep."

"I felt as though even if some of the content may be perceived as ‘boring,’ the way it was taught in class made it interesting and did not ‘put you to sleep.’"

"Professor Loepelmann puts lots of care and effort into his lectures. He comes prepared for class, shows up early, is consistent with his energy, and answers questions with interest and honesty (if he doesn’t know enough about the topic of the question, he will say so). It’s interesting how he has his powerpoint up filled with words that he could simply read off of but he doesn’t. He has a separate booklet copy of his powerpoint placed on his podium ready to be looked over as he presents. He thinks of what will help the students remember more, engage more, and excel more in his class He creates epolls and fill-in-the-blanks notes so students would be encouraged to show up in class. He even asked one of the students that did well on the second midterm for tips on how to improve then shared with it with the class."

"You can tell that he really cares for his students success in his class and has a passion for the topics. I appreciate the epolls as an interactive way to test our knowledge at the end of each topic, and the dad-jokes to keep our attention during the sometimes lengthy days of spring classes."

"Brilliant, really into the course and understands the material inside out"

"So fun!"

"Wonderful. Professor Lopelman is very organized and responsive and goes above and beyond to ensure we have everything we need to succeed."

"The interludes of mini class 'experiments' were also fun and definitely helped create connections and deepen understanding of the material. They, along with the ePoll questions, also helped reinforce the studying techniques we were being taught. It was cool to have that built-in and have them being utilized within the course delivery itself to help us learn. I also liked the pace at which we were being taught."

"I really liked how he would have us participate in some of the studies, and the epoll questions also changed up the lectures from just a professor speaking at you for an hour. The cheesy jokes are great too!"

"Professor Loepelmann seems very passionate about psychology and making sure we do well in the course. I like how engaging his classes are with the references, videos, examples, etc, it all makes me feel much more invested in the content. It also feels like he has a very deep, nuanced understanding of the subject, which makes hearing his answers to questions interesting. It's also really nice that he consistently checks in with the class for feedback on the course."

"I do not think that the instructor needs any improvement."

"More jokes I suppose"

(Thanks for the kind words.)

Why aren't you studying?