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?

The SPOT (Winter, 2024)

I've got some SPOT catching up to do. Let's hit the sweet spot. (Ugh. Sorry.) These SPOT things are very different from the previous forms, which only had one open-ended question. So there's a lot more information to go through. It takes an enormous amount of willpower to go through 12 pages of comments. Who wants to hear how bad a job they're doing? (Yes, the negative comments loom large over all of the positive ones.)

These are from Winter, 2024 term. Let's go to PSYCH 282 Behaviour Modification first! (Trigger warning: there may be sarcasm ahead. You have been warned!)

"Did not appreciate the fill in the blank slides."
vs.
"I like the fill-in the blank notes that he provides for us."

"The way that the notes are structured SUCKS"
vs.
"Enjoyed the blank spaces in the lecture notes, kept me engaged."

 (Seriously, am I being punk'd?)

"I like the self-management project that we had to do because it did help me understand what I was learning on a deeper more personal level."

"The self-management project is designed in an excellent way. I tend to procrastinate with large assignments, so if that was done in just one part I would not have done nearly as well. Each part was due at a time where learning that concept was relevant to material being covered in class. The entire course had a structure that was very easy to follow."

(Thanks for noting that. This is how I try to design it!)

"Textbook often had a lot of concepts not mentioned in lectures that also weren't covered in exams, even though it was reiterated that everything in textbook was fair game. I feel like it was slightly misleading as I would focus a lot of the 'textbook only' content which ended up never showing up on exams."

(I disagree with "a lot". There's an enormous amount of lecture/textbook overlap in this course. As for textbook content, I can't test on everything; I have to take a (non-random) sample. And I've gotten consistent complaints about too much exam material being based on the textbook.)

"I greatly appreciated that this prof took the time to provide additional resources and handouts in order to help students reach success as i have yet to have another prof freely do that on their own accord."

(Thanks for the feedback. It's good to know the time and effort I put into those are worth it!)

"I wish the note templates had an easier option to be downloaded onto my ipad. I had to use my laptop to take notes due to the formatting of the templates. I understand the reasoning behind them, I just wonder if there's a solution that would allow students to use their ipad to take notes as well."

(Yes; I'm working on an alternative to that. It's just taking a huge amount of time. I need to test it on multiple platforms to make sure it works, and to verify that there are no accessibility issues.)

"I would have liked if other than the original class notes were received, access to fill in the blank PowerPoint slides were received. The original class notes given were colourless, dull and lacked pictures. As a visual learner this was a bit frustrating especially since the presentation of the notes was different from the actual slides used to learn during class. Having the option to also download the fill in the blank PowerPoints used in class would have been greatly appreciated."

(There is no evidence to support "learning styles"--see Pashler et al., 2009. The notes are intentionally kept free of distractions. My PowerPoints have images and colour, though. I don't supply my PowerPoints for reasons I've explained repeatedly over the years. Mostly, they have poor accessibility.)

"The assignment project was unclear and there was no elaboration of what needed to be done"

(It was...unclear? But I gave you specific questions to answer. It's up to you to come up with the answers. Maybe you're trying to say that it was...challenging? But I've never gotten feedback that the assignment itself is "unclear".)

"the exam questions were so overly complicated, and were designed to trick you which is so horrible."

"I found a good portion of the exam questions to be unfair, and oftentimes up for interpretation. Sneaky technicalities, more trick questions than expected, and multiple answers for one multiple-choice question that could be argued either way. In other words, there was very little gap between the 'best' possible answer compared to the second best."

"Many questions on the exam were designed to stump students and confuse them. This can be terrible if student is second guessing due to repeating questions/questions with similar wording. This form of  examination is not fair as it does not actually question what a student knows but instead if they are and overthinker or not."

(I know it's hard to believe, but I don't have evil intent and I'm not actually trying to trick anyone. Yup, some of the material is inherently complex and potentially confusing. You're giving me far too much credit in my nefarious ability to conceive of tricky questions. A question is unfair if, say, I test on something that was not in the course. That is unfair. Otherwise, test questions may be difficult. That is not the same thing as "unfair". Yes, you are supposed to choose the "best" answer. Or, you know, the "correct" answer.)

"Midterms informed me I don't do well on application questions so providing resources to practice that would help"

(So, something beyond the ePoll questions, the worksheets, the online practice questions on eClass, and the practice tests in the textbook itself?)

"It was hard to read the notes and the textbook. The emphasis on reading the textbook was to much when doing a full course load and I feel the exams should be solely focused on the notes"

(No offense, but...welcome to university. It's not high school anymore. Yes: it's hard. I know that very few first-year classes have a required textbook, but this is a second-year course. I chose the textbook very carefully as a resource to support your learning. There is almost complete overlap between the textbook and lectures. Reading a textbook is nothing new: I took a full course load of five courses per term and every single course had a required textbook.)

"I would appreciate if you included research focus examples that are more recent (most seem to be outdated and from the 80s), because modern science keep developing for the better so it is important to include example that are more relevant (especially to see if anything has changed in the recent years in the b-mod field)"

(It would change the course not at all if I included research examples from the past, say, five years. Yes, things have changed: no one is doing foundational research on whether extinction works. Because that research has already been done, like, in the 80s. No need to repeat it.)

"In the first classes he made fun of past students' work. He also made fun of current students for answering with what he thought were stupid responses. He was rude but improved. It felt unnecessary and disrespectful"

(One time, I showed a butt-ugly (and incorrect) graph made by a former student, to show you what not to do. You're welcome. I did NOT ridicule anyone's "stupid responses". I did not do that; I do not do that; I would never do that. You are mistaken.)

"When people would raise hands to ask questions, often they would either not be seen or ignored"

(I don't ignore anyone; it's just hard to see hands in a dark room full of people at the best of times. Sorry. I hope they came up at the end and asked me their question. I would stay and answer questions after every class until everyone's questions were answered.)

"Appreciated the YouTube videos and case studies included during the presentation"

"Dr Loepelman is one of the greatest professors I have ever had. Truly a great teacher, has a really nice way of explaining and reexplaining when necessary, respectful and honest critiques, and maintains a fun and engaging environment for learning as a collective."

"He's amazing! I can't believe I almost didn't take 282 with him, but every class I'm so grateful I did! he has every trait you'd want in a prof- hilarious, knowledgeable, fun to listen to, i could go on. it's clear he put's a whole lot of effort into each class, and cares very much about making this class the best experience ever! Well, he was definitely successful! At times he totally blew my expectations away. He's genuinely such a great guy and i will definitely be taking more classes with him"

(Thank you. Now, we'll turn to feedback from PSYCH 403: Advanced Perception.)

"First part of the semester was a little hard to follow along because I suck at Gaussian functions but honestly, it was not that bad. People give this class too hard of a wrap."

(Yeah, stop dissing this course, people!)

"The style of notes that is given is completely unproductive and honestly somewhat insulting. I understand that attending classes is important, but forcing us to fill blanks makes it hard to focus on the class while I am there. The class now feels pointless. I cannot focus beyond filling the blanks"

"The blanks make it easy to follow along and understand the lectures"

"I enjoyed the skeleton notes as it gave me the class time to thoughtfully listen and take in the information."

(Comment #1 is somewhat insulting. You didn't like the style of notes. It didn't work for you. You don't have to use them. You are free to take down all notes from the PowerPoint slides yourself. Maybe that works better for you.)

"I found the readings to just repeat the main concepts from the course and did not add a ton of information"

(Yup, that's my goal. I get sooooo many complaints about lectures not being an exact duplicate of the textbook/readings.)

"writing essays and short answers for the exams makes you know your stuff, but having so little time to complete them makes it unbelievably stressful. The final should be slightly better, but the amount of content we must put forth, in my opinion, should be reduced."

(I have already. Now, you have to write three short-answer questions, from a set of eight. I used to require 10 out of 12.)

"Questionable choice teaching 'The Psychology of Food and Eating' during Ramadan - really testing the Muslim members of the class."

(Hmm, maybe it's just another test of your faith, brother. Inshallah!)

"Including two midterms as well as the final allows us as students to adapt to what the exams will be like (especially since we did not have a practice exam to go off of to prepare us for what the exam would be like (this can even be online))."

(Making it online does not reduce the marking load. You did not have practice exams, but there were 10 low-stakes quizzes that were the same exact format as the short-answer exam questions.)

"The examples in class are why i continue to take this instructors courses. He goes above and beyond to provide great content"

"A phenomenal usage of examples and illustrations to help explain points. Thank you very much for those!"

"Loved the documentaries and the ted talks that he provided, it was fun and helped illustrate it better."

"Overall, greatly enjoyed the course!! Had you for 282 & 367, and this course more than met my expectations. It's clear that you care a lot about not just doing your job as a professor, but teaching well, and that's unfortunately rare! Keep up the awesome work, and thank you for taking the time to go out of your way to be as amazing a prof as you are!!"

(Thank you. Now it's time for feedback from PSYCH 494: Human Factors & Ergonomics.)

"Boldface terms were indicated to be part of the exams but it was unclear which boldface terms took more importance over others. For instance, titles and subheadings were also bolded, and some terms were italicized, so there was confusion to this."

(It would be ironic if my design were causing problems. I've checked and I cannot find any short-answer questions on the exams that are based on italicized--not bolded--terms.)

"It would be helpful to provide practice tests and an answer key to be able to get used to the exams on the day of, as well as study tips for these specific exams."

(I gave sample questions--and answers, for the short-answer questions. I also gave tips for the exams in the class before the midterm, and posted that on eClass for you as well. Sorry if you missed that.)

"Older documentary videos were quite boring, so it would be nice to have updated videos to bring in more engagement in class."

(I'm always looking for updated materials. Always. I guess it's good that there haven't been a lot more nuclear disasters more recently tho.)

"professor was critical of receiving feedback in person. He also sadly tends to taunt feedback on his personal blog without taking into account the sincerity of the feedback and being open to change."

(Nope. I take feedback gladly--especially in person. I have never shut anyone down for doing that. I'm sorry if that's the impression you got. Also, I don't "taunt" feedback. Maybe..."mock" is the word you're looking for? LOL. Okay, seriously now: I value the feedback I get. I post it on my personal blog so that you can see the frequently contradictory nature of this feedback. Are my fill-in-the-blank notes good or bad? It depends on the person. I have learned that I cannot please everyone--it's literally impossible. So what I do is apply evidence-based best practices of pedagogy. That includes things like active learning. Students h-a-t-e that, because it means more work. But I do it because it enhances learning. And, respectfully, you have no idea how open to change I am (or not). You have not seen how many changes I have made to my courses over the past 30 years in response to student comments. You don't know how many profs NEVER LOOK at the feedback they get. Posting your comments is proof, at least, that I do read these comments.)

"Although the term paper was quite challenging, it really helped me gain important knowledge and skill on how to write academic papers. The APA preparation lecture was also very helpful."

"This is truly one of the classes I have enjoyed the most during my time at the UofA. Loppelman is a genuinely kind and personable teacher who offers interesting and captivating lectures that he is passionate and knowledgeable about. His lecture style kept my attention and his lecture notes and course website are the most well thought out course materials I've had from a prof. He really did not need to put that much effort in, which shows how he goes above and beyond. He obviously works very hard and puts a ton of effort into his courses and it was very appreciated."

"He is phenomenal, definitely one of my favourite professors."

"Dr. Loepelmann has a very inviting, fun, and kind personality that is very apparent from the way he acts in class. He actively encourages participation and answers all questions sincerely. I have never felt more comfortable speaking up in a classroom environment than in his class."

"He was super lovely and kind. Also very funny which made learning easier"

(Thank you for the kind words.)

Why aren't you studying?

The 30 Years

I've been working at the University of Alberta for over 30 years. (If you count working as a research assistant and teaching assistant, it's actually over 37 years!) Every year, the University celebrates those employees who have put in at least 25 years of service in 5-year increments. At this year's ceremony, there was one person who has been working here for 50 years. Unbelievable!

If you look back at my blog, though, you won't see me describing my 25-year work anniversary 5 years ago. Because, um, they forgot. I've moved through so many roles over time, there's no way for the computer system to track me. So at least I was celebrated for 30 years--and I got two gifts to recognize and reward my many years of service! One of the gifts is a...water bottle. (I guess they figure we get thirsty after so many years of work.)

 

 

(Who's the old guy standing beside the president?)

 

Different Roles

I worked as a professional computer programmer starting in 1987, helping a then-graduate student who needed computers to run experiments for her research. She paid me out of pocket, so I guess that does not count as working for the University. A short time later, though, I was hired as an actual RA to continue in that role. This led me into doing research of my own as an undergraduate, and then starting in 1990, as a grad student myself. I worked as a TA and as occasional RA here and there.

When I graduated with my PhD in 1995, I was immediately thrust into the role of non-academic staff, taking over for the Department of Psychology undergraduate program advisor who went on holidays and never came back. I juggled that role, in addition to teaching at the U of A, Grant MacEwan Community College (now MacEwan University), and Augustana University College (now U of A Augustana Campus). I became a Faculty Lecturer at the U of A in 2000, and am now a Full Teaching Professor. I also worked as a consultant for over 20 years for Nelson Education Ltd. and Cengage Canada.

I've taught courses in the majority of buildings on campus--even some that no longer exist. (RIP, Dentistry-Pharmacy, V-Wing, and Physics Buildings.) I've taught 3-hour courses that ran only on Saturday, or only on Sunday. I've taught evening classes, and one (only one) course that started at 7:00am. (It was supposed to be for people who had jobs that started at 8:30, but it was actually just made up of students who couldn't get into other sections offered at more reasonable hours.) Teaching at Augustana in winter term was particularly brutal. My class was at 8:00am, so I had to be on the road by 6:30 to make it in time--6:00 if the weather was bad, which it often was. One memorable day there was freezing rain; I remember passing by a semi that was literally upside-down in a field.

Tallies

• 3: number of different institutions taught at
• 11: number of different courses taught or co-taught
  
• 240: number of course sections taught
• 1,350 (approximate): number of term papers marked
  
• 25,000-30,000 (approximate): number of students taught (this may double- or even sextuple-count those poor souls who have taken several of my courses)

Awards

• William Hardy Alexander Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2020
• Instructor of the month, Faculty of Science, March, 2017
• Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching of Large Classes, 2014
• Instructors of Distinction Honour Roll, Faculty of Science, 2013, 2014
• Interdepartmental Science Students’ Society Instructor Appreciation award 2013, 2015, 2016
• “Celebrated” for teaching by AASUA, 2007
• Teacher Excellence Award from Delta Chi fraternity, 2003
• Department of Psychology Teaching Award, 2002
• Department of Psychology Teaching Honour Roll (20 times)
  
• Teaching Honour Roll with Distinction (144 times; sadly, the Honour Roll has been on pause since 2018)

I've sat on more committees than I can count, and worked alongside some really great colleagues. I don't have any memories of people who were jerks or selfish or anything. (Maybe those kinds of people are not the types to volunteer to sit on committees. Apparently, these people do exist.)

Okay, I've got to get back to marking term papers now...

Why aren't you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2024 edition)

I've been doing these "summer vacation" posts for a long time. (Since 2009, it looks like.) I realize that a lot of them are very similar. That is, I do the same things. Go to Lacombe and get amazing cannoli from Sweet Capone's. Visit Gull/Sylvan lake. Check out what's new at the Calgary Zoo. Do teaching prep work. This time, though, the theme is: doing something different.

True confession time: I had never been to Quebec before. (Ok, technically, I have been to Quebec. But just to the Canadian Museum of History in Hull in 1990.) Canada is a huge, amazing, diverse country. It's about time that I explored it more. Another confession: going to Quebec was my wife's idea. (I'm legally obligated to say that all of her ideas are good ideas.) Montreal & Quebec City, here we come!

(Such a warm welcome. Thanks, random wall at the YUL airport!)

Now, I was a bit worried. How much English do people speak in Quebec? How good is my French? (It's passable: 5 years of studying Francais in school four decades ago, and a lifetime of reading French on cereal boxes. Flocons de maïs!) How confusing will the metro system be? But we didn't have any major problems. Many people are bilingual and will greet you with "BonjourHi." (Yes, just like the SNL sketch.) That's actually code for "Which language do you speak?" Only a couple of times did I have no choice but to fumble with my awful French-language ability, including ordering at Subway. It was stressful but it all worked out fine. And the metro was super-easy, convenient, and fun, too!

Now, touristy photos of the Notre-Dame Basilica and La Grande Roue in Montreal:

(Tourists everywhere.)

(I'm not scared of heights, you're scared of heights.)

Did you know there's a Museum of Illusions in Montreal? It's a global chain of museums, like a franchise. I didn't realize there were any in Canada. It was pretty cool, but I had to explain all of the illusions to my family, so it felt like giving a lecture. *sigh*

("This one is called the Rubin vase, from 1915. Are you paying attention? There will be a test!")

Not content with checking out Montreal, we then took a train to Quebec City. I've never been on a Via Rail train--and my kids have never taken a train ever. (See, the theme is really coming together! Doing different things!)

(Kinda blurry because I only had one hand free. Wait for me!)

Not only did we see the Château Frontenac from the outside, I discovered a guided tour through the inside that takes you to otherwise off-limits areas--well worth the price.

(Nice to look at, but out of my price range to stay at.)

(rue du Cul-de-Sac in the Quartier Petit Champlain)

The food everywhere was amazing: Montreal smoked meat sandwiches, poutine (of course), and crêpes. Yum!

(Cafe et Crêpe in Montreal--so good, we went back for more.)

 Montreal has an actual Krispy Kreme location. So of course I had to stuff my face.

(Sorry, can't talk with my mouth full.)

 

And then also: I did a lot of work. A lot. I changed literally every slide of every course that I teach, improving legibility and readability. Not only that, but realized that I had been using the same textbooks for a long time--decades, in one case. In reflecting on my teaching, I realized that this needed a change. So, for the first time in years, I've switched textbooks--not just for one course, but for two of them (Cognitive Psychology and Perception). It was a huge amount of work, and it took me two solid months. Most of this time is spent tailoring my lecture notes to complement the content in the new books. I think the ones I've chosen are a good fit; I look forward to getting feedback on them this term.

Now, let me continue the theme of "something different" by wrapping this up:

Why aren't you studying?

The SPOT (Fall, 2023): PSYCH 494

Once more unto the breach--diving into the comments from my PSYCH 494: Human Factors and Ergonomics course. Who knows what they'll have to say...? (If it's not immediately obvious, my comments in parentheses are in full-on sarcastic/snark mode.)

 Once more unto the breach--diving into the comments from my PSYCH 494: Human Factors and Ergonomics course. Who knows what they'll have to say...? (If it's not immediately obvious, my comments in parentheses are in full-on sarcastic/snark mode.)

Wait--before I dive in. One of my kids is now in university. I hear every day about things that other instructors are doing (or, in many cases, are failing to do). Here’s a tiny sampling:

• There is disregard for rules. (For example, one prof tried to hold two final exams. It boggles my mind that they thought this was even remotely a possibility. Shame.)

• There is disregard for students. (For example, holding exams on a Saturday. I don’t care that they’re consolidated exams that everyone in the course has to take at exactly the same time. That’s bullshit. Closely related is having assignment deadlines on the weekend. Take a damn break and make it due on Monday. It’s not hard.)

• And there’s being intentionally underhanded. Like a course that marks assignments by giving students a percentage, then converting that to a letter grade. At the end of term, the final grade is calculated by doing a weighted mean of the letter grades. WTF? And none of this is explained anywhere like the syllabus where university rules require it. (I’m looking at you, Department of English.) This also falls into the category of bullshit. Even a high-school level of math can show you how this distorts a student’s true performance. I can’t even.

I’m listing these things because a) I would never pull anything like that. And b) it makes me embarrassed for my institution. You need to do better, University of Alberta instructors. Whatever criticism I may receive (i.e., see below), I am satisfied in knowing that I am doing better than a whole bunch of my peers. Okay, now let's get into my feedback!

"one thing i appreciated about lecture notes specifically is the lecture outlines at the topic of every note package. thinking about them now i paid little attention to them but i think it’s incredibly helpful being told explicitly that it’s worth focusing on certain topics that were mentioned in these outlines."

(That's great to hear.)

"The first midterm caught me by surprise since my expectations of the test format didn't match what was presented. Had I known what to expect my study methods would have differed."
"In the short assignment I felt like there was not enough of what you really wanted the papers to be. At least from myself and what I have heard from other students is that it was hard to figure out exactly what we were supposed to write for the short assignment.”
“Professor L does a great job of providing clear instructions for assignments and exams.”

(I thought I made it clear. I gave examples of questions. I'm not going to give examples of essay question answers, as each one varies from another by a huge amount. There's not much that generalizes.)

“Exams and paper often had specific hidden criteria that students were effectively expected to guess (like being expected to guess the conceptual model of the designer of MacEwan, which if you got wrong resulted in a 5% penalty in the grade for that paper).”

(No, I’m not asking you to guess. I’m asking you to think, and make a conclusion based on the evidence that I stepped you through in the walkthrough. Yes, it’s difficult! No, not everyone will be able to get it. It should be easy to get 50%, harder to get 75%, and even harder to get 100%. This should be true of all coursework. It’s not a hidden criterion: you were explicitly told to provide the designer’s conceptual model. It’s also not a “5% penalty”--it’s that you did not get the correct answer so you didn’t earn that 5%.)

“The blanks gave enough to ensure that I was engaged but not overwhelming that I couldn’t pay attention to what was being actually discussed.”
“Fill in the blanks can make the lectures boring and thus I am not engaged in the material”

(Gotcha. They’re engaging but not engaging.)

“The readings, especially the textbook, were honestly quite interesting to read adn was quite informative.”
“I quite enjoyed Don Norman's book. I appreciate how it is not a traditional textbook. It was very readable.”
“The book did not really help in my understanding as what we needed to know was discussed in class, a waste of money”

(You mean the free ebook available on the library website was a waste of money?)

“If you cant recount word for word the lecture slides, then you will struggle with the exam. There was no room for deviation even if it was clear you understood the concept”

(My job is to evaluate people’s learning, under the assumption that not everyone will learn everything to the exact same degree. If your answer to an exam question is perfect, you’ll get a perfect mark. If it’s incomplete, you’re going to get a lower mark. I’m not grading you on your understanding, I’m grading you on what you put down on paper.)

“I think there could be more material to practice for the midterm and finals, such as more sample questions for the short answer and long answer”
“I felt the exam questions were unfair in what the question asked for and how we were marked.”
“The midterm was definetely not evaluative of peoples understanding , the average was a 55%. I studied incredbly hard and had memorized the material as wel as understood it yet was docked marks for stupid things”

(Literally every single learning outcome can be considered a potential essay question--and there are dozens of them. Also, literally every single term in bold can be considered a potential short-answer question. I haven’t counted, but there are dozens if not hundreds of them as well. That’s a lot of potential practice, but you have to put in the work of doing a self-evaluation. Further, I also said I was willing to give feedback if you tried answering the questions and sent them to me in advance of the final exam.
As for fairness, that word means “impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination.” How was I unfair? Maybe you didn’t like your mark, but that has nothing to do with fairness.
The class mean was low, I agree. That’s because performance overall was pretty low. Much lower than in previous terms--with exams having similar content, marked the same way. Maybe you understood the material, but if you write down something incorrect, that’s what I have to mark you on.)

“the term paper could be done without utilizing any information from the course.”

(That depends on your topic. You chose your topic, not me. If the systems approach applies to your topic, that’s an enormous amount of course content.)

“I enjoyed being able to test myself and my research and writing abilities when completing my term paper. It’s by far the largest writing assignment I have done in University thus far and found that I enjoyed being able to research and write about a topic in such depth.”

(It’s a shame you didn’t have the opportunity to write more before this course. At least you finally got the chance!)

“Only being graded on 4 total assignments (midterm, applied project, final paper, final exam) is extremely punishing and does not give much room for growth if a mistake is made.”

(My understanding is that having a greater course load is “punishing.” You want more assignments? Yikes. I agree in principle that more assignments is probably better, but I have a limited capacity to do marking. I don’t get to have a TA in this course; I have a marker, but I have to beg for that every term.)

“feel the structure of the midterm & final exams exclude the possibility of assessing all content learned in the course. We were responsible for all course material, but only a few terms would appear on the exam.”

(Oh my gawd! You want me to test you on everything? Seriously? I’ve never heard of any instructor doing that on any exam in my 30 years of teaching. The best instructors can do is take a representative sample and test on that.)

“The term paper was so much work, which definitely caused a time crunch.”

(I think that’s a you-thing, not a me-thing. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s a Term paper. Like, you’re supposed to work on it over the course of a term. I try hard to push students to do that--giving a bonus mark when you decide on your term paper topic. If you leave it to the end of term, yup, there’s going to be a time crunch. When I was a student, I had my term papers done two weeks before they were due. And this is in a time before anything was available on the web. I had to physically go to multiple libraries to look up and read my sources. Now, many students don’t even start their term paper two weeks before it’s due.)

“Other classes come into play and impact my schedule and how I manage my time for assignments but the course work for this class independently is well spaced out and allows for lots of time to complete the assignments if you manage your time well.”

(Yes! Time management skills FTW!)

“You’re doing great lol.hats off to you.”
“I appreciate all the real-life examples! They really helped me to see the relevance of course content in daily life.”
“Case studies were very helpful in expanding the impacts of the topics and how they apply to our environment in practice.”
“Excellent use of case studies, very engaging.”
“They were EXCELLENT and incredibly helpful! Professor Loeplmann used several examples to illustrate real-world applications of difficult concepts.”

(You spelled my name wrong.)

“not supplying notes online feels antiquated and infantilizing.”

(I have my notes online. On my website. I’ve been doing it for every course I’ve taught since 1995. How’s that for antiquated?
Oh--wait. Do you mean that I don’t post my PowerPoint slides? No, I don’t. I am exquisitely mindful of accommodating people with disabilities. PDFs of PowerPoints are crap for that. HTML is still an elegant solution. You can print them out. You can load them into a word processor.
Oh--wait. Do you want that I don’t give you full notes and have blanks that you have to fill in? I’ve been saying this--and posting on this blog--for years: You Don’t Have To Use My Notes. You can take everything down longhand.
Oh--wait. Do you mean something else? I dunno. I don’t really know what you’re criticizing. Maybe you just couldn’t find my notes online.)

“The midterm exam was marked by Dr. Loepelmann himself very quickly after it occurred. :D For both the applied project and the midterm, the instructor provided in-class feedback which was great! No need for extra viewing sessions; efficient use of class time.”
“Feedback from the midterm exam as well as the assignments was specific and helpful for future learning. He also gave the option of submitting term papers early for some extra feedback which I found incredibly helpful.”
“The early term paper submission feedback was very helpful and was very much appreciated.”
“karsten seems to be a cool guy and easy professor to speak to. despite never actually speaking to him.”
“Dr. Loepelmann is professional, kind, and knowledgeable. He is also very humourous! One of the best instructors I have had in my university career. If I could afford to gift him an Aeron chair, I would. Thank you!”

(Well, it looks like my strategy of “be the worst jerk of an instructor ever” is not working.
Anyway, to all the haters: I hope that one day you get to teach a class and get feedback on it.)

Why aren’t you studying?

The SPOT (Fall, 2023): PSYCH 367

On, I continue! Slogging through Student Perspectives Of Teaching! This time, PSYCH 367: Perception. (If it's not immediately obvious, my comments in parentheses are in full-on sarcastic/snark mode.)

“Slides should be relased for finals or atleast sometime during the course to review. Its not fair to have fill in the blank notes and expect everyone to be able to attend classes and never miss one. Students should not be faulted because other students do not attend your classes. The blanks could be provided or the slides to provide extra information. everyclass moved very quickly and would sometimes go on irrelevant tangents.”

(Me? Irrelevant tangents? I stick really close to my notes. Sometimes I got questions from students that I tried my best to answer. Is that what you mean by “tangents”? You can get any missed blanks from me at the end of class. Or from the Discord.)

“The notes and course are really well put together and easy to follow! Notes make sense and are well suited to the material Lectures are the most engaging part of this class. They are fun and interesting and presented in a very easy way to follow with easily understood language.”

(I’m glad it works for some people.)

“Topics not gone over thoroughly enough. major topics are brought up and then dismissed with no emphasis whatsoever”

(I wish I knew what “major topic” I bought up and then “dismissed.” Being specific here would actually help me. There’s nothing I can do with this vague feedback. You see, it’s really hard to present information to other people so that they can understand it. Was it autism? See, I can't go off on an "irrelevant tangent" or some people won't like that. See above.)

“Might have been nice to have a basic rubric or template for labs, just to get any idea of the desired format.”

(Yup, I know. I’m working on it.)

“Your classes are the only classes I have ever taken that require me to graph data. No prerequisites for this course seem to require digital literacy. As such I suggest that at minimum, the requirements for graphing are better laid out within course documentation. Preferably, this would be a skill that you would actually teach us. The references included do not contain sufficient information on what is required to organize the data, and modify the graph to make it do what it should. I genuinely found making a graph to be the most challenging content in the entire class.”

(At some point, you have to learn how to do graphing. This is that point. I’ve never taken a course in graphing. I’m completely self-taught--in the era before YouTube. In this course you were required to make: two graphs. That’s all. Just two line graphs. I’m happy to hear that you were able to learn how to make graphs in this course. I consider that a success. I mean, are there university courses on how to make a graph? Let me know and I will seriously add that as a prerequisite. Seriously.)

“The lectures consisted of tons of information and evidence to back up theories that were both disproven and proven. It was difficult to follow what was the actual theories that are in use present day as we had to also know the false ones.”

(Er, theories are not “true” or “false” (or right or wrong). That’s not how theories work. We get to better theories by seeing what didn’t work. I showed you the scientific process. There is value in that. This is a third-year course. It’s not about getting the right answer and moving on. There is complexity and nuance to science that you’re only starting to see at this level. Wait till you get to graduate courses. Shit, you’ll start to believe that nothing is true.)

“the course website stating how you have never missed a class is not very supporting or accomodating to students. Students should not be faulted because other students do not attend your classes. It is not my problem that people do not attend your classes. Most profs do provide slide lectures.”

(So my strong work ethic is not “supporting”? You’ll have to connect the dots for me on that one. I try very hard to be present for students in my classes--even when I was feeling ill pre-Covid. Likewise, I expect a level of commitment from students. Missing a class here or there happens, I acknowledge that. But this was an in-person class. So is it now unreasonable of me to expect that students actually attend classes? I guess you don’t have to. But you also don’t have to get an A. No, I don’t provide slides. That’s not my style. I’ve sat in on classes in which everyone has the slides. It's unbelievable how many students were disengaged, on their phones, going through email. Great, they were in class. But they weren’t present.)

“It felt like we were often rushing through things closer to exams, not giving us enough time to reflect and learn the information before the exam.”

(That’s on me and I apologized to the class for it. I’ll apologize again. I am sorry. I know that I need to remove some content. Editing is really hard for me.)

“the format of the notes, the epolls during class and the online labs were all amazing ways to reinforce what we were learning and added an active element to classes. 10/10”

(Thx)

“While the text book was helpful and so were the practice tests that it gave, I would've strongly preferred at least one practice test from the prof. Every prof as a unique way of writing questions and being able to have baseline for what questions to expect make it easier to prepare.”

(See, that’s where the ePoll questions come in. I wrote those.)

“Overall, I liked the textbook! I just wish there wasn't so much extra content in addition to lecture notes - it makes studying a little difficult as I don't know what to really focus on.”

(I’m glad you found the textbook helpful. I’m ditching it next time I teach this class.)

“Labs didn't really help my understanding, personally, and were just more work for grading.”
“The labs helped reinforce some important concepts in the course.”

(Do you see how these surveys don’t really help me do my job? I mean, what am I supposed to do with this information?

“Both the midterms felt like they tested on material we never covered, and were not really in the lecture notes. Even after studying a lot I still wasn’t prepared because the tests had questions on other material that we didn’t go over.”

(I have never put a question on an exam based on material that was not in the lecture or textbook. Did you, y’know, read the textbook? That’s where 50% of the exam questions came from. Hmm, I think I may have discovered the cause of your difficulty.)

“That one lab due just before reading week was sneaky and mean, especially considering there was another lab due on the first day back after classes. I would pick one or the other.”

(Not trying to be sneaky or mean. I could, if I tried. Having things due on the weekend, like some instructors do. I try to space out the labs as much as possible, while also trying to cover the relevant background material before you do the lab. It’s very difficult to do this. Keep in mind, the labs are free. If I went with for-pay labs--about $60--I’d have a great selection to choose from and much greater flexibility. But I’d get mad comments from students about having to pay so much to do labs. I know the timing of these labs sucked. But I’ll see what else I can do next time. It's interesting that I didn't get a single positive comment about the labs being free.)

“Two midterms I feel is not accurate or conducive to learning. More exams worth a smaller percentage of the overall grade I think would have benefited in this course as there was so much content that was expected to be known and memorized for the exams. More exams allow for most focus on the key concepts.”

(You want more exams? You, dear person, are in the distinct minority. Don’t tell your fellow students about this!)

“it would be useful to have low stakes quizzes to see if the content was actually being learned after each chapter and to also promote staying on top of the reading chapters from the textbook”

(So, you want something like, um, chapter quizzes maybe? Like the chapter quizzes that are on eClass? Or are you saying you want free marks for doing these?)

“My instructor provided very helpful examples that made the content interesting!”
“The visuals/examples make the class more engaging and are something hat is easy to reflect on when writing the exams/reviewing”
“Examples used in class were great.”
“Diagrams, videos, interactive activities were a really nice touch to the course material - it helped with staying focused during the entire class!”
“Very very very very very good at explaining things and giving help one-on-one if you asked. I wish I had the time to come and ask for help or have the language to get help.”
“They explained things very well and would change the explanation from the textbook to help”
“I never asked but when anyone asked questions in class he was quick to come up with a different way of putting it aside from the written notes to help people understand”

(Whew. I’m glad I’m not completely wasting my time. I was starting to get worried!)

“No feedback was ever given by you, by the ta yes but not by you. when the average was 60 all you had to say was that it was consistent with past perfromance which is bull**** and not motivational or helpful at all.
* Inappropriate words were found and removed from this response.”
“I emailed the prof with concerns on my performance and was replied to with a lengthy email about ways in which I could better my performance of exams and also with what resources to refer to.”

(To the first person: I designed the labs that the TA give you feedback on. That's a design choice I made. Also, do you want me to say that the class did badly? And some people did really crappy on the exam? That would be demotivating. Sometimes, classes do better than historical averages, which I take great care to point out to the class. And, see what the second person wrote? I’m here to help. But I’m not going to come over to your house or anything. You have to make some effort. Did you reach out to me at all?)

“Not the most approachable.”
“the nicest prof i’ve ever had by far!”

(*heavy sigh*)

“Oh, he makes the class feel amazing with how he talks, jokes, and sets himself up in the class. I love this man so much, and I hope my next class with him is even better (:. He really REALLY reminds me of Wilson from the show 'House, M.D.' and makes me want to watch the show so much every time I have a class of his.”
“Very respectful and made the lectures fun to attend due to their sense of humour and this also made the content more enjoyable to learn. They also had amazing examples of each topic to help with learning the material and having those examples be fun made it easier to learn too”
“I really like Dr. Loepelmann's teaching style, and the material in the classes he teaches are always fascinating. I was already really interested in perception, and I was delighted when I found out he taught that class! I look forward to taking more classes with him in the future <3”
“this is the best prof at the entire uofa he deserves all the praise in the world! he clearly loves his area of expertise and going to his class is always a good experience. obviously the content is hard but he does a good job of explaining the majority of the time.”

(❤️)

Why aren't you studying?