The Eye

Last year at about this time, I had the worst day of my life. I went to work on Friday, September 12 like it was any other day. It was sunny and warm that morning; a nice day. But I noticed something off about the vision in my left eye. There seemed to be bright patches. That was odd, but they were not very noticeable in the bright sunlight.

That evening, however, after the sun went down, the flashes were a lot more noticeable. And concerning. I have pathological myopia: extreme nearsightedness. So extreme, my optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist several years ago. My ophtho had me come in for tests every 6 months, but everything was fine, every time. But he did say that if I saw flashes of light, I should call his office. I have a friend who experienced flashes, and he made sure to tell everyone that they should go straight to the Royal Alexandra Hospital if they ever had them. So, that’s what I did. (The Royal Alex houses the Eye Institute of Alberta; if you have an eye problem, this is where you go.)

I packed my backpack in preparation for a long stay at the Royal Alex emergency department. It turned out to be even longer than I thought. I got there at 10:30pm and, after a long, boring night, was finally seen at 9:30am--by a med school student. Nothing against med school students, but they don’t have a lot of experience. I had to tell him how to turn the ophthalmoscope on. This does not inspire confidence. An actual ER doc saw me, and did a series of pointless tests to rule out any other problems. (No, I did not get a shard of metal in my eye. How would that cause flashes, anyway?) At long last, they finally referred me to Emergency Eye Care. My appointment was for: 4:30pm. That’s 18 hours in emergency. At some point, the word “emergency” loses its meaning.

The resident in the clinic examined me for a bit, and said that he saw nothing wrong. I was so exhausted, I didn’t question this at all. I just wanted to hear good news and go home. Over the next few days, however, my eye did not improve. It just got worse. By Tuesday evening, I was getting worried, and called the after-hours on-call ophthalmologist. She told me to come in to their office the next morning, and not to eat anything after midnight. You know, just in case.

This time, I was seen right away, by a (sigh) resident. However, he confirmed my worst fears: a retinal detachment and retinal tear. He started to explain the procedure that would be done to repair it, but I didn’t really hear what he said. My mind was racing, going back to that one time I was waiting in the ophthalmologist’s office during an appointment years previous.

There was a diagram on the wall, showing all the different kinds of things that can go wrong with your eye, and the procedures that they do to try and fix it. At the bottom was the most minor procedure, all the way up to the top. At the top, it showed the scleral buckle procedure. Ew. Ick. “Jeez,” I thought. “The poor slobs who have to get that done.” Well, I was now a poor slob.

The actual, for-real ophthalmologist who confirmed the resident’s diagnosis shortly after told me to do directly to the Royal Alex hospital. Again. Not to the Emergency Department, though, but directly to the outpatient clinic. My stomach was a twisted knot of mixed feelings. Yay, I’m finally going to have something done. But…the scleral buckle. This is some serious shit. I’m sure they’re going to rush me into the operating room right away.

The outpatient clinic is filled with people. There are the patients (generally, white-haired elderly people) and a family member (generally, gray-haired middle-aged people). Did I mention that there were a lot of people? A lot. They’re all there for lens replacement due to cataracts. This seems to be the equivalent of the common cold in ophthalmology. Sure, they all had appointments scheduled weeks or months in advance, but I had an emergency. How much of an emergency was it? I was taken into the OR at around 7:30. That’s 9 hours of waiting. Long, boring, tiring, waiting. I hadn’t eaten since the day before. At one point, my friend’s wife came by and said hello and wished me good luck. Wait, what? I had posted my predicament on social media. My friend saw it, and told his wife, who is a nurse at the Alex. She somehow found me, lying on the bed outside the OR. I was so out of it, I mumbled something incoherent to her. Afterwards, I questioned whether I had just hallucinated the whole thing. (I had, in fact, not hallucinated that.)

When you have the scleral buckle procedure, you are conscious but sedated and given ketamine. I do not like ketamine, no sir. Not one bit. When you are on ketamine, you hallucinate--for real. I felt…things. But I was also floating in space next to enormous glowing golden cubes with what might have been Steven Universe.

So, they fixed my eye. I don’t know the specifics of the scleral buckle and I don’t really care to know. Maybe at some point, but not now. They also lasered parts of my retina, so it wouldn’t detach any further. This gave me a couple of medium-sized scotomas. I also had a bubble of C3F8 gas (perfluoropropane) injected into my eye. This would press against my retina, keeping it in place while it healed. However, this only works if you eye (and head, and body) are in the proper position. My position was lying on my right side. (Some people have to lie face-down--even while sleeping. This requires getting a special pillow. Glad I didn’t need that.) For various reasons, I am a back-sleeper, so this required a few strategically placed pillows, and a lot of getting used to. You would think that a gad bubble in your eye would not be noticeable and you would be wrong. It wiggles and wobbles, bobbing and weaving around constantly. Plus, it’s dark, not transparent. Who knew? Also, I would not be able to go to the mountains or on an airplane for a few months. Or my eye would explode? Something like that.

(Okay, my eye didn't look like this. But it felt like it.)

Thus began many weeks of recovery. My eye looked like I had been punched in the face by Mike Tyson. I had to get antibacterial and steroid drops--kinda hard to do when you can’t really see and have poor depth perception. One of my greatest concerns was for my students. How long would it take for me to recover enough? Should I go on short-term disability and take the rest of the term off? Since my recovery time was short (I would be able to drive again soon, even with the gas bubble), I decided to stick it out and return to class in person as soon as possible. I gave myself two weeks. In the meantime, I dug out old lecture videos from Covid times and, with my one good eye, posted them online for my students.

This probably hurts too.

Slowly, painfully, gradually, things improved. I went from being terrified that my eye would be useless, to hopeful that I would have functioning binocular vision again. I was told that I would lose 2-3 diopters of vision. For someone with -12 already, that’s not great. The good news is that my eye has now recovered so much that I have lost less than a diopter. Still needed (expensive) new glasses, though. Also, I have a lot more floaters in my left eye--and I had a lot to begin with in both eyes.

So what caused my retinal detachment? The diagnosis is posterior vitreous detachment: the gel inside your eye shrinks with age and pulls away from the back of the eye, hopefully not taking the retina with it. Nearsightedness means that your eye is longer, so maybe that’s a contributing factor, too. My other eye had PVD years ago, and the only result was getting more floaters. Genetics surely must have set the stage, but no one in my family has had a retinal tear.

My pathological nearsightedness is almost certainly due to years of “close work.” That consists of reading books, and working on a computer. In a previous post, I noted that last summer I had to learn four major new pieces of software, in addition to making the regular updates, corrections, and additions to my lectures. I spent an enormous amount of time in front of my computer. Did that contribute to my PVD and retinal tear? No one can say for sure, but even if it did a little bit, I don’t want to risk it. That would mean big changes to my workflow, and my life in general.

In the past few years, I’ve used software that pops up every 20 minutes, making me stop and look at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds (I actually take a full 1-minute break). Currently, my favourite app is the highly customizable Big Stretch Reminder for Windows. I don’t know what effect these breaks have on anything besides eye fatigue.

As for reading, it’s way more difficult now. All those floaters in my eye make me feel nauseous if I read for too long. (That’s why I only teach my PSYCH 494 Human Factors & Ergonomics course once a year now. I can’t subject myself to reading term papers twice a year.) I happily discovered that the app I use to read newspapers and magazines has a pretty good read-aloud function. And I’ve switched completely over to audiobooks. For ebooks with no audiobook available, there’s a great free program called Balabolka that can convert an ebook to an audio file using AI voices. There are even browser plugins that will read the contents of the page to you; I use the free Read Aloud.

Thinking about where I was, and where I am now, I am fortunate to have most of my vision intact. I did, eventually, receive world-class treatment. Eventually. I will be bothered by the notion that, had I been properly diagnosed sooner, I might have gotten a quick-and-easy laser treatment--no scleral buckle required.

I am especially grateful to the Department Chair and Associate Chair of Psychology who accommodated my needs, and my students in Fall, 2025 who were incredibly patient and understanding through this whole thing. Watching outdated lecture videos is not what they signed up for. I will try my best to ensure my one good eye does not explode.

Why aren’t you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2026 edition)

(The only good mosquito...)

Here's my annual look behind the scenes at the exciting (?) summer I apparently had. Of course, I have to start with the rain. So. Much. Rain. The wettest summer ever recorded in Edmonton. How wet was it? It was sooooo wet...
  - Yellowhead Trail was renamed Yellowhead River
  - basements were converted to indoor pools
  - the Telus World of Science included underwater exhibits

Ouch. Okay, here are some numbers. Over 580 mm of rain fell from June to August, making it the wettest summer ever. In June alone, we got 263.9 mm of rain, shattering the previous record set in 1912. July saw an equally impressive 264.7 mm. We had to rescue our kids from outdoor concerts at both Neon Skies and KDays during extreme thunderstorm events. At least I got this cool certificate:

(Thanks to meteorologist Josh Classen.)

Rain, of course, brings mosquitoes. So. Many. Mosquitoes. And they all seemed to want to get into my house. (When I say "get into my house," I don't mean standard bugs flying in through an open window. I mean aggressive, organized swarms equipped with tiny wire cutters and a coordinated breaching strategy.) We killed hundreds of them--over a dozen one day. I started to document my kills as art pieces on Instagram (see above).

It was with much delight that we left E-town behind for our Canada-centric vacation to Ontario!

(Note: we did not visit TORNOOT.)

 

(But we did, however, visit Toronto.)

Toronto is a city famous for its vibrant culture, epic traffic jams, and millions of residents who secretly wish they were living in New York. Even more exciting than Toronto (a low bar, I admit 🤣) was Niagara Falls (the Canadian side only!). Here are obligatory gorgeous photos of the falling-water thing they have there: 

 

If you are not aware of Niagara Falls, there is more to do than stare at water being affected by gravity. You can see butterflies and birds! Rides and attractions! There are (multiple) wax museums!

(I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords.)

Coming home was its own adventure. On approach to YEG, there was a severe (orange) thunderstorm in our way. Because of course there was. Sigh. Now that there's Wifi on flights, I was able to listen to the pilot talking to YEG ATC (via LiveATC.net). It was pretty cool hearing what was happening in real time. Kudos to the WestJet flight crew for deciding to divert to Calgary, after holding for a few minutes. Yeah, the trip ended up being longer, but--safety first! That said, as an Edmontonian, being forced to land in Calgary feels like a subtle personal insult from the atmosphere.

      

(Orange alert! Looping around, getting dizzy!) 

Family time was a priority this summer. My youngest daughter graduated high school and will be going to the U of A this fall. We're all going to be super busy and won't be able to spend much time together. Unfortunately, we...er, did not include her when the rest of us went to Banff. (In our defence, she was on a band trip to Whistler.)

(I walked all the way up here, for all you know.)

We did all go on the High Level Bridge streetcar. Slow, quiet, and relaxing. Bonus: no severe thunderstorms!

(Who doesn't love trains?)

My parents recently downsized, meaning that I finally had to move all of my remaining junk out of their house. I had been putting this off for 29 years, but I can finally say that I have moved out of my parent's basement. Aside from a startling amount of collectibles, I also had to take my large, poorly organized comics collection. It took a few weeks, but I finally sorted, organized, and cataloged all 3,804 comics. The bad news is that I haven't been able to find a buyer yet. So although I am now a Mature Independent Adult, my comics and collectibles are now cluttering my house instead:

     

In the spring, I picked up another teaching award. It's not a big deal.

(Okay, maybe it's a bit of a big deal--look at that hunk of glass!)

In between all the fun, there was still: work. For example, inspired by a student who took an independent study course with me, I worked up a new lecture topic on naturalistic decision making and the Recognition-Primed Decision Model. (Honestly, it's way more exciting than it sounds.) After the work overload of last year, it was nice to have a better work/life balance.

Hopefully, you had a chance to relax and recharge over the summer! 🌞

Why aren't you studying?

The Canvas Hack

[publicdomainpictures.net]

In Spring, 2026, the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) was hacked. Reportedly, 8,809 institutions were hit, over 3 terabytes of data were exfiltrated, and about 275 million users--students, staff, faculty, and administrators--were affected.

What happened, and when?

• April 25: criminal cyber-extortion group ShinyHunters breached Canvas security.
• April 29: Instructure, the makers of Canvas, detected unauthorized access in their systems.
• May 1: Instructure publicly acknowledged this incident, and claimed that it was “contained.”
• May 7, shortly after 2:00pm MDT: Canvas was hijacked in a ransomware attack by the threat actors; when users logged in, they saw a message posted by the hackers. This message urged individual institutions to pay the ransom, otherwise academic and personal information would be leaked.
  

• May 7: the University of Alberta took Canvas offline.
• May 11: Instructure reported that it reached an agreement with ShinyHunters. It is rumoured to have paid US$10 million in ransom. As part of the agreement:
  - The breached data was returned to Instructure.
  - Instructure received digital confirmation of data destruction (shred logs).
  - No customers will be extorted as a result of this incident, publicly or otherwise.
• May 14: the Vice-Provost (Learning Initiatives) held an online information session, giving a little more information about the incident.
• May 15: the U of A Provost announced that full Canvas functionality would start being restored.

What are some unanswered questions?

• Was the attack vector vishing (voice phishing)? That is, did ShinyHunters gain access to Canvas by a social engineering attack, in which a ShinyHunters member called someone at Instructure on the phone and convinced them that they were an employee who needed access?
• Instructure did admit that the attack involved Canvas’ Free-for-Teacher product somehow, and that has been permanently discontinued. How exactly was this system involved?
• What is Instructure doing to prevent this from happening again? Employees are a notoriously porous attack surface, compared to hardware infrastructure and software. You can upgrade your systems; you cannot upgrade people.

How was my class affected?
My Spring term PSYCH 258 course was directly affected: Canvas was unavailable for about a week. Fortunately, though, learning was not brought to a complete halt. I teach in person, so classes continued relatively normally. I still provide my lecture notes on my own course website, which was unaffected the incident; I just emailed the class the course URL. (Bear Tracks allows instructors to send email messages to the entire class. I also have offline class lists in my marks spreadsheets.) My course website also has copies of the syllabus and assignment documents; this is redundant with my posting of these document on Canvas.

There were two components of my courses that were impacted. First, I was unable to do in-class Wooclap polls. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was able to run the interactive polls in class on Wooclap.com, but I was not able to synchronize the results with Canvas, which is how I give participation credit. So I just gave the entire class credit for those Wooclaps. In total, four polls were affected. I have no problem giving out free marks in situations like this.

The other component was a bit more substantial. With Canvas down, how could students submit the online lab that was due on May 8? Here, too, I had a workaround. Google Forms can accept file submissions. All I had to do was email students the link to the Google Form. Grading the assignment still presented a challenge. However, Canvas was soon available with limited functionality (no access to third-party plugins like Wooclap), so I copied the submitted labs over to Canvas manually. One by one. Fortunately, some students were able to submit their labs via Canvas. But copying dozens of files took almost an hour.

What did we learn?
I have received the occasional complaint from students about having some course materials on a separate website. I realize it may be a little bit confusing and different, if you are expecting everything to be on Canvas. But I do have a link to it on Canvas, so there is not a tremendous amount of extra effort required. This incident illustrated the advantages of redundancy. In case of a disaster, not everything has to come to a crashing halt. The cost is that it takes a little bit of effort on students’ part, and a lot of extra effort on my part. I think it’s worth it.

I’m happy that the University of Alberta did not have to pay any ransom. There is no money in the budget for that. I guess I’m satisfied that Instructure paid the ransom to keep everyone’s personal information from becoming public. It’s not like I have any deep dark secrets on Canvas, but I acknowledge that students probably do not want all of their grades made public.

Finally, everyone--corporations, institutions, individuals--have a long way to go to ensure privacy and security. Yes, enable encryption and passwords on your devices; keep them updated. More importantly, be suspicious. What if you were to get a late-night email from your instructor’s email address, pressuring you to send them your login ID and password because of [reasons]? Fraud is becoming an increasing concern. According to a new study:

Scams are now one of the most common crimes in the world. In the United Kingdom, for example, scams accounts for 40% of all reported crimes. A 2024 report from the Global Anti-Scam Alliance states that about half of the world’s population is faced with a scam solicitation at least once a week.

The cost of scams worldwide is estimated to be more than $5 trillion USD a year—roughly equivalent to the combined 2024 budgets for Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. But victims often do not recoup their funds, and for close to 90% of cases, victims do not report that fraud occurred.

Be wary!

Why aren’t you studying?

The SPOT (Spring, 2025)

I wasn't going to write a post about these student comments--after all, spring courses are pretty small and it's a unique experience taking a course over six weeks. But then I thought that that is the best reason to post these comments. Never taken a spring course? It's a completely different thing, as we'll see. Anyway, there aren't many comments because the classes are so much smaller. (When is that new Spider-verse movie coming? I need new pictures of The Spot.)

⚠️ Warning! As noted in my previous posts, content warning applies.

Course Design

the design of the concepts was quite confusing

Everything was super clear

Most well designed class I have taken at U of A.

Love your notes and teaching style, I wish I could take every class with you

Not enough time for review for final taught testable material till the last minute

(The last post is e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y common in spring term. No, there is not enough time. That's not a criticism of my course design, but of spring term itself. It goes by VERY quickly, and you need to make use of every minute. So, why don't I just redesign my course? I have. The content is different, the exams are shorter, and there are fewer assignments. But I can only do so much to compensate for the course being compressed into 6 weeks. It's a 3-credit PSYCH 258 course. I'm not allowed to make it significantly different from a 3-credit PSYCH 258 course offered in Fall or Winter terms.)

Course Resources

I mostly like the top hat textbook, but there were some annoying issues with it, particularly the top hat app.

the labs were certainly helpful in granting an extra understanding of the course concepts

I liked the labs and epolls

I was a little disappointed that we did not cover the language unit

the class got a 65 percent overall which is very low.

(The language chapter/lecture had to go. It doesn't serve anyone well to rush and cram more content in (see above comment). I recommend you read the language chapter on your own. It's pretty interesting! Yes, the mean was low. But my grade cutoffs are low, too. The median grade in the course ended up being a B, which is right where it should be for a 200-level course. And 16% of students got an A-level final grade.)

Graded Work/Instructional Approach

Very approachable and friendly :)

(So, sort of like a capybara? :)

The lab components and ePolls really helped show how I'm able to apply my learning. I get terrible test anxiety and perform poorly on every test I take, so having the chance to display my understanding in other ways is a HUGE win for me

Dr. Loepelmann was really engaging and funny, super kind, and went at a pace fast enough to keep you awake but slow enough to understand.

Perfect amount of workload for a course. Not too much, not too little.

Professor Loepelmann does a phenomenal job of introducing challenging concepts to the class. He provides really supportive and insightful examples for every concept and term, making the ideas easier to grasp. He very clearly cares about the success of every one of his students!

Dr. Loepelmann puts an immense amount of effort into creating interesting and engaging lectures.

Dr. Loepelmann's instructing style was my favourite component of the course. I greatly enjoyed how much he favoured class participation and included us in many of the studies, which helped me recall them much better. His delivery of the course content was so enthusiastic it reached a level of entertainment that I have never felt in a course before; it helped me digest and recall the material much more easily because it nearly felt like I spent an hour watching a psychology movie.

(First, thanks for your kind words. Second, compare all of these above comments to the ones for (basically) the same course when I taught it in Fall and Winter terms. Yes, I have selected the comments, so you're not getting the raw data, but I am trying to select representative comments that capture the essence of the feedback I get. As a scientist, I'd luuuuurve to know what accounts for this difference. It's not just a one-off; Spring is always viewed more favourably. Why?
  A) Students are different. You choose when to take your classes. Maybe students who take Spring term courses are different because...they don't have to work a fulltime job from May to August? Or in Spring you take fewer courses, so you can focus on them more, compared to Fall/Winter? I dunno.
  B) The course is different. Well, yes: there is less work, but that work is crammed into much less time. Why would that lead to a more positive experience?
  C) The prof is different. Nope. It's still just me. I even tell exactly the same jokes! 🙄)

Why aren't you studying?

The SPOT (Winter, 2025): Part III

This is the final set of feedback comments from Winter, 2025. If you're a regular reader of my blog (weird, but okay) you'll notice a particular pattern of comments in different courses. At least, I notice a pattern. But the comments below, from students in my 4th year Advanced Perception course, are quite different from those in my 2nd- and 3rd-year courses. The courses themselves are quite different from each other, so maybe that's part of it. But then, too, there are some of the same concerns.

⚠️ Warning! As noted in my previous posts, content warning applies.

Course Design

I found the fill in the blank notes actually were very interactive and helped me memorize a lot of the stuff easier because it forced me to be actively paying attention in the lectures which can be kinda hard for me in longer Tuesday Thursday classes so I appreciated that structure although it was a bit embarrassing to ask for blanks when I did zone out haha but I also enjoyed how the readings tied into the lectures as well it was very informative

The course design was good in terms of lectures and assessments, but I felt that missing lectures was too punishing because the lecture notes sharing forum doesn't seem to drive note-sharing very well.

I like the fill in the blanks because it encourages attendance

Sometimes the fill in the blanks can be easy to miss when also trying to type down some additional info said during lecture.

I just felt intimidated asking people for blanks I missed but that is just me being shy. It made a few people approach me for blanks so I guess they felt comfortable enough to approach other students, and I think the FITB notes made that more of an incentive to interact with others.

I believe that there should be lecture notes with answers to blanks posted after the class is finished.

(I'm not on the Discord. I don't know how to increase people's engagement to create a community of learning. Anyone have any ideas? As for the fill-in words, over the summer I spent a LOT of time taking out a LOT of the blanks in my notes. I hope it will lead to a better experience and I'm sure no one will complain about the blanks any more ever. Also, I tried posting all the fill-in words, but that lead to a steep drop-off in attendance--and marks. I don't think that does anyone any favours. Sometimes there has to be (desirable) difficulty.)

Course Resources

Practice exam/questions would be a great help to prepare for exam especially since it’s all written.

(This is why I have structured the quizzes to match the exam questions. You get practice--and feedback--every week!)

I liked that the weekly quizzes were basically practice questions for the midterms and final and it was all relating to the structure and content that would be tested on.

(Oh, right. Okay, so I'm glad that some people are noticing this.)

I found the article chosen very long. The lecture notes themselves are long and can be dense, so including long articles is a lot of material to study and memorize, especially if some students are taking a full or close to a full course load.

The papers that complimented the lectures were great at presenting the class ideas in a different way

(The articles I have chosen are a) not that long--although some are close to 40 pages, half are less than 20 pages, b) not dense, technical research papers, but textbook chapters or readings from Scientific American, c) few in number; I've seen 400-level courses with literally twice as many readings. What I have selected is on the lower end for a course in advanced perception. I want to challenge you!)

Graded Work

The midterms weren't multiple choice which I guess you can always guess on those so I think having essay-style questions made you show what you know so it helped me apply what I know and show I actually understood the content so although it was very intimidating, it did help me actually engage with the content more knowing I had to prove I understood everything

Although the fully written exam style was extremely daunting at first, I actually found the exam (midterm, haven't done final) quite fair since he gave multiple concepts for us to answer, allowing choice to describe the concepts you were most confident in. I do however wish these exams were conducted on a computer as the hand cramps were intense following that exam haha.

Exams should include multiple choice questions. Every student excels in different areas and has certain strengths/weaknesses when it comes to styles of exam questions. Including both essay and short answer questions is very nerve wracking, and the hard marking style makes it more difficult to excel. Maybe having short answer and multiple choice questions, or an essay and multiple choice questions would be more fair to ensure all styles of questions can be included.

I like the essay format of lectures, I think it's a good way of encouraging the application of knowledge and not just regurgitation.

(I, too, wish the exams could be on computer. Some of y'all have atrocious handwriting lol. If you are not great at, say, writing essay exams, should I then just avoid them? Or should I definitely use them, so that you can practice building on some of your skills that need further development? 🤔)

Weekly quizzes in the short-answer format are so helpful!! But I think the window for completion should be longer, since I struggled to find time to complete the quizzes on Thursdays specifically. My Thursdays are busy, so being allowed to complete these quizzes sometime during a span of at least a few days would be a lot less stress for those with busy Thursdays (or other days).

(Hmm, okay. That's a good point. I will consider this for the next time I teach this course, in Winter, 2027. Thanks for the suggestion!)

Instructional Approach

I've been bothered by some casual ableist comments or jokes during lectures. Particularly jokes about "crazy people". I understand that this is widely normalized in our culture, but it'd mean a lot if we could avoid comments like these.

(I think I know this exact reference. I've taken it verbatim from V.S. Ramachandran's work on synesthesia. At one point in history, synesthetes were considered "crazy", and that's the exact word Rama uses--several times (e.g., here). Otherwise, I do not minimize mental illness or psychological disorders; I'm sorry that was the impression you got.)

I also really appreciate his in-class midterm review, much appreciated as many profs now have exam viewings outside of class time that students are often unable to attend. I also was quite impressed with his (and the TA's) extensive feedback on every weekly quiz, blog post, exam, etc. His efforts didn't go unnoticed :)

Dr. Loepelmann was always available for individual feedback or help with course concepts. Great in-class discussions and awesome follow-up posts on eClass including links to recent research relevant to what we talked about!

I took this class because I loved Loepelmann's 367 class. He's one of my favourite professors at the university. He's kind, funny, and really passionate about the material. I know the 'fill-in-the-blank' model for notes is a bit controversial but I like it a lot. It encourages not just showing up to classes and also being engaged in them.

Dr. Loepelmann was great at answering questions in class and afterwards, often pausing lecture to do so, and going above and beyond to contribute additional info found after class via email which further shows his commitment and passion for his students and overall teaching. I also thought his interactive examples/demonstrations (skittles, epolls, virtual illusions, etc) super thoughtful and showed his drastic effort! Thanks Dr. Loepelmann :)

The lectures had a clear structure and breakdown, the assignments and exams were challenging but fair.

Not much to say that hasn't been said before, Professor Loepelmann is a gem and a personal favourite lecturer in my time at university.

(Aw, thanks for the kind words! 🥹)

Why aren't you studying?

The SPOT (Winter, 2025) Part II

You’ve waiting long enough. Here finally is is feedback I received in my PSYCH 367: Perception course in Winter term. Responses have been not been edited for clarity, spelling, or grammar at all.

⚠️ Warning! As noted in my previous post, content warning applies.

Course Design

The minor detail and the ambigious information required to know for the exams is quite frustrating, as the small innocuous details can be tested for and are not specified for the learning outcomes.

(Remember, I said perception can be confusing and complex. I’ve tried my best to highlight things that are confusing so that you can focus on them. Yes, there are detail-based questions, but also many general questions, too.)

It is clear that Dr. L put a lot of time and thought into designing this course to meet the needs of his students.

Although this may not have been noticeable to some, but I really appreciated having the calendar with all of the exams and assignments listed! I can see the deadlines in the "upcoming events" section of my eclass and it has helped me stay on top of things.

The layout with fill in the blank slides makes it a lot easier for me to keep up with and follow the notes!

labs are fun and helps me understand the content

I really liked that the labs were helpful in applying course content and that they were free!!

definitely not easy exams, but i like how you challenge your students.

(Thanks for your feedback!)

Course Resources

A note about the textbook: I found the textbook to be quite material dense. I know it is a good idea to be able to spend time reading it and absorbing all the knowledge, but most university students I know (including myself) don't usually have the time to spend hours reading multiple chapters to get a few important facts. The textbook is also quite expensive, when bought directly from the publisher (or other bookstores).Instead of assigning most of the textbook, perhaps key points and experiments could be illustrated with small assigned readings, such as the papers/studies themselves! This would vastly reduce the economic barrier for students, and provide experience with reading comprehension for academic publications, which is probably more valuable than textbook reading anyway.

I hate classes that require textbook readings to supplement learning. sometimes i don’t have time to read a 45 page chapter. textbook is good, but should be a resource not a requirement

(Thanks for your considered feedback. I did try assigning a few primary research papers in this course, and it did NOT go over well. If you think the textbook is difficult to read, articles are orders of magnitude more complex. I believe there is value in developing the skill to maintain your attention in reading long-form, complex material. I know it’s not what many students are used to--that’s why I do it.)

The textbook is okay to read through, but I just wish there was more accessibility such as more rentals at the library to borrow out at any given time since it's still expensive and I couldn't find many cheap alternatives online or anything.

(I’m sorry if you missed this, but I put three copies of the print textbook on reserve in Course Materials.)

Never uploading a complete version of the notes makes it difficult for those who do not wish to interact with other students in the course or simply are unable to.

(There is a social aspect to learning that is often overlooked. When I was an undergrad, I made a point of getting to know at least one other person in each of my classes--and I am painfully shy and extremely introverted. Plus, there was the Discord server that was used by your classmates to share notes with each other. Anyway, you could stop by my office and I could help you with whatever you missed.)

Sometimes unclear what all is going to be on exams, Stating " exams are 60-40 lecture to textbook" is a little vague

(Thanks for this feedback. I now break down for you how many questions come from each chapter and related lectures.

The resources used in this class were very useful in aiding my learning and understanding of concepts in this class. The textbook was the number one resource that helped in aiding in my learning of hte concepts that I was unable to understand in the notes.

(I'm glad to hear it helped!)

Course Delivery

I would have preferred more smaller assignments spread throughout the course, or maybe more interactive labs that have more ways to show learning.

(I can’t really make the labs any smaller than they are. And I don’t want to assign more labs, as they would then have to be assigned during weeks when you have an exam.)

Dr. L's organization of this course it outstanding. I was never overwhelmed by organizing the content, and could instead focus my time on learning the material presented.

Maybe weekly quizzes(or for every chapter) so we can test our knowledge a bit better in preparation for the exams,

practice assignment would be helpful

(I’m hesitant to create more assessments, as this requires time to prepare for. And I think that would lead to more complaints than complements--even if it would facilitate learning. Anyway, there still are the practice chapter questions on Canvas.)

It would be helpful if you could add the illustrations from the lectures into the lecture notes. There were a few there but a lot were missing, it would just make it easier to follow along.

(Sorry if you missed it, but they are all posted on Canvas. I’ve been doing that for 15 years.)

I laugh at all your jokes, they make the class even better, please keep them coming!!

(You must’ve been laughing really quietly, because all I ever heard was crickets!)

Class Climate

good jokes and quips

Lectures were engaging and useful. I genuinely wanted to come to class and learn our next topics. As a small request, having more opportunities to ask questions (and have them answered) during the flow of class would be really awesome. Questions from students were periodically ignored, and I guess this is likely because of the amount of content we needed to get through each class. I do feel, however, that being heard and answered can be really important for learning, and general morale.

(I never ignore someone who has their hand up. However, I may have a hard time noticing you. Either wave your hand around (motion attracts attention dontcha know) or say “I have a question!” (my hearing is okay).)

Dr. L is one of the strongest professors I've had in my five years at the U of A.

(Bro, I can’t even bench 100. But, looking at me, I can see how you’d make that mistake.)

Overall, super enjoyable content and course. I would definitely recommend this to other students, despite not having a psychology background, I was able to follow along everything fairly easily!

Professor Loepelmann is an incredible teacher and was able to teach this course in a way that was engaging, interesting, informative, but also felt very easygoing and comfortable. It was a wonderful course because of Professor Loepelmann.

Dr loepelmann is super entertaining and present the content in an engaging way. He is truly a performer and incorporates comedy into his lectures which really helps make the content stick and makes lectures feel less like a chore.

he is funny, kind, and always willing to help his students

(Thanks for the kind words.)

Why aren't you studying?

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 listened 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?