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?