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?
