I'm sad to report that at the last Department of Psychology council meeting, despite my arguments, my colleagues voted to kill PSYCO 365: Advanced Perception. Not only that, but PSYCO 267: Perception is also not long for this world. A moment of silence, please.
I like to think of Advanced Perception as "my" course. One year, I took it as an undergraduate (it was PSYCO 466 back then); the next year, I was a graduate student and TA for that same course. Back then it was taught by Dr Charles Bourassa. When he retired, I was assigned to the course. Since 1995, with only two exceptions in 1999 and 2000, that course has been mine, all mine. At first, it looked very much like Dr Bourassa's course (steal from the best, right?), but I gradually shaped it into something that I wanted, adding topics like face perception, synesthesia, and perception and art. It wasn't easy--there's no textbook that's really appropriate for a 300-level course. I tried using one, but it was generally loathed by students, so over several years I assembled readings here and there to support my lectures. I like to think that I was successful in shaping Advanced Perception: my evaluations steadily improved from "meh" when I first started out, to Honour Roll with Distinction in the past three years.
Unfortunately, with a reassessment of the "streams" of courses available in psychology, it was proposed that, because no 400-level course in perception existed, Advanced Perception had to go. The motion passed by a wide margin.
But--wait. There is a loophole. I can teach the course (modified a bit--maybe including a term paper requirement) as a "special topics" PSYCO 403 course. Not only that, but the Department has a policy that any special topics course that is continually taught over a number of years will get rolled into an official numbered course, and put into the UofA Calendar. Heh heh. So maybe it's not dead after all--maybe the hundreds and hundreds of hours I put into doing secondary research won't all be wasted. There is a downside: instead of being able to accommodate 125 students (with lots more wanting to get in), I'll only have 30. Sorry, everybody.
And what of PSYCO 267? The Department wanted to do away with the perception course stream, so that means that Perception is also a goner. But--wait. It's not being killed outright, it's being renumbered to PSYCO 367. That means it will have to be modified--no multiple-choice-only exams, and I'll have to review appropriate textbooks--but it will live. It seems a bit strange to retain this course, because it's sort of "stranded": there's no 200-level perception course (the prereq will be PSYCO 275 or PSYCO 259 258, the newly renumbered Faculty of Science Cognitive Psychology course), and there's no (official) 400-level perception course. Oh well, whatever. The other change will be to downsize it from 200+ to 125. I generally like teaching smaller classes, but there's no way to accommodate the strong demand that PSYCO 267 currently generates. Sorry, everybody.
If you're reading this and freaking out about your course planning for next year, relax. These changes first have to be approved by central admin, and then they won't go into effect until 2013-2014. So I still have a bit of time left with two of my favourite courses.
Cherish your loved ones, you don't know when they may be taken from you.
Why aren't you studying?
Update: These changes won't take effect until the 2013-2014 Calendar year, so Advanced Perception will still be offered as PSYCO 365 in Winter, 2012 and Winter, 2013.
Update: The Faculty of Arts course PSYCO 258: Cognitive Psychology will NOT be renumbered to PSYCO 259, but starting in Fall, 2013 it WILL be a Faculty of Science course.
Update: PSYCO 403: Advanced Perception has been offered in the Winter term since 2021.
The End of Perception
The Open Comments: 3
It's midterm time, and that means it's also time for me to ask you for your comments. Feedback is a really important component of improvement. And it makes no sense to wait until the end-of-term evals if there's something I can be doing better now. (Yeah, I know my intro psych clicker "experiment" is not going like I'd planned. I'm working on it...)
So, how are things going this term? Got a handle on things? Can you hear me in class?
Why aren't you studying?
The Right Way to Study
Do you know how to study? Yeah, that's obvious. But do you know the best way to study? Here's a quiz, from Chris Chabris' and Dan Simons' The Invisible Gorilla blog:
Imagine you’re taking an introductory psychology class and you have to study for your first test. You’ve read the assigned text, and now you three more days to prepare. What should you do?Before you answer, don't try to guess what the right answer is, think about what you actually do. OK, now make your choice. (The answer is below.)
1. Re-read the text once more each day.
2. Spend each day studying the text to identify critical concepts and the links among them.
3. Quiz yourself the first day, reread the text the second day, and quiz yourself again the third day.
Do you know what you know? That is, are you able to make an accurate assessment of what you know (and what you don't know)? Let me explain. Take an intro psych course. You go to class, you read the textbook, you learn stuff. But how well have you learned it? With your gradually coalescing knowledge about psychology, do you have the ability to assess that knowledge? It seems like a paradox. Chabris and Simons call this the "illusion of knowledge": you believe that you have a better understanding of something than you actually do. This false sense of security is given by your feeling of familiarity with what you've read (and can be explained by fuzzy trace theory).
There are two ways are to get around this illusion. One, you take an exam. No, seriously. Exams (especially midterms) are not meant to be completely evaluative (judging your understanding), but are also formative (indicating what things need more work). Not surprisingly, students focus on the former at the expense of the latter. But exams can provide you with valuable feedback on your progress--as long as you actually check out your exams, going over each question to see what you did. If you just check your marks online, you're limiting yourself to the evaluative side of it.
The other way is to do what it says in choice 3 above. If you quiz yourself (before the exam) by trying to answer learning objectives or sample multiple choice questions, you are shifting the balance from evaluative to formative; you are giving yourself a chance to improve on weak areas before you get evaluated by an exam. Multiple quizzing can help you determine what's working, and what's not. Unfortunately, students tend to go with choice 1, even though it's more work with less of a payoff.
To put the quizzing together with the studying, you can apply the SQ4R method (survey, question, read, recite, relate, and review).
(HT: The Invisible Gorilla and research by Karpicke and Blunt, 2011.)
Why aren't you studying?
Exam Prep I: "Do I have to know this...?"
At this time of year, students are starting to prep for exams, which is good. How do I know students are prepping? By The Question I get asked. The Question is: "Do I have to know this...?" This is not a stupid question. I'd love to say that there are no stupid questions, but one like "Is this going to be on the exam?" is close. Er, why don't I just give you a copy of the exam so you can see what's on it?
Sorry, sorry. Sometimes I get snarky when that one comes up. Don't take offence at my snarkiness. It's just that I'm tired of answering certain questions over and over. That's why I've decided to write a post about it--so I don't have to answer it over and over. I hope.
And don't think that I'm writing this post because you were the one who asked me The Question. Lots of people have asked me The Question over the years. And lots have asked it already this term. In fact, I planned on writing about The Question this week a long time ago. So get over it.
I know what's happening when The Question starts to form in a student's mind. They're reading the textbook and increasingly getting overwhelmed by all the names and dates in the first chapter. There so much stuff--most of it not even mentioned in lectures. "Gosh, I'm getting tired. It's going to take me a long time and a lot of effort to commit all of this information to memory, and to understand all the different names for things. Hmm, maybe I'd be wasting my time learning about all of this. I better check with the instructor and see." Aaaand The Question is born, and gets sent off through the Intertubes to me, landing in my inbox. Ping!
Can you see my frustration with The Question? There are a couple of things. First: No, there will not be exam questions on everything--that's impossible. I cannot test every single concept presented in the textbook and in lectures. The test would be thousands of questions long. The best I can do is take a random sample of those questions. If you've learned everything in the course so far, it shouldn't matter what content the questions address. On the other hand, if you've been a bit...intellectually lazy and skipped over things that were long, complicated, or hard, there will be gaps in your knowledge. Exams should be designed to reveal those gaps, in order to differentiate among students' learning.
Second, the little vignettes and stories at the start of every chapter will not be on the exam. But that doesn't mean you should ignore them. Why did the textbook author spend time writing them? To help you understand the context and reason for the chapter? To illustrate an important concept? So, do you need to know that specific story or not? Probably not. But by reading it, you'll better understand the concept it's trying to teach you.
Third, names and dates. Yes, I'm deliberately wasting your time, sir. Or, wait. Am I? Is an important part of learning about psychology to know the contributions made by philosophers, scientists, and psychologists? To know their names? And to know when in history those contributions were made? If you want to become a psychologist, is all of that important? In the science biz, the way that we refer to important research is not by where it was done (although the media love to report the institution for some reason), but by who did it, and when. One psychologist will sling around names like "Smith, Shoben, and Rips", "Treisman and Gelade", and "Ramachandran and Hubbard, '07" and another psychologist will know instantly what the other is talking about. But then, psychologists know all about psychology and you don't. Not yet. You get to know a lot about psychology by reading and remembering it, not by skipping over a bunch of it. On the other hand, from a pedagogical standpoint, is there value in evaluating students on their ability to rote memorize what seems like a meaningless string of names and numbers?
So, in answer to The Question, "Do I have to know this...?"
No. No, you don't.
You also don't have to pass the course, or get an A. Students who do, will know...
Why aren't you studying?
The Syllabus Poll - Results
The results (from last week's poll) are in. It looks like the majority of you like to have not only the online PDF of the course syllabus, but also a hardcopy. OK, that's good to know. The last time I ran this poll, the results looked a bit different. Only 7% wanted online only, 6% liked hardcopy only, 80% preferred both (and there were 6% who were psychic--yeah, right). There are interesting trends: decreasing preference for paper and an increasing trend towards preferring soft copies online.
There is also a caveat: out of the approximately 600 students in my classes this term, less than 100 votes were cast. A possibility is that those who were strongly motivated to vote were the only ones who did so. That is, this sample is not representative. *sigh* Any stats majors out there care to do an analysis?
Still, maybe I can use these numbers to show that some students do want to get a piece of paper handed out in the first class. And maybe they can find some funds. (How 'bout if I put the exams online? That would save a ton of paper.)
Why aren't you studying?
The Syllabus Poll
Because of the University’s recent budget woes, the Dean of Arts has “strongly encouraged” instructors to post their syllabi online. This will 1) save money, 2) save trees, and 3) “save face”. (I think that last one means “move into the 21st century, already!”) It’s not like the copying budget has officially been cut; that’s for individual Departments to decide. (I haven’t heard of any policy changes from the Faculty of Science, but Psychology is mostly funded by Arts.)
I’ve been posting my syllabi online for, well, a while--ever since the third course I taught, in 1995. That’s not a big deal. But cutting out a hardcopy syllabus...I don’t know.
This year, I decided to help out my Department--I went to Staples to copy and pay for the syllabi myself. (Meh, it’s no biggie: it took an hour and $140.38 for about 600 syllabus copies across three courses.)
So, I’ve continued to provide a hardcopy of the syllabus on the first class. But is it still necessary? I’d like to get your opinion on this. Is it good enough if I just go over the syllabus in detail in the first class (which I do now anyway)? Or do you think it’s still valuable to have a piece of paper to look at on that first day?
I'd like your opinion (but, please, vote only once):
(Poll is now closed. Thanks for voting. Results are here.)
In January, 2010, I ran an online poll asking my students about their preferences. I don't want to give the results here, because that may bias the voting. I'll post those numbers after I close the current poll.
Why aren't you studying?
The September 11th
I remember September 11, 2001. My wife was out of town with her sister, and I was alone at home working on (what else?) lecture prep. I don’t turn the TV or radio on when I’m working--don’t want any distractions--but I was working on the computer. I needed to get some information, and went to Google.
I distinctly remember an unusual thing on Google’s home page: a picture of the World Trade Center towers on fire, and a link to more information. I followed the link, thinking it was a promotion for a movie or something, but then I quickly realized what was Really Happening. That’s when I turned on the TV...needless to say, I didn’t get any more work done that day. And I was much relieved when my wife got home that evening.
I recently found a screenshot of Google’s actual home page on 9/11. It did not have a picture of the towers, but it did say, “Breaking news: Attacks hit US” and there were links to several news sites. How could I have misremembered something that seemed so clear to me?
Many people report having very vivid memories of a highly emotional event--not just of the event itself, but also of their personal experience (where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, etc.) when they first heard about the event. (These are called “flashbulb memories”, as if these memories are seared into our minds by the bright flash of emotion.)
But research has shown that these memories are not as veridical as we feel they are. 9/11 provided a unique opportunity for psychological scientists to do a sort of natural experiment on flashbulb memories. For example, Dr Elizabeth Phelps and her colleagues found that people did remember significant things about the 9/11 event quite well (80+%, even though these eroded over time), but only remembered about half of their personal details surrounding the event correctly. This means that you would swear you saw a picture of the burning towers on Google’s home page even though that never happened.
Incidentally, I did have a class to teach in the late afternoon of 9/11. I went and taught the class and didn’t say a word about the attacks. I felt that, as long as students were showing up, I’d teach them; I’d do my job. If they hadn’t heard about what was happening, I didn’t want to be the one to tell them. I imagined that would make it hard to concentrate for the rest of the class.
Now that I have children, though, I think I would handle things differently. I’d probably cancel my classes, take my kids out of school/daycare, and just hug them for the rest of the day. In fact, I think I’ll go hug them right now.
Why aren’t you studying?
Find It
