PSY 202 General Psychology provides an introduction to the psychological study of human beings. The emphasis of the course is in the areas of psychobiology, perception, learning, motivation, consciousness, cognition, personality, emotion, development, psychological assessment, social behavior, psychopathology, and psychotherapy. You may enroll for credit in either PSY 201 or PSY 202, but not both. 4 lectures.

The course is 4 units. Three of the units consist of two 80 minute lectures per week in the Cal Poly theater on Monday and Wednesday from 11:10 - 12:-30 PM. These lectures are given by several faculty in the department. The fourth unit is one 50 minute discussion/recitation section per week at a time specified in the quarter schedule. The discussion sections are taught by individual faculty and have separate requirements from the theater lectures.

I am one of several faculty in the department that contribute to the team teaching format of the course. I regularly teach PSY 202 discussion sections and usually give two lectures to the PSY 202 general audience (lecture section) in the Cal Poly theater. I consider the discussion section of PSY 202 to serve as an adjunct to the lecture section of the course as well as being somewhat independent of the lectures. The recitation section is an opportunity for you to ask questions about the lectures or about the readings in the textbook and to participate in discussions over topics related to psychology. But it is also an opportunity for me to introduce you to topics, issues, and additional material that I consider important to the field of psychology.

Requirements

My requirements for the discussion class may be different from those of some other faculty so you may want to shop the various discussion sections to see which section meets your needs. My discussion section constitutes 30% of your grade in PSY 202. The three exams which you will take in the lecture section (in the Cal Poly theatre), two midterms and a final exam, will amount to 60% of your grade (each 20%). The required paper is 10% of your grade.

The 30% of your grade in the discussion section will be based on 1) regular attendance, 2) 2 quizzes, and 3) homework assignments.

Attendance: Role will be taken at the beginning of each class session. You will earn 1 point for each discussion class attendance, or 10/11 points depending on whether your discussion section falls on the Thanksgiving holiday.

Quizzes:There will be two quizzes, the first being about 5 weeks into the quarter and the last one held the last week of the quarter. Each quizz will be based on material covered ONLY in the discussion section. The quizzes will consist of either multiple choice, matching, true-false, or fill-in-the-blank quesions and will be worth 15 points each.

Homework Assignments: There will be 3-4 homework assignments worth a total of 34/35 points. If you do not pick up the homework assignment the week it is handed out, you will NOT be able to make it up and your grade for that assignment will be a zero. This rule will be enforced. However, there will be extra copies of the assignment outside my office for those who missed the opportunity to pick on up in discussion for that week.

Grading Criteria

I use a modified-curve grading system. What that means is that you always know going into a test what the minimum number of questions you can miss and still get a certain grade. For example, for an A- on a test, you can miss 5 questions out of 50 (90%). Following the scoring of the scantron forms, a frequency distribution will be calculated. If the distribution indicates that grades are scewed toward the lower grades, the grading criteria will be altered resulting in more latitude in the number of questions missed. For example, instead of 5 questions missed, a student may be able to miss 6 questions and still get an A on the test.

The grading scale: