Seminar in Psychology

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Course Outline:  Psychology is a diverse discipline covering a wide range of topics. Although not unified by a common content, our discipline is unified by the scientific methods used to assess and understand behavior. In this seminar, you will learn how to be an educated consumer of psychological research and iby hearing about current research bearing on psychological topics being conducted by faculty and other professionals in the field. You will also be exposed to some of the varied research methodologies used in research.

There are three majors objectives of the course:

1. Students will acquire skills in critically reading and evaluating research from primary sources, and integrating theories and research presented during seminar.
    
2. Students will have modeled styles of  professional communication in psychology. 
    
3. Students will hear about the recent research of social scientists at Weber State and beyond.

Course Structure: The seminar is set up as a small interactive course in which there is a formal presentation of research to audience members who are ready, willing, and eager to participate and discuss the issue of the day.  As a student in the seminar you will be exposed to professional modes of  communication and you will be graded on your ability to prepare for, respond to and critically evaluate the invited presentations. As is typical in seminars, the scholars will share with you their own or related work on the topic.  Your role as a "audience" is to a) be prepared for the presentation by reading relevant information, b) be attentive and responsive to the speaker and c) to critically evaluate the ideas presented in a reaction paper.   For each presentation, you will be expected to read the material (available on the web site) prior to attending the lecture.  At the presentation, you will be expected  to pay attention to the current discussion (and not be distracted by other work, daydreaming, engaged in side conversations) and to make a thoughtful contribution by asking a question more making a comment to add to the class discussion. Finally, you will be expected to write a thoughtful 2-3 page reaction to the lecture and the readings within a week of the presentation.  Your class participation and paper will be graded and used as a basis for grading.

Grading:  Grading is based on students' attendance and participation at each of 6 presentations. However, I will require only 5 paper be written.  you can write all 6 papers and will drop the lowest  grade or only hand in 6 papers. 

Distribution of Grades
     Attendance/Participation..............40%
    Each of 6 presentations... 6 2/3%
  Papers................................60%
        Each of 5 papers ......... 12%           

Class Policies:  For a review of class policies, click here.  For a late contract, click here.