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Module Structure

The combined modules are designed to represent about 2/3 the work of a 3 credit class (90 hours of student effort and study). Each module consists of:

  1. Lecture Videos
  2. Video supplements
  3. Inter-video questions
  4. Summative Module Multiple Choice Asssessments & Essay Questions
  5. Readings & Reading Assessments
  6. Concept Paper/Reading Response Assignments (tie together readings, lectures, and real world issues).

Lecture Videos, sliced up into meaningful bits. We try to hit the cuts around the 10 minute mark, but we can't always get as close to this as we like.

Video supplements. A lot of times due to film quality or aggressive copyright vetting what the students are reacting to on the lecture hall screen is not visible in the video. When we can,  we try to find and link to replacements on the web -- directly linking to a YouTube video that might have been shown, or to a diagram of something that was discussed, but redacted from a slide. The video supplements appear next to or below the video. 

Inter-video questions. The questions are meant to do three things:

  • Keep the attention of the student. Research indicates that students who know they will be quizzed directly after material is presented pay more attention (and pay attention longer) than students that are not expecting questions.
  • Test that the student actually watched the video. Pretty straightforward. We want to incentivize the students to watch these videos, and reward students that watch them on schedule. 
  • Help the student integrate the information. This is a more traditional use of the questions. Questions focusing on recall, identification,and light application tasks are presented to the student to help the student to integrate and rehearse the material while it is still relatively fresh in mind. There is good research evidence that these small, unobtrusive questions help students recall and appropriately apply the material down the road.

Important note on the questions: There are two types of questions -- the "did you just watch this?" questions and the "apply/rehearse what you learned" questions. The "Did you just watch this?" questions are designed to be trivially easy for someone that has watched it to answer, but extremely hard to Google. Here's an example of a 'watching test" question:

What metaphor does Bloom (the lecturer) use in the previous video to explain intergroup differences?

  • Two fields, fertilized at different levels
  • Two sides of a see-saw
  • Two balloons, one filled with helium, and one with air
  • Two competing stores, such as McDonald's and Burger King

Again, anyone who watched the video should be able to get this -- this is mere recall of an example used.

The second type of question is identification or light application. It is also meant to be fairly easy, though not as easy as the "Did you watch it?" questions. Here's a sample identification.

Which of the following would be a good example of classical conditioning?

  • After working at a service center where almost all calls were complaints, when you hear a phone ring your blood pressure rises.
  • To encourage your child to eat their vegetables you let them watch TV if they eat their vegetables.
  • To encourage your child to eat their vegetables you take away TV time if they don't eat their vegetables.
  • All of the above

Summative Module Asssessments test the bottom parts of Bloom's taxonomy, but are more rigorous than the in video questions. They also are more difficult because there is a more pronounced emphasis on transfer and critical application. Here's an example:

A recent study found that body image issues did not seem to bear any relation to the shared environment of identical and fraternal twins, but that identical twins had similar (though not identical) body image issues. If this is true, where does it suggest body issues likely to stem from? 

  • Genetics and peer group
  • Peer group and parenting
  • Parenting and genetics
  • Parenting alone

Essay questions are used only periodically through the semester, but are meant as a summative measure (as opposed to concept papers). A typical question might be:

  • You have just won the lottery, and now have access to 50 million dollars. Using your knowledge of happiness, habituation, and other aspects of psychology, develop a plan to maximize the happiness that the 50 million will give you. What would be the worst thing to do with the money? What is the best use?

Reading Assignments, Reading Assessments, and Suggested Discussion Questions.  We are integrating some (but not all) of the supplemental readings into the course, and providing some readiness assessments (e.g. "Did you really read it" mult-choice quizzes). If you are wrapping this MOOC, you can use the quizzes to make sure they did the readings, and the questions as topics for discussion in your Google hangout or face-to-face class. 

Concept Paper/Reading Response Assignment Examples:

This is a short two or three paragraph essay requested a number of times through the semester that encourages students to tie multiple threads of the course together -- the readings with the lectures with real-world situations. It is peer-graded based on a rubric.

  • Take the OCEAN personality test found at http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/ Links to an external site.. Analyze your results. In what way do you feel they do or don't capture the way that you tend to react to situations? If possible, tell a story that you feel supports or refutes the test results. What are some of the problems relying on self reports? (Here's my results: http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/results/?oR=1&cR=0.667&eR=0.688&aR=0.694&nR=0.375 Links to an external site.)
  • The Flynn effect shows that scores on intelligence tests have been rising for over a century. Suggest three hypotheses as to why this might be. Which hypothesis do you believe to be strongest?
  • Recent research indicates that the shared environment you have with your parents has less impact on your personality than previously thought. Many researchers think there is little or no long-term impact of parenting on kids, as long as certain basic needs are met. Take two personality traits of yours and discuss the ways that you have felt that your upbringing contributed to the development of those traits. Could those traits also have been inherited, or a result of a non-shared environment? Why or why not?
  • Find a story in the news that relates to any aspect of psychology (rage, overeating, depression). What are the psychological assumptions implicit in the reporting? Is there mind-body dualism? Behaviorism? Does the article take into account genetic factors and unshared environment or only shared environment? Does habituation play a role? Tie one or two specific concepts we have learned in class to answer the question of whether the article or editorial is written from a "psychology-literate" point-of-view.