Psychology 5370,Learning, Motivation, and Cognition Fall,2015

Course Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Theron , Phone 5122453163

Email is best way to reach me

Office hours :8:30-9:30 Wed. other times by appointment. I will be here all but twice on Tuesday AM 9:30- 11:30

Text: Learning Theories. 6th Edition by Schunk. This text combines the 3 topics of this course. The text is for general background information.

Additional materials such as articles and instructor handouts will not always be listed in the syllabus but will either be given via email or in class.

Course Goals:

Understanding basic associative and cognitive factors in learning and motivation.
To learn how psychologists establish methods to study the above areas.
To use classic articles as well as current research to see how major trends in

Learning and motivation may project into the future of psychology.

A fourth overall goal is to look at some applications of research in solving such human problems of addiction, industriousness, depression, and helping to self regulate more effectively. We will use self- regulation issues as a group project in the last 3 weeks of the course.

The course is divided into 6 modules. Module 1 is the longest and we will spend about 3 weeks on it. We will spend about 4 weeks on Modules 2-3. The rest of the course will be covered in the remaining weeks. 4-6 are closely related. I will give you thought sheets-2 for Module 1 and one each for the other 5 modules. You will learn a lot in this class. You will learn from articles, my lectures, from each other and class presentations by the students. The text will help fill in details in a few area but most of the 2 quizzes will cover articles, content and materials presented in class. In this course we are a community of scholars dedicated to knowledge, critical thinking and having intellectual fun! Students have for the most part said they got a lot of good things from this course. One thing I was pleased about is how many students said this course was useful to them professionally and how much the learned that they could apply both to their personal life as well as to their jobs.

Attendance in this course is a must! Learning interactively is essential in graduate school .

Graduate level understanding comes from critically reading research and from inputs from other students as well as from the instructor.

In the course schedule below S refers to the chapter in Schunk you should have read and thought about prior to class. We cannot have a good discussion without preparing ahead of time. After the first week we will have material both from students and the instructor. More about that under expectations and grading.

Course Schedule

Date Topic Chapter

Aug.26 Psychology goes scientific . Organizing the course 1,2

Sept.2 Pavlovian and Operant conditioning . Not what you may think they are ! Articles by Crombag, Navarrette, Eisenberger et al S2,3

Sept.9 Going beyond Skinner and Pavlov . Student talk(s) 3,4

Vicarious extinction- relation to PTSD?

Discuss above articles .Get new articles

Sept.16 Social learning Imitation to self-efficacy Bandura article, Golkar, S3

Mueller. Student presentation.

Sept.23 . Applications and implications of social learning approach. S3,S4 Aggression. Cognitive behavioral therapy- student presentation. Articles from Stimmel. Get Gagne handout.

Sept.30 A brief tour of memory in about 40 minutes! Mueller article and encoding specificity. Student presentation on encoding specificity. S5

Oct. 7 Midterm 90 minutes 11;15-12 Stimmel goes over constructivism and introduces the problem of false memories. Get articles.

Oct14 Cognitive and emotional factors in memory. Stimmel leads S5.6discussion on anxiety and working memory. Important that everyone has read Ashcraft et al article. Creating false memories. Student presentation. Memory and learning problems in autism. Student presentation. Recovered memories? Student presentation.

Oct 21 The problems and issues in eye-witness testimony S5,6

. Big student presentation from forensic Psychology students . Expertise and overcoming learning and memory obstacles. Stimmel. Sociocultural theory versus constructivism. Articles-2 given by eye witness team ahead of time. S6,7

Oct. 28 Motivation. Modern versions of achievement motivation . Bring in Weiner’s article and questions- student presentation .Consistency theory and motivation- Stimmel. Perceived control theory. Rotter, Seligman S8

Nov.4. Learned helplessness up to date-Student presentation. S8

Dweck’s synthesis of perceived control, achievement motivation, and attribution . 2 articles. Stimmel.Student presentation?

Nov. 11,18, and Dec.2. S9 A Grand Finale. We tackle a major issue of our time, self-regulation not just self-control. We will all do presentations. You can fill up your 40 point presentation requirement here ! The topics include problems and limits of self-control, how implicit beliefs effect the limits of self- control, brain functions and self control failures, as well as self – control limits in general. How might Skinner have dealt with this. He did deal with it! Self regulation in writing and mathematics. Self-regulation and aggression. We will come up,as a class, with a master plan to improve self -regulation based on good research. I will assign students to enough presentation time to make sure the can achieve all points possible.

Final exam Friday, Dec.4 at 9:30 AM until 12PM The other time we could do it is 8AM Sat.,Dec.5 I presume you would prefer Friday! The Final exam covers only the materials we covered since exam 1. This is because the course is cumulative. You need the first part to understand the second part.

No materials covered on either exam test anything not covered in this course. Most questions will be based on articles and presentations. If you do not understand something in this course ask about it and share with others. Often if you have trouble with an issue others had a similar problem!

Grading 2 exams each counting 25%-50% total . 40 points for class presentations. Total 90% 10% of grade for class participation. Starting week 3. 1 point for every class in which you actively participate by asking a question or making a comment that shows you have come to class prepared to participate. If you work regularly in this course you will have no problems. You cannot miss class and “cram” for exams at the last minute. Since we meet only once a week , please do not fail to remember to prepare each week. Of course if you are presenting you will a point for that class!

How do I grade the class presentations. I will meet briefly with each participant either in class or in my office to express what I think you should cover and maybe share with some of my thoughts on making it clear to the class. You need to prepare you talks but also be flexible in order to take questions! This is usually not a big problem. Unless you just phone it in!

This is a course in which we will all learn a lot and have some intellectual fun . Welcome to a great semester!