Suggestions for
Doing Well in PSYC100
Here are some suggestions for doing well in the remainder
of the class:
·
The first and most important step is to schedule
a meeting with one of our course teaching assistants who are available to help
you review your approach to the course and answer any general questions that
you have going forward.
·
If you haven’t already, I’d also like to
encourage you to attend the Guided Study Sessions (GSS) that help review
material from the course (see the announcements on Blackboard).
·
As you study, make sure you focus on the
information in the exam review guides as well as the learning outcomes for the
individual chapters.
·
You should know the information well enough that
you can do the following:
o Define
a term. Example: “Classical Conditioning
is when you pair a natural response to an unnatural stimulus”
o Distinguish
it from a similar term. Example: “Classical
Conditioning is different from Operant Conditioning because Operant
Conditioning teaches a person or animal to perform a completely new (unnatural)
behavior.”
o Give
an example that can show the distinction. Example:
“Teaching a dog to drool at the sound of a bell is Classical Conditioning because
it is natural to drool (when food is present) but it is not natural to drool
when hearing a bell (a new stimulus).
Teaching a dog to waterski is Operant Conditioning because nothing
naturally causes a dog to waterski.”
· If you feel that you are devoting the necessary
effort to master the material and yet are not seeing the results you expect, I
would strongly suggest that you schedule an appointment with an academic
counselor to discuss some general strategies for getting more out of your study
time (http://www.counseling.umd.edu/LAS).
Of course, if after consulting these various resources
you still have questions or concerns please follow up with me and we’ll
schedule a time to meet and discuss everything.
I’m confident that with the right approach and the proper support you
can do well on the rest of the course.
