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.”
· Finally, 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).
