PSYC 210 Section 0101: The Psychology of Learning				UMBC, Spring 2005

Mon 4:30-7:00 pm, Lecture Hall 6 (Physics Bldg)
Instructor: A. Charles Catania; 410-455-3002 (ext. 53002); catania@umbc.edu
TA: Christine Mayne; cmayne1@umbc.edu
Office hours and other contact information will be available at the Blackboard site (see below).

Text:  Catania, LEARNING, 4th Edition (1998), Prentice Hall (ISBN 0-13-235250-8) 

DATE		Chapters and Topics		Blackboard Exercises Due
Jan 31		Ch 1-2: Introduction: Nature of learning; Classic experiments	

Feb 7		Ch 3: Evolution		Course Quiz 1 (Ch. 1-2)

Feb 14		Ch 4: Stimulus Presentations		Course Quiz 2 (Ch. 3-4)
				Syllabus Quiz

Feb 21		Ch 5: Reinforcement		Course Quiz 3 (Ch. 5)

Feb 28		Ch 6: Punishment; Escape and avoidance		Course Quiz 4 (Ch. 6)

Mar 7		Exam 1: 50 points
		Ch 7: Shaping: The selection of behavior

Mar 14		Ch 8-9: Stimulus control; Higher-order classes		Course Quiz 5 (Ch. 7)
				Course Quiz 6 (Ch. 8-9)
(Mar 21=Spring Break)

Mar 28		Ch 10-11: Reinforcement schedules 		Course Quiz 7 (Ch. 10-11)

Apr 4		Ch 12-13: Respondent conditioning; Social learning		Course Quiz 8 (Ch. 12-13)
				Syllabus Quiz (Refresher)
Apr 11		Exam 2: 50 points
		Introduction to Verbal Behavior

Apr 18		Ch 14-15: Verbal function; verbal governance		Course Quiz 9 (Ch. 14-15)

Apr 25		Ch 16-17: Verbal structure; Verbal learning		Course Quiz 10 (Ch. 16-17)

May 2		Ch 18-19: Mnemonics; Remembering		Course Quiz 11 (Ch. 18-19)

May 9		Ch 20-21: Problem solving; Cognition		Course Quiz 12 (Ch. 20-21)

May 16		Summary and Review		

May 23		Final Exam: 60 points (3:30-5:00 pm)

Most announcements will be posted at the class website, but we may also make announcements in class. If you miss a class, you should check with a fellow student to find out whether anything was announced in that class.
 
Key Dates: To check add/drop and other deadlines, go to:  http://www.umbc.edu/registrar/S05Dates.html

Blackboard (Bb).  Most course information, including the syllabus, is available at the course website at http://bb6.umbc.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp (you can get to it via myUMBC).  To print material from the site, you may find it easier to use Internet Explorer than Netscape. Many of you will find you’ve been enrolled automatically and will see this class under your Courses tab.  But if not, here’s how to enroll: When you get to Bb, you’ll see three buttons on the left side of the screen: login, course catalog, and guestlogin.  Click the "Login" button and enter the same userID and password you use for myUMBC.  After you log in, a tab at the top of your screen will be marked "Courses."  Click it, click "Psychology," and navigate to "PSYC210_0101_Spr2005."  Click the "Enroll" button and you're in.  Here are some things you'll find there:

Announcements:  It is important that you check into Bb at least once a week.  When you first enter the class website, you’ll always start at the Announcements page, where any class announcements of general interest will be posted.  The default is to show the most recent 7 days of announcements. If you want to see older announcements, click “View last 30 days” or “View all.”

Syllabus: If you lose this syllabus, you can download a replacement from Bb (check under Course Information and/or Course Documents). Also, any revisions of or corrections to the syllabus will be posted there.

Bb Assignments:  Quizzes will be available at the website (you’ll find navigation instructions there). All of the quizzes consist of objective items (true-false and multiple choice). You’ll earn points toward your grade by completing these quizzes.  Read the instructions carefully when you start an online quiz.  They are set up so you can repeat them as often as you’d like during the time window in which each is available but the system remembers only your most recent score. Each quiz (but not the Syllabus Quizzes, described below) will be available in two identical versions. The Course Quizzes provide points toward your grade and are available only during limited windows of time; the Practice Quizzes are available for practice throughout the course but do not contribute points to your grade.  For example, Course Quiz 01 covers Chapters 1 and 2 and should be completed by Feb 7; it will become unavailable shortly afterwards and the points you earned on it will count toward your grade; Practice Quiz 01 covers exactly the same material (it is drawn from the same question pool) and will be available throughout the course, but the points you earn on it will not count toward your grade. The purpose of the Practice Quizzes is to allow you to continue to assess your understanding of the material while you prepare for exams. After you’re satisfied with your score on the Course Quiz, you can still practice on questions drawn from the same pool throughout the semester by taking the Practice Quiz --- you cannot overwrite your Course Quiz scores by taking Practice Quizzes.

You’ll find instructions for quizzes when you go to them. When you finish a quiz, click the “submit” button (on the lower right, after the last question) to send it; you should then get feedback. Always plan to complete and submit a quiz before you leave your browser page for other activities. Don’t leave a quiz in the middle: This might lock you out of that quiz, even though the quiz is set up so you can retake it as often as you like. Occasionally when you try to submit a quiz you may get a "no output" message (and/or a string of odd characters) instead of an appropriate acknowledgment of your submission. If that happens, it is essential that you click the Back button of your browser to return to your work so you can resubmit it. If you fail to do that, your work will probably be lost and you'll have to repeat it. Also, should you want to return to a quiz and find you are locked out, email Mayne, with a copy to Catania, so that we can unlock it for you. 

You will discover that most Course Quizzes are due by the day on which that material is covered in class.  That is because we have learned that students get more out of lectures if they have read the material ahead of time.  One important function of the Course Quizzes is to increase the odds that you will do that. Due dates are given on the course calendar on page 1. Quizzes will become available well before their due dates. There will then be an additional 48-hour grace period, so you can still complete the quiz in case the system is down or you encounter some other problem (exception: Course Quiz 01 only will have a grace period of one week). Example: Course Quiz 02 is due on Feb 14; it will be available up to that date and through midnight of Feb 16, but if you haven’t completed it by Feb 14 and you run into trouble so that you can’t complete it on Feb 15 or 16, there will be no further extension. Remember that postponing quizzes to the last minute is dangerous; computers get flaky, networks crash, etc. Try each quiz early and get a few points on board even though you are planning to dig in and earn a higher score later. The grace period is there in case you have a problem meeting the due date, but if you wait past the due date and into the grace period to start on a Course Quiz and then you cannot complete it, there will be no additional extension and you will lose your chance to earn points for that quiz. For this reason, whenever you complete a required Quiz, you should then go to Check Grade (under Tools) to be sure your grade recorded properly. Do this while the quiz is still available.

The Syllabus Quizzes will be quizzes based on this syllabus. You can earn up to 20 points on those quizzes.  The first one, worth 15 points, will be available only through Feb 16 (but again, don’t take chances: you should complete it no later than the due date of Feb 14).  You can repeat it as often as you like within the available time. You’ll find detailed instructions available when you start to take it.  The second one, a 5-point “refresher” version, due Apr 4 and also repeatable, will be available through Apr 6.  Notice that some dates on the syllabus include deadlines for more than one quiz.

Since they won’t count toward your grade, experiment with the Practice Quizzes, especially if you’re not already familiar with Bb or Bb quizzes.  To check your Bb points, go to Tools, click on Check Grade, and then click on the grade you are interested in to get more detailed information.  Explore the site for additional information that will be available to you.

Some advice on the Bb quizzes:  Some students are tempted to try to earn points just by taking the quizzes over and over until getting scores they are happy with.  But you will not be likely to do well on exams if you only learn answers to a sample of specific questions.  The question pools for each quiz typically include 100 items or more, and even if you take the quizzes several times you probably will not see all or even most of them.  Do not be misled by repetitions: by chance you will see questions more than once, and you will also see questions that seem alike though they differ in subtle ways (not least of which are the true and false versions of a given fact or definition, or variations in the alternatives offered by a multiple choice item).  To get the most from the Bb quizzes, read the relevant text material first and then go back to the text after taking a quiz, using the items you missed as a guide to the material you should concentrate on in your review.  If you find you are spending more time on the quizzes than on the text, you are probably not studying most efficiently.

EXAMS.   Two class exams and the final, each consisting of objective items, will be held on the dates shown. In most cases we limit makeup exams to special circumstances (e.g., your hospitalization, death in immediate family). If you think you are eligible for a makeup, check with us as soon as possible.  If you know in advance (e.g., athletic participation, obligatory religious holidays, previously scheduled surgery, subpoenaed court appearance), it is best for you to arrange to take the makeup before the scheduled exam date. But to make such arrangements, we usually need to know at least one week before the exam.

Taking exams. On exam days, bring a pencil with a clean eraser for the optical scanning (“Scantron”) answer sheets (pens won’t work, and bad erasures are a common cause of lost exam points). Get seated promptly and put away books and papers. Fill in your name and block in your ID number carefully, and attend to instructions about entering your exam form number (our exams may use alternate forms). As you take exams, record your answers on the question sheet, which you can keep, as well as on the answer sheet. If you think a question is ambiguous, assume we want information about what you know and not that we’ve designed it to trick you. But when in doubt, raise your hand and one of us will come to you. Maybe we’ll resolve the ambiguity and sometimes our answer to you may be worth sharing with the whole class. In any case, it’s better to ask during the exam than afterwards, when it’s too late to modify your answer. When the exam ends, promptly pass in your answer sheet as instructed; we may not accept it if you keep writing or delay handing it in. If you finish early, you may leave. We usually reconvene at a specified time after the exam is over and go over the answer key. Exam grades will also be posted on Bb, and you should check your grades regularly to insure against scoring or record-keeping errors.
 
Exam content.  You're responsible for ALL course material. The exams are necessarily cumulative: they concentrate on assigned chapters but later material depends on concepts presented earlier. Ordinarily, vocabulary and factual material make up the main content, but we might also ask details such as names of prominent researchers or material in class that supplements but does not appear in the text.
Studying.  We recommend that you: (1) Read and review each chapter AT LEAST twice (preferably 3 or 4 times) before the exam date that covers it; make your first reading a quick pass to pick up the overall structure and worry about the details in later readings. In other words, start with the big picture and then get into the fine points. (2) Spend some time going back over earlier material. (3) Browse through the whole text now and then, to familiarize yourself with what's to come later. (4) If you have questions about terminology, make use of chapter outlines, the Glossary, the index and other resources in your textbook. And, (5) give special attention to material about questions you missed on exams or Bb quizzes.

Use questions you miss in Course or Practice Quizzes to guide you in studying. A good method is to identify key words in a question and then to use the index to find where the text covers the topic; another is to check the glossary. If you've tried to work out an answer and are still uncertain, then come to see us about it or send us an email message.  Quote the question exactly, and include information about what you did to figure out the answer for yourself. Try to avoid last-minute questions in class just before an exam; that's the most difficult time for us to answer your questions carefully, because we have to concentrate on getting exam materials organized and distributed (but we sometimes allow a brief time before exams to answer a few questions about Bb quiz items from the class as a whole, so everyone has a chance to hear our comments).

Also, remember that recommendations about studying at the college level advise that you spend 2 or 3 hours outside of class for every hour you spend in class.  That means you should spend no less than six to nine hours weekly in your outside-of-class work for this course.

Questions affecting grades. If you have questions affecting grades (e.g., problem with an exam grade, alternative answer to a question, etc.), we will sometimes ask you to present it in writing and to indicate whether you think the resolution of the problem should apply only to you or to everyone in class. We find it is usually not a good idea for us to make snap decisions that affect grades under time pressure in class.

Priorities for contacting us. You can usually get one of us before or after class.  If you leave a message in our mailboxes at the Psychology Dept office (never under our office doors), include not just a phone number but also times we can reach you (we usually give up after just one round of phone tag). In general, questions about course administration, Bb quizzes and grades should be addressed to Christine Mayne with a /cc to Catania. We usually /cc to each other when we reply to you, so as to minimize duplication of our replies.

When you send email to us, here are some ground rules: Recognize that inboxes can get crowded, so allow some time for receipt of our reply.  Also, to avoid being bounced by our spam filters, always include an informative subject line and always start it with PSYC 210. So you can receive email messages out of Bb, you must use your UMBC email address. If you have a different preferred email address, set things up so your UMBC email is forwarded to it. Ordinarily, send us email out of your regular mail account rather than out of the Bb email utility, because Bb email does not show to whom a message was /cc’ed. If you do send an email message out of Bb, include the /cc information at the top of your message. Always include your name in your text, even if you think it should be obvious to us from your email address; for example, if you’ve asked for information about a grade we can hardly check if we’re not sure who you are. If your question involves the syllabus or website instructions or specific quiz items, paste the relevant text into your email message along with your question; this will help us to answer you more quickly and more accurately. As with any other course activity, we expect your writing to be at the college level, so communicate to us in full sentences with proper capitalization and punctuation (and do not be surprised if we occasionally offer corrections should we find errors in spelling or grammar in your messages). If you send us a message and don’t receive an answer within a couple of days, check out the possibility that our reply was returned because your mailbox was full; that is one of the most common email communication problems we encounter. And also check your copy of the message: if a message to us ignores too many of the above recommendations, we might return it with instructions to consult the syllabus about how to send email, and in cases that are particularly egregious (look it up) we might even not reply.

Tutoring. Students having trouble should consult us early; if you come to us with problems only after the course is more than half over, it may be too late. Tutoring services are usually available through the Learning Resources Center, but it must locate tutors qualified to tutor for this course—so early referral is essential.

Classroom courtesy. If your comments to neighbors or other activities are enough to distract us, we'll assume they also disturb other students and we may ask you to leave the room. Class attendance is encouraged, and students who attend class typically do better than those who don’t attend (we have data to show that).

Taping lectures.  This is allowed.  If you know in advance that you'll miss a class, you're welcome to make arrangements for someone to tape the missed class for you.

GRADES.  You can earn up to 300 points in this course: 160 from exams, 20 from the Bb Syllabus Quiz, and 120 from the Bb Course Quizzes.  Your grade will be determined by percentages based on those total possible points, with the following additional condition: whatever the total points earned, a passing grade also requires a minimum of 100 points (roughly 65%) from exam points.  In other words, if a student earns a total of 210 points and 140 come from Bb but only 70 come from exams (about 44% of the 160 possible exam points), that student will receive a grade of F .

These grade contingencies are summarized in the following table:

Points	Percentage	Letter Grade	
300	100%	(maximum)	
270	90%	A	
(100 minimum* + 140 =) 240	80%	B	
(100 minimum* + 110 =) 210	70%	C	
(100 minimum* + 95 =) 195	65%	D	
<195 total or <100 on exams	<65%	F	
*For any passing grade, at least 100 points of the total
must come from exam points

ACADEMIC CONDUCT: Summary of UMBC Ethics Policies.  By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an active participant in UMBC’s scholarly community in which everyone’s academic work and behavior are held to the highest standards of honesty. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and helping others to commit these acts are all forms of academic dishonesty and they are wrong. Academic misconduct could result in disciplinary action that may include suspension or dismissal. To read the full policy on academic integrity, consult the UMBC Student Handbook, Faculty Handbook, or the UMBC Policies section of the UMBC Directory.

PSYC 210, Section 0101, Spring 2005, UMBC

Name (last, first; please print) ______________________________________

As a student registered in this course, I acknowledge the following, as outlined in the course syllabus:

(1) The syllabus recommends that each student spend at least two hours of course work out of class (preferably three or more) for each hour spent in class --- in other words, six to nine hours of course-related work and study per week as a minimum range for a three-credit course.

I plan to devote at least _____ hours per week to this course throughout this semester.

(2) The syllabus recommends that Blackboard be checked at least once per week, that required quizzes be completed by specified dates and before the start of grace periods, and that quiz grades be checked in each student’s Blackboard gradebook before the end of the grace period.

I plan to take my first try at each required quiz at least _____ days before its due date as specified on the syllabus.

(3) The syllabus gives advice on study and recommends that study techniques should include both reading and reviewing of the text and working on Blackboard practice quizzes

Of the time I spend on the text and on Blackboard, about _____ percent of it will be devoted to the text.

(4) The syllabus gives detailed instructions for email communication with the course TA and instructor.

Check all that you think should apply for most course-related email communications.  I should:
____ a.  use my UMBC email address
____ b.  include a subject line
____ c.  write the TA with a /cc to the instructor
____ d.  include my name in my message
____ e.  paste in relevant text if I have questions

(5) The syllabus cites the UMBC Ethics Policies on academic conduct.

Check a or b (if b, insert an approximate date not later than Spring break):
____ a.  I am already familiar with the UMBC Ethics Policies
____ b.  I am not yet familiar with the UMBC Ethics Policies but will become so by ____________

Signed ___________________________________   Date ____________ 2005

(Keep one copy for your own records and hand in the other filled out and signed)