For us, we only have one 100-level course (general psyc). At the 200-level we have our year of methods and a number of survey courses (social, I/O, psyc and law, and like that). The 300-level courses all have labs (data collection, analysis, writing, presenting) and/or major writing projects and all require that year of methods as pre-req. Our 400-level courses are independent research courses (in which students do their own research projects; the pre-req for those is a B in Methods II), and a "capstone" (history and systems), which right now needs some work. It's intended to be synthetic and help the student draw together his or her experiences, but isn't quite doing that yet.
The difference between 200- and 300-level courses is depth and rigor. The 200s we leave open to those who have not yet had methods, and although there are often small projects in there, they're not real lab courses as they are at the 300 level. The 300-level courses that don't have labs require a major project, e.g., in tests & measures, developing and assessing an instrument's reliability and validity, and writing it up and presenting on it. You can be a little passive in a 200-level course; not so in the 300s: you're in the trenches in those classes. (Of course, our typical 300-level class size is 10, so we can do that.) m Marc Carter Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology ------ "There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about." -- Margaret Wheatley -----Original Message----- From: Blaine Peden [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 9:47 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Question about Curricular Levels Our department is considering a revision of the undergraduate psychology major. One topic for discussion is the idea of a "developmentally coherent curriculum" outlined in the recent APA document: http://www.apa.org/ed/Teaching-Learning-Assessing-Report.pdf We have encountered the problem of defining curricular levels for our 100, 200, 300, and 400 level courses. Presuming that your departments offer courses at different levels, how do you define and distinguish expectations for students and instructors in courses at different levels? More generally, can you provide any insights about what your students and instructors do differently in say 200 and 300 level courses? Thanks. Blaine --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
