When I teach Social Psychology, I use David Myers' text. The supplemental
material includes a true/false quiz on topics covered in the course. I make
students complete it the first class period. Most get 50% or less and it
leads to lively discussion. The exercise works equally well when I use it
at The College of William & Mary or at my more nontraditional teaching
venues. I usually preface the scoring with reminders that they have
completed at least 6 hours of college credit in Psy and that a monkey cuold
get 50%, etc. After scoring I discuss the common sense notions and the
hindsight bias as impediments to their earning a good grade unless they
apply themselves.
Michael Quanty
Psychology Professor
CBMTS Project Director
Thomas Nelson Community College
P.O. Box 9407
Hampton, Virginia 23670
Voice: 757.825.3500
Fax: 757.825.3807
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Rudawsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 1999 9:45 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Social Psychology Surprizes
I'm teaching social psychology in the winter for the first time. As I was
reviewing the introduction to the text I'm using (Aronson, Wilson & Akert)
I noticed they make a brief mention that students should avoid deciding
that social psychology is just common sense, not to get lulled to sleep by
it's simplicity. It reminded me of my own experience as an undergrad
taking a large introductory soc. psy. course and sure enough I thought it
was a little too easy and slacked my way through. I didn't fall in love
with the topic until I later took a more advanced course and began to
realize the complexities. This leads to my question for you all. What
findings do you think students will find most surprizing throughout a
course in social psychology? Hopefully they will remember some of the
biggies from their intro to psych/soc courses (e.g. obedience, bystander
effect), but what else do you think will be unexpected. This will either
go on my course webpage, be incorporated into my introductory remarks to
the class, and/or developed into a full scale activity where I give the
students brief vignettes and ask them to predict the behavioral, cognitive,
and emotional outcomes and provide their own explanations. Maybe I'll
follow this up at the end of the quarter by asking them what they found
most surprizing, but since it's my first time I'm asking you all for your
suggestions.
Thanks,
Don
PS. I'd be interested in any other advice for the first time instructor of
social psychology.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don Rudawsky
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology
University of Cincinnati
(513) 558-3146
