What Do I need to do?
- Learn - Complete all the readings and video viewings for the week
- Draft Blogs - Every week you should bring with you TWO printed copies of a blog draft for the week's topic (due every Wednesday afternoon- goes toward participation points). You bring two copies because one is for you to take notes on (I try to leave time for peer feedback) and the other is for my records (you get participation points for turning it in AND I check them to ensure that you incorporated feedback and discussion into your blog). Only typed drafts are accepted. I have a sample blog template here.
- Bring Questions - To facilitate discussion, I would like each student to bring with them two-three really good thought-provoking questions to ask during discussion. The only day you do not bring questions are when you are leading discussion or presenting. There should only be one question per reading so make it count (note, I do not want to see questions in blogs, so make them count here). You are to check off the questions if you ask them during class. Shape them to help you build your blog. Here is a brief note about what differentiates good vs. bad questions. It is an all or nothing game here, folks, if you do it and do it right, then full points, otherwise 0. You can earn 60 points on questions. Questions should be turned in on a separate sheet at the end of class. Only typed questions are accepted.
- Participate! - I will be keeping a weekly tally of participation (you can always check in with me on your nightly tally to verify where you are on participation points). 10 points possible each day.
- Finalize Blogs - You may turn in seven, the lowest score will be dropped leaving SIX final blogs. These are expected to be top notch, publishable work. This means be 100% sure you have not committed any common errors, you followed guidelines, and you actually incorporated material discussed in-class to strengthen your draft blog. These are to be turned in on the "Submit your Blog" link and then I will post them to the blog website. If you do not see your blog posted within 48 hours you will know I didn't receive it (I will also likely email you back to indicate receipt), so please resend with the email Weebly should have sent you to verify submission. Finalized blogs are due Friday at noon as I print them and take them with me to grade Please choose wisely when you do you final blogs and choose your best (find an extra, complementary, resource). Do not leave them all to the end as you will miss out on getting early feedback (I give feedback on the first two you submit pre-break).
- Comment - You can comment on the blogs posted within three weeks of their posting to make up for lost participation points if absent or "quiet" as long as you don't make being quiet a common occurrence. Comment points max at 30. (If you are the author of the blog and want to reply to the comments, please do. This goes toward participation points)
- Contribute Readings - Over the course of the semester, you are expected to submit six supplementary articles with a brief paragraph about their relevance to the topic of the week. These should be the supplementary material you find to support your submitted blog or presentation. Each article submitted will be assessed for its quality (check the impact rating of the journal, don’t pick just the shortest article you can find), relevance (how does it tie in with the other materials), and degree of contribution (what does it add?). Thus, each summary of the article you submit should include at least three bullet points arguing why your submission meets each of these criteria. Contribution points max at 30.
- Lead a discussion - Each student will get to choose a preferred topic on which to be the "expert" for the day. You can assemble a mini-lecture (that is no more than 45 minutes) and then guide your peers through the questions on the material. The schedule is determined on the first day of class and will be posted on the home page. So you know in advance what you will be evaluated on, the lecture and discussion evaluation sheet your peers and I will complete can be found here. Please look it over in advance and use as a checklist for shaping your talk and discussion.
- Give a research presentation - either a proposal of a new project or a presentation of data. All presentations must be relevant to social psychology, theoretically-grounded, and experimental. If you would like to present data but have yet to collect any, I have a lot of archived datasets and thus may be able to help you out. Here is a sample PowerPoint presentation from a former student who chose the "proposal" option.
- Turn in a final paper - a write up of your proposal or data (that you presented in your research presentation). Proposals can follow a grant OR thesis proposal format. I am providing the following as a template to use for the grant format. Final papers can be turned in at this link on May 2nd.