Physiological psychology is a challenging course, in part because it involves learning new terminology and new concepts. Students who attend lectures without having first read assignments will have a very hard time following what I am talking about in the lecture. You need to read and study the assignments before you come to class. You should be asking yourself, "could I pass a quiz over this reading assignment?"
Lectures for this course are not intended to substitute for reading and learning the material in the textbook. Please do not write on the course evaluation form at the end of the semester that you had to learn the material in the textbook. Yes, you will need to learn a great deal of information from your textbook on your own initiative in this course. A course syllabus is a kind of contract between the professor and the student. This course syllabus is designed to inform you about the nature of this course in advance. If you do not accept the terms outlined in this syllabus for this course you should either withdraw from the course or discuss the syllabus with me before the withdrawal deadline has passed.
Typically lectures will provide only a very general overview of the principles and concepts presented in much greater detail in the reading assignment. Lectures are a vehicle for presenting the newest findings on topics, for presenting alternate perspectives, for considering applications of the material and for raising values issues--in addition to summarizing material in the textbook.
Your textbook should be viewed as a kind of gateway into a new body of knowledge. You are responsible for learning the material presented in the textbook in addition to material presented in lectures. If you have trouble understanding the textbook, get help! Textbooks are highly condensed information. It takes active effort to assimilate the information presented in the textbook. Applying optimal study methods such as using the SQ4R and the Cornell note taking system will facilitate learning that material in the textbook.
The work load for a college course is a function of the number of academic credits which will be awarded for the course. By long standing tradition, faculty presume that students will work two hours outside of class each week for every academic credit they receive for a course. A student taking 12-15 credits has a full time job just being a scholar if you consider they are also studying 24-30 hours a week in addition to attending classes.
If you find it difficult to keep up with the work load for your courses, the first question to ask yourself is whether you are really putting in 24-30 hours each week beyond just attending lectures. If you are honestly putting in this much time and still having trouble, you may need help with study strategies. You may need to develop new study skills to perform well in upper level courses. If you need help developing these skills please, come see me or make an appointment with the staff in the learning center.
I am primarily interested in assessing what you have learned in this course (operationally defined as the information that will be stored as an engram in your brain) and not in how fast you are capable of retrieving that information. Take all the time you need to complete an exam even if you need to finish it after the class period ends.
In this course the body of knowledge a student ought to master is drawn from a disciplinary perspective. National consensus about the sort of material a psychology major ought to learn about physiological psychology is reflected in items included on the Graduate Record Exam (typically as many as 20 percent of the items on the GRE are from this area of psychology). Many graduate schools in psychology require applicants to take have taken and done reasonably well on this exam. Marist students who take Physiological Psychology should score at least as well as their peers from other undergraduate institutions. Part of the logic of making Physiological Psychology a required course means "teaching to the test" if this helps our majors get accepted into graduate programs.
The American Psychological Association, in evaluating graduate programs in professional psychology requires that each student demonstrate competence in four substantive areas and the first of these areas is the "biological bases of behavior." This course will prove valuable to you not only in getting into a graduate program in psychology but also in doing well once you are enrolled!