ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY – FALL, 1999
PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING – PSY 616
Miguel Roig, Ph.D.
OFFICE HOURS: Monday, Wednesday, & Friday 10:00 & 11:00 am., Rosati Hall 101 (Staten Island)
REQUIRED TEXT:
Barker, L. M. (1997). Learning and Behavior (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Several articles will be place on reserve and/or available on line. A list of these readings will be distributed shortly.
COURSE OUTLINE: This course offers the student a broad overview of contemporary learning theory from the viewpoint of classical and operant conditioning, including interpretation of the role of drives and motives and concepts of generalization, discrimination, emotions, and higher forms of learning.
CLASS EXAMINATIONS AND GRADING SYSTEM: There will be a midterm and a final. The midterm (40% of the final grade) will cover material primarily from the first six chapters in the textbook and also from any assigned readings prior to the exam. The final (40% of the final grade) will cover the last four chapters of the exam and any assigned readings subsequent to the midterm. Each exam will consist of short answer questions, definitions, and essays. The remaining 20% of the grade will be based on a research paper due on November 17th. A list of acceptable topics with additional details about the paper may be found HERE.
Competence in electronic mail is increasingly becoming a necessary academic skill, as well as, a basic job skill expected in most professional settings. At St. John’s, students are automatically given an e-mail address and are expected to be proficient in this widely used tool. In this course I urge you to check your e-mail at least once per day during the week, as I will routinely send you announcements, comments, assignments, etc.
It is strongly recommended that you come prepared for class. Read the assigned chapter/reserve materials before they are covered it in class. Take notes while you read the chapter, and not during class when I am lecturing (do so in class only if, the material had not been understood when you read it, if it is an important point not made clear in the readings, or if I ask you to. This strategy will allow you to better assimilate the information when I cover it in class and will further allow you to raise intelligent questions and make intelligent comments in class.
It is expected that students conduct themselves as respectful adults and in accordance with university tradition: to remain silent while I am lecturing or while a fellow student is asking a question; to clean up your area if you have littered it, etc. No smoking, food, or beverages are allowed in class. If you have any questions about the course, consult your course outline first. If you need further clarification then see me. You should always bring the course outline to class (a good strategy is to staple the course outline to your notebook) and refer to it from time to time to remind you of deadlines, policies, etc. If lose your course outline, however, you can always download one from my webpage.
GRADE MONITORING - It is strongly recommended that students monitor their grades during the course. The following may be used as a guideline in computing the final grade. For additional details of my criteria for grading papers, point your browser here
FINAL GRADE RANGE
00.00 - 56.99 ------ F 90.00 - 100.00 ------ A
57.00 - 62.99 ------ D 85.00 - 89.99 ------ B+
63.00 - 69.99 ------ D+ 80.00 - 84.99 ------ B
70.00 - 74.99 ------ C 75.00 - 79.99 ------ C+
TENTATIVE READING ASSIGNMENTS – We will cover one chapter per day plus any assigned outside readings.
Given that your grade will be primarily based on written assessment, quality of writing will be a very important variable in this course. For example, the paper must be mechanically sound; free of misspellings and grammatically correct. The paper must be generated with professional word processing software such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect. Use the computers available in the various facilities on campus. You should carefully review your own writing before submitting it to me. You may have one of your peers (NOT A PROFESSOR OR ADMINISTRATOR as this would be inappropriate) review the paper before submitting the final copy to me. Such review should be limited to pointing out potential problems in the paper and to suggest solutions. It should not involve any rewriting by the reviewer. Please also note that the paper should be written in APA style. For an introduction to APA style point your browser HERE. For another link to APA style and other styles of writing, point your browser HERE.
IMPORTANT: Submit your paper in a manila envelope and include the following:
a. All copies of journal articles cited in the paper.
b. All articles must have markings (e.g., underlining) indicating those sections that were used to write your paper.
c. At least one TYPED early draft of the paper with evidence of substantial revisions and corrections penciled-in on the handwrittten drafts or those with only corrected spelling errors are not acceptable.
d. A computer diskette with two files of your paper. One file must correspond to the paper as it appears in the final typed version. Another file must consist of a single-spaced version excluding the title page, abstract, references and any tables of data.
Your paper should be stapled once and the staple should be placed at approximately 45 degrees from the top and left edge of the paper and should not include any type of plastic, paper, or any other type of covers.