[moops]

This course was an introduction to themes in cognitive psych - perception, attention, memory etc.

I took the course with Dr. Humphreys and the the mark breakdown was this:

Exams - 80%
The course material was split into 4 parts. Each part was tested on 1 midterm. So we had 3 midterms during the term and part 4 along with the cumulative exam was during the final exam period. That makes 5 different tests and your lowest mark is dropped.

Each midterm was worth 20% and was multiple choice only. The material tested was lecture material as well as textbook material.

WebCT Participation - 6%

Each week a new topics was posted on WebCT. It was usually a broad question related to topics being taught in class. You either respond to the question or comment or reply to another student's answer. Since there were 12 weeks, each post was worth 0.5%.

Experimetrix Assignment - 14%

Here, you participate in 2 experiments - each worth 1% and then you pick one and find a recent newspaper article related to the topic of the experiment. Then you write a short paper explaining the article and experiment and how they're related.

Overall, I found this course to be really dry. I thought it was boring found that I really didn't want to be in lecture. The multiple choice questions were tricky but do-able and the assignment and WebCT participation were simple. Dr. Humphreys is a great prof and she tries to engage the students with experiments and brain teasers. A good course if you're interested in human learning.

Thank you! You're awesome!

For the mark breakdown, see above. For the assignment, you had the opportunity to resubmit and whichever mark was higher was taken.

I agree with moops that the course was a bit dry at times. However, the course provides you with many strategies to improve your marks in other courses by giving an insight on how the brain works (deep processing and making connections versus cramming or just reading your notes over and over).

I had Watter as a professor, he was funny but I found that he moved quite slowly through lectures. He also refused to post the power point versions of the lectures so you ended up wasting a ton of paper and ink on irrelevant slides (the slides all have the same information with one extra sentence added on each time). The midterms and exams were tricky, but as long as you understood the material you did well.

on the calendar it says:
Six units from PSYCH 1A03, 1AA3, 1X03, 1XX3 with a grade of at least C+ in each, and one of BIOLOGY 1A03, 1M03 (or 1AA3), 1P03 (or 1K03), or Grade 12 Biology U, and registration in a program in Psychology or the Faculty of Science; or ISCI 1A24; or registration in Arts & Science, the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours), the Honours Linguistic Cognitive Science or the Honours Music (Music Cognition) program

does the semi colon before "or registration in..." mean the first part abt courses OR the registration part will suffice? or do we have to have the six units, etc.?

i'm pretty confused cuz i have gr.12 bio & am in the BHSc program. tht's all i'm covered on from the list... and SOLAR won't let me taken it due to prequisites not being fulfilled...

If there is a semi-colon before an "or" then it's on its own.

actually, just so people know, i contacted the psychology department about it and they said all I had to do was be in level 2 of the BHSc program

This course seems pretty much unchanged based on the input from the other reviewers. I think the material is interesting though it could get boring at times, but it’s nice to learn about how you think etc.

There were 3 midterms during the term that were worth 20% each and the exam consisted of two tests; an exam covering the first three units only and a midterm that covered the final untested unit of study. Out of these 5 evaluations, the lowest was dropped and so if you kept your marks up, you would not need to study for one of the two tests that made up the exam. Studying for the exam was not a huge deal if you kept all your marks up throughout the term. I personally just studied for the last midterm but I wrote the exam anyways and it was a lot easier than the midterms.

There was also a written assessment based on experiments (12% for paper, 2% for participation in experiments) and elm discussion that was worth 6% (simply a participation mark- you were not marked on the quality of your response).

I liked that there were many opportunities to bring your mark up and the ELM discussion + Experimentrix assignment was basically a free 20 % as you get to resubmit your final draft (and I don’t think it was even marked that hardly in the first submission either.)

The professor, Dr. Humphries, was excellent and covered things well. She tried to make the class interesting which was nice and was helpful in office hours. She also posted sample questions for each of the tests and though the multiple choice questions can be difficult, this really helped.

The professor placed a lot of emphasis on reading the textbook. This was a huge pain because you have to read over 100 pages per midterm for like 2 or 3 questions. My advice would be to skip the parts in the text that are covered in class (there are no extra details in the text book for the topics that are discussed in class) and just read the 3 or 4 paragraphs not covered in class that are in the text book and you’ll be fine.

The midterms can be tricky, as the questions are not simply based on if you remembered things but on if you understood concepts. Generally though, everyone seemed to be doing A LOT better compared to the first year psychology courses (myself included) and you can definitely get at least 10 without spending all your time studying for this course.

Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in cognition… my only regret was that it isn’t actually on my course list for my major, and I didn’t notice that until midway of the term.. My own fault though!

Hey are tutorials mandatory for this course? It seems confusing because the first term doesnt have a tutorial but the second term evening class does...

Originally Posted by CourtneyH

Hey are tutorials mandatory for this course? It seems confusing because the first term doesnt have a tutorial but the second term evening class does...

hey.. I didn't have a tutorial in this course. Maybe the term two prof is running the course differently?

Who would you guys say is the better prof with fairer midterms? Humphreys or Watter? Some input on the profs would be really appreciated

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

Who would you guys say is the better prof with fairer midterms? Humphreys or Watter? Some input on the profs would be really appreciated

I was wondering the same thing! I looked on ratemyprofessors.com (cuz I'm shameful like that ) and they both got positive reviews (Watter even more so).

Seems like they're married too? I don't know what's up with that lol.

I think it's down to whether you want to take the day class (Humphreys) or the night class (Watter).

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

Who would you guys say is the better prof with fairer midterms? Humphreys or Watter? Some input on the profs would be really appreciated

hi,

i cannot compare the professors because I've only taken the course with Humphreys but I would say that her tests are fair... good amount of challenge but not overly difficult

Thanks a lot you guys. You're both always helpful. I ended up going with Humphreys because my schedule can't take another night class or else I'd be stuck in school for the whole day almost everyday of the week!

Lets hope she actually has decent midterms

I took this course in Fall 2009 and it seemd to be okay enough.
At times it seemed the lecture notes were basically condensed versions of the textbook, so what I did was go through the textbook for practice, noting the similarities with the notes and reading up more on what was not covered in class but was supposed to be on the midterms anyway.

PROS
More opportunities for testing and improvement
Drop the lowest test marks
All notes posted up without post-class modifications
Easy online postings for free marks. FREE! 6% can make a huge difference sometimes when it comes to university marks.

CONS
Too many midterms
Too much reading
Could be a bit 'dry' at times and a lot of words on the slides, can make it harder to concentrate.
Assignment invovled a media article that had to correspond well with the experiment you participated in - this isn't the case for everyone, although I was lucky enough to find a match, but beware!

I had Dr. Humphreys and believe she is a fair prof, however, that doesn't mean she's a pushover and she will test you with tricky questions so if you aren't prepared the answer can be a bit ambiguous, as I sadly found out on my first midterm - thank goodness it was dropped!

This class takes a bit of work, but if you keep pace with the required readings and practice you will do really well on the midterms and final, which together comprise about....80% of the total mark here!

I've also heard she's a bit better than Dr. Watters, so if you get the chance to be in her class, please grab it!

yeah i have humphrey as well...hopefully its not too bad