Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Questions for the Professor: Spring 2015 Edition

Every semester, I have students ask me questions on the first day of class. They often start out related to the class, then get to my background, and sometimes to my personality and interests (Star Trek!  Star Wars! Sci-fi!!).  It's fun.  I try to do something similar in my online classes.  Pasted below are some of the questions, and my answers. 

Q:  I read on your syllabus you are fascinated with the study of teaching, when did you become interested in this?
A:  I've thought about teaching since I was in high school, but I got really interested in STUDYING teaching in graduate school at University of Nebraska.  As part of my research assistantship, I observed faculty and classes and realized that teaching is a process that you can always improve on.  I like that teaching is always a challenge that I both succeed and fail at every semester. 

Q:  What do you think is the most important and most useful thing we will learn about psychology?
A:  Wow, that's tough.  Although not everything in the textbook or notes is IMPORTANT, almost all of it is USEFUL.  The thing is, the course is about people.  And each of you are a people.  And each of you will work with people.  And each of you will have friendships or romantic relationships with a people.  So, I think that pretty much everything is useful in some way or another. 
But that doesn't really answer your question.  ;)  So, I think that understanding what the fundamental attribution error is, and then working to not do it, is the most important and useful thing discussed in the class.  I'll save the description for the notes, but the attribution and the fundamental attribution error is in chapter 10 (Social Psychology).

Q:  Do you own any pets? 
A:  Yes, I have one cat:  Piggie Piggie Poopy-Pants Wickersham Oja.  I call her Piggie or Piglet. 

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