Yes. Yes. And more yes.

Everything about this course is applicable to life. This course is about mental processes. You use mental processes every day. There will be revelations throughout the semester about things that you already do all the time but never really thought about - or about things you can do better or more efficiently in the future. We'll talk about how your senses and perception work as a team to make sure you stay alive. We'll talk about how attention prevents your head from exploding (figuratively). We'll talk about remembering, forgetting, and everything in between. We'll talk about how language and thought interact (e.g., do the languages we speak determine the way that we can think?). We'll also talk about how to make better decisions.

I try to make my lectures easy to digest. That being said, I'm here to help you learn, and sometimes I don't get it right in the lectures. If you need more background or need me to re-explain something…ASK!

Post in Teams so everyone can benefit from your question (unless of course it's not something you're comfortable asking in front of others).

I somewhat "force" you to stay consistently involved by not releasing course materials all at once. I also ask you to post and discuss with your colleagues every week - and I make this a VERY important part of the course. I also record the lectures in bite size portions so you don't have to grudgingly set aside 2 hours of your day to trudge through a topic.

The Course Planner in the Hub has everything you need for this class in the way of dates. Go there. Use it. Or, copy the info into your own planner. The actual act of copying it all to another place will give you a feel for everything you'll be doing and when. You'll also be able to easily see how your other schedules affect your time management for your weekly module work.

Everything starts in the Hub. Links in the Hub take you where you need to go to post/submit your work. Wanna submit module work? There's a Hub link for that. Wanna take an exam? There's a hub link for that. Wanna ask me a question? There's a Hub link for that. Wanna submit your project? Hub link ftw.

Teams is our classroom. When you go to your classes in person, you listen to lectures and you have discussions with the teacher and your colleagues. Teams helps us do all of that asynchronously and it is a software provided by UTD (so everyone already has access). How do you get to where you need to post every week? There's a Hub link for that.

eLearning is primarily for grades and exams because it is secure. How do you get to the exam? There will be a Hub link for that (or you can log in to eLearning and go to the Exams portion of the course). How do get to the gradebook? There's a Hu…oh wait there's not a link for that, so you'll just log into eLearning until I get a link put up. My bad!

I try to be approachable and give you different avenues for contacting me so that you can go with what makes you the most comfortable. If you need something different but you're scared to ask, use the Suggestion Box to submit an anonymous request and I'll see what I can do help.

You will not be abandoned by me in the least. I do my best to respond to the weekly discussion boards with helpful insights, comments, answers, examples, etc… I try to stay logged into Teams as much as possible and although I might not be able to respond right away, I see your questions and will be in touch with you ASAP.

I try to get things graded in a reasonable amount of time as well. But again, if something is bugging you about the course and the way I’m handling it, let me know.

I want the project to be fun for you. It's casual and not meant to be a stuffy, academic presentation. Have a look at the Hub Project page and ask me about anything that will help ease your anxieties about this task.

I also talk a little bit about the project in the Course Hub overview video on the Hub main page.

If you've taken undergraduate Cognitive Psychology, then there might be some overlap but I include more information in graduate courses than undergraduate courses. I also expect more of your discussion posts. This is a graduate class, so I want some proactive research on your part - I love answering questions, but I'm not here to spoon feed you as much as I am here to guide you through the process of learning this information.

If you took MY undergraduate Cognitive Psychology course this summer (2022), please contact me so we can discuss some alternative work that will expand more on what you've already learned.