The prompt for the week is available here.

As the instructor for the course, this initial prompt is a little difficult for me to answer in the same way as my students, but I’ll give it a shot. The reason I’m in the course is because I’m teaching it, obviously. The reason I teach General Psychology, however, is because I truly enjoy being able to expose students to the field of psychology. I remember hearing about all the cool things psychologists have learned about the ways humans think, feel, and behave, so I consider it a privilege to be the one who provides the same service for others. Also, on a selfish note, it helps me stay connected to developments outside my specific discipline of counseling psychology and see new ways to think about the material as students bring their unique perspectives.

It’s really tough for me to pick the three topics that I’m most excited for this semester. If forced to choose, I suppose I’d select Sleep, Coping with Stress, and Experimental Design. I’m not going to elaborate too much, since I don’t want to give away what we’ll be doing yet, but these classes are very applied and it’s my hope that students can take what they learn and put it to immediate use in their own lives.

It’s impossible for me to pick 3 classes I’m least excited for; since I picked the topics I think they’re all great! There really is so much ground to cover in this class that I’ve had to cut a number of fascinating topics I’d love to include. Maybe I should talk to my department about making this a 2 semester class…Well, I probably don’t need to do that, since we have a great list of 200-level courses to provide introductions to specific sub-fields, but I get greedy sometimes. Again, since I don’t want to post a cop-out answer, I guess I’ll list the topics I feel challenged to cover. Perhaps this will be a surprise to you, but the mental health-related topics are sometimes the most difficult for me in General Psychology because I want to cover so much (it is my specialty!) and I’ve had to learn not to jam too much into those sessions.

The question I want to be able to answer by the end of the semester is how can I improve this class? I look forward to your feedback throughout the semester and through the formal evaluations at the end.

I look forward to reading why you took this class and get a glimpse into your expectations for the semester!