Hello readers,

I hope you have all been well since we last left you at the end of spring semester 2016. Spring semester 2017 starts tomorrow morning, and a new batch of student bloggers will be joining us for the next 14 weeks, as they explore the exciting world of psychology. I hope you will welcome them and engage with their writing.

I’m trying something a little different than I have in the past this time around. In previous iterations of this course blog, students wrote posts after we’ve covered new material in hopes it would help them solidify material from the lesson and add depth to what we covered in class. While it seemed to serve that purpose, I want to try something new this semester. This time, students will write posts before we cover new material in order to organize their original impressions and identify assumptions they are bringing to the material. Students will then comment on each others’ posts later in the week (once we’ve learned the psychological theories or principles involved) to help each other improve their understanding and highlight growth over time. In my mind, this better mimics the scientific method and simulates the experience of starting to become a psychologist. I’ll say more about this later, but I wanted to give you all a warning that things will look different this year. Now I’m off to bed so I’ll be fresh when I meet my new class at 9am tomorrow.