Psychology 201: Human Potential. Fall 2009
WEDNESDAY 1-4:40, Stv. 3046
8-31-09
SYLLABUS

Basic Information: Professor: Victor Daniels. office Stv 3092D, hours T 2:15-4:15; W 11-12 Appointment sheet is on my door, or call and ask the receptionist to sign you up. Remaining time is available for drop-ins. E-mail is usually a more reliable way to contact me than phone.

email: daniels@sonoma.edu 707-664-2681
Website: <http://www.sonoma.edu/users/d/daniels/> psych: 664-2411
If you miss a class, be sure to check the "NEWS" link on the website.

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND ORIENTATION

While there are courses at other colleges and universities that have elements in common with this one, with widely varied names such as "Adjustment," "Human Behavior," etc., there is no "standard curriculum" as such. As a result, you and I, the students and professor together, have the opportunity to create this course to serve our own needs, interests, and inclinations. The first day is devoted to getting acquainted and to planning the balance of the course. Victor will say something about his preconceptions, and then the class as a whole will engage in a process that will result in a mutually agreed-upon curriculum and process for the semester.

         

My initial conceptions are that:

  • Our goal is to help you use your own personal and interpersonal potential more effectively and feel better about what you do. How much we focus on personal process and how much we explore the ways community and societal institutions affect people's development of their potential is up to you.
  • Active participatory learning experiences, and subsequent discussion of them, will form a large part of our work.
  • You will investigate your own learning process--elements you do and do not include in your approach to learning. This will include how you interfere with your own learning process, and keep yourself stuck in old patterns.
  • For the most part, I will not deliver formal lectures, but am likely to insert informal remarks ("mini-lectures) whenever appropriate.
  • Regular writing assignments (every two weeks) that are likely to be meaningful to you and interesting to me to read will be an integral part of the coursework.
  • Participation in activities individually, in small groups, and in the entire class are an important course element. Procedures will be introduced to help students who seldom speak in class move toward feeling at ease doing so. This is not a class for which you can study, cut class a lot, and just show up for exams. If you're not here, it won't work for you.
  • Each student will make one or more presentations during the semester, their length and nature to be determined by class members..
  • Each class will begin with a meditation period.
Texts: V. & K.N., Daniels, Matrix Meditations, 75% of reading
Other hardcopy and online resources that you find on your own (9/16 onward), 25% of reading
SCHEDULE . PLEASE DO EACH WEEK'S READING BEFORE CLASS.
DATE READING TOPICS ASSIGNMENT
Aug 26 first day. no reading Getting acquainted; dyadic & small group discussions; mutual creation of course outline  
Sep 2

MM intro-chapter 5, chapters 7, 8; (Cells 0-3, 12)

Mentoring, note-taking; (A,F) focus, organize your thoughts, self-discipline; authenticity & self-determination; Signups for presentation dates.)

Paper 1 due
Sep 9 chapters 6, 9, 10 (cells 4-6, 26) (C) approaching & engaging with people/stramgers; listening skills, public speaking skills )  
Sep 16

cells 7, 8, 9, 14, 23, 32

 

 (I) engaging with people continued; accepting others' perspectives, how you react to others opinions; others' view of the "best" you paper 2 due
Sep 23

cells 2(reread) 10,11,18,42, 46


(C) Mind-body connections. Body language, stress & relaxation, flexibility, senses & mood (medn. journal 1)
Sep 30 (cells 13, 15, 16, 19, 39

 (D) How sex and cheating affect relationships paper 3 due
Oct 7 cells 22, 25, 28, 41, 47 (D) sex, desire, ego, love  
Oct 14 cells 17, 20, 29, 33, 34 (E,F) How personalities develop, personality types, how dramatic evnts shape us, moving beyond past conditioning paper 4 due
Oct 21 cells 43, 53, 54, 57, 58 Faculty furlough. No class meeting., (medn. journal 2)
Oct 28 cells 27, 35, 36, 40, reread 46 (J) Troublesome emotions paper 5 due
Nov 4 cells: 31, 37, 38, 52, 55, reread 31 (G) Developing & maintaining a positive attitude, optimism, accepting negative situations & the unchangeable  
Nov 11 VETERANS DAY: CAMPUS CLOSED  
Nov 18 cells 30, 49, 56, 59, 60 (I) opposition & conflict, preconceptions, understanding how others view life paper 6 due
Nov 25 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY: CAMPUS CLOSED (medn. journal 3)
Dec 2 Cells 24, 44, 45, 50, 51 (K,L,Q) Time Management, success, dream exploration and interpretation  
Dec 9 Cells 48, 61, 62, 63, 64 (M,N) Defensiveness, Spirituality inside or outside of religion; how social institutions
aid or inhibit people's potential; 		paper 7 due
Dec 16 FINAL EXAM WEEK Faculty furlough. No class. LAST DAY TO TURN IN LATE PAPERS TO MY BOX. ( medn. journal 4)
 
Paper #1: Relate some feature of your personal history to an aspect of yourself that you would like to know more deeply or understand better, or an aspect of your own potential that you would like to develop more fully. Papers 2-7: Your choice of subjects, related to the reading or classes for the week the paper is due and/or the preceding week. Always include some reflection onof your own experience or behavior. No "book reports," please.
 
READING: Please do the assigned reading by the date shown and come to class prepared to read one of several selected passages aloud.
 
PAPERS: One paper is due every two weeks. The central focus is your application of the reading or outside reading to yourself, in connection with the topics for the two weeks in regard to which the paper is written. Please cite the pages and passages from MM &/or outside reading that you are commenting on. Length: 1 1/2 to 3 pages each. If you do all 7 papers, the one with the lowest grade will be dropped. Or you can skip one paper, and in that case the six you do will all count.
 
CLASS PARTICIPATION. There will be opportunities for class discussion both in your small groups and in the class as a whole. Each week please come prepared with six items from the reading that you could mention. An item might be a question, a statement of your reaction to something, or simply a passage in the text that was interesting to you that you can read out loud, even without comment. If you have trouble speaking out, work on doing so more. If you tend to be a big talker, say your piece but also make space for quieter students to speak out. Whispering discussions are a no-no (high school behavior). You can pass notes instead (occasionally).
 
PRESENTATIONS. These will be an integral part of the course. Presentation skills are at least as important as writing skills in career success. You can do a presentation as part of a group or individually. In group presentations, if the structure of the presentation makes it possible, each individual will be evaluated separately (in contrast to the entire group being evaluated as a whole.)
 
MEDITATION JOURNALS. (Extra credit: will result in 1/3 of a grade increase.) Please make an entry after each of your meditation sessions outside class. Each entry may be as brief as 3 sentences, but may be a paragraph or longer , as appropriate. For each entry use the A-B-C model (antecedent, behavior, consequence). Antecedent= what was going on for you, or what was your state of mind, just before meditating. Behavior=what occurred during your meditative session (examples, "My mind kept spinning and I had a hard time focusing;" "I saw multicolored numbers doing cartwheels in my mind,"I did it easily and felt very peaceful and centered;" "I fell asleep, etc." Consequence=How you felt or what you did after the meditation. (examples: "I did something I'd been putting off for weeks;" "I felt energized and alert," "I didn't feel any different than I did before," "I felt resentful because I'd rather have been doing something else," etc. ) These will be emailed to me once a month, or anytime you want my comments on something you've experienced. They will not be graded, but I want your entries to be specific enough to provide a genuine sense of what's happening with you.
 
ABSENCES: 2 are permitted without penalty, but you must explain to your small group why you missed class. After 2 absences there will be a 1/3 grade penalty for each additional absence. You can check with the instructor regarding a makeup assignment for a third absence. PERFECT ATTENDANCE will result in a 1/3 grade increase in your final grade (for example, B+ to A-). No excuses or reasons are accepted regarding this. Either you are actually here or you are not.
 
GUIDELINES FOR PAPERS. Strive for clear, concise writing that makes its point well. Avoid empty verbiage and padding (no "snow jobs," please). Start with your first substantive point, say what you have to say, and stop. Forget introductions and summations (unless your literary self insists and you can write a clever lead or an ending with punch. No "summaries" needed). On the other hand, take as much space as you need in order to say what you have to say. Find your own reconciliation of these elements. Please type. LATE PENALTY on papers: 1/2 grade per week. But much better late than never.
 

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF PAPERS, (not in any special order, and not including meditation journal):

  • Formulation of a question or thesis
  • Application of the reading material to yourself
  • Number of substantive points made. (A point for each, no extra points for repetition)
  • Explicit reference to and use of ideas from reading assignments, lectures, movies, and starting with paper #3, websites or other outside reading.
  • Demonstrated thoughtfulness, insight, and understanding
  • Inclusion of an example that shows clearly what you are talking about
  • Specificity, as opposed to vagueness and ambiguity
  • Clarity and understandability
  • Apparent investment of time and effort
  • Do I learn something from it myself?
  • Do I enjoy reading it? (Can you make me smile?)

 

Correctness of spelling, grammar, etc. are taken into account in grading only to the degree that they make what you are saying unclear or difficult to grasp. If some of these are corrected on your paper (and they probably will be), it is simply to help you improve your writing skills.

What do I consider a poor paper? One that just parrots back material with no thoughtfulness. One that does not genuinely make an effort to apply the reading to your own life and/or environment and the enhancement of your personal potential. One that sounds just like everybody else's. One that puts me to sleep (yes, it happens). One that offers no information about you or someone else. One that was obviously tossed off in half an hour. One that's so vague that it's not clear whether you know what you're talking about. One that does not refer to specific items that you have learned for this course.

 
UNFINISHED WORK. If you do not complete the course work on time, YOU MUST TURN IN A "REQUEST FOR INCOMPLETE" FORM TO ME BY FINALS DATE. Otherwise, depending on the circumstances, you will receive either a a final grade which counts the incompleted work as an F, which would lower your overall grade, or a "U" ("unauthorized withdrawal") for the course, which turns into an F on your records. I AM REQUIRED BY UNIVERSITY REGULATIONS TO GIVE YOU A "U" unless you turn in an incomplete form if you have not finished enough work to receive a grade in the course .
 
A CLOSING WORD. Remember that your grade reflects only your performance in this class, not your worth as a person. The grades reflect the overall quality of class members ' work, so that if many do good work, grades will be higher than if many do poor work. Please do help each other; it's not a zero-sum game. (On the other hand, I have zero tolerance for cheating on exams, having someone write a paper for you, or receiving a paper that was obviously written for a different class.) Bon voyage.