If you demonstrate mastery of all 16 objectives by the end of the spring semester, you will earn an A for this portion of your grade.

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Failure to demonstrate mastery of all 16 objectives by the end of the spring term will result in grades of less than an A. Mastery of these objectives will be determined by the faculty mentor and instructor by assessing each student's: initiative on work, continual contact with mentor/instructor, independent completion of work, going above and beyond instead of waiting on exact instructions, and overall understanding of their own project and conclusions.

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Failure to complete a paper/poster will result in a required meeting with the instructor and program coordinator to discuss a plan for moving forward.

 

If unforeseen circumstances inhibit mastery of all objectives by the end of the spring semester, exceptions to these requirements may be made. This will be up to the discretion of the instructor and program coordinator on a case-by-case basis.

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Public Presentation: You will present your research project at LaGrange College's Honors Day Poster Session. This is for both the scientific research projects and the community issue research projects. Presenting at the Honors Day Poster Session is a requirement of the course.

You may also be asked to submit your research to GURP or other local/regional conferences if the professor feels your research meets the qualifications for these conferences. Being able to present at off-campus conferences looks great on a CV and is a fantastic talking point for graduate school interviews. All students should strive to submit to an off-campus conference.

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Though students may be working with a faculty member who is not an instructor for the course, all students are still required to meet all deadlines and objectives in this syllabus.

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Participation

Attendance is crucial to be successful in this course. Every class meeting period will be work time, thus, missing just one day can put you far behind on your progress. Thus, attending class is a required component of this course and will contribute to your grade. Being on time is also important in order to not disrupt the class and ensure you have received all of the information. Therefore, students that are 15 minutes or more late for class will be counted as absent for the day and will not receive attendance points.

 

Early in the semester, you should get contact information from one or more of your classmates and set up a "buddy system" for the purposes of letting you know what was covered in class, any changes to the course outline (including information regarding deadlines for various assignments), and giving you copies of any handouts in you should miss a class session.

 

If a student has a chronic illness, are on an LC sponsored sports team, or have other situations that may cause the student to miss class or to cause the student to fall behind in class work, it is the student's responsibility to notify the instructor at the beginning of the semester or as soon as the conflict arises. Students should not wait until an assignment deadline to let the instructor know that of an ongoing problem that is interfering with the student's ability to keep up in the course.

 

If you are absent, you will have an opportunity to have the absence erased and still earn your attendance points by completing the following. You must 1. Fill out an absence form (found on Connect) and turn it in to me ASAP and at least by the next day you are in class. You can drop this off at my office or bring it to the next class meeting. 2. Schedule a meeting with me to discuss what you missed and what makeup work needs to be completed. 3. Complete the required makeup work. 

 

Because this class only meets 2 days/week and all of class time is spent working on projects, attendance is crucial. Therefore, if you have four or more (note: this is equal to missing 2 weeks worth of class!) unexcused and/or unmade-up absences during the course, you will fail the course. Absences that you have been made-up using the above procedure will not be counted towards this total. In addition, only 1 undocumented excused absence will be accepted during the course. After that, all other absences require documentation to be considered excused.

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Daily Journal: Throughout this course (both fall and spring) you will keep a daily journal where you log all of the work that you complete for this course. In your journal for each day, you will answer each of the questions below. These journals will be checked by the instructor on a weekly basis. Journals will be kept in a Google Doc provided by the instructor. 

Questions for daily journal

1. What specific tasks did you work on today?

2. What were you able to accomplish today?

3. What do you need to work on tomorrow?

4. Time log (log all time you spent working on class assignments)

 

CE Credits: All LaGrange College students are required to complete 40 CE credits before graduation. To be on track for graduation, by the start of senior year, students should have 30 CE credits. To help ensure that students are completing their credits for graduation, a requirement of the fall semester will be to have 87% of the required CE credits accumulated by the end of this semester. This means, if your requirement is 40 CE credits, then you should have 35 CE credits accumulated by the end of the semester. You will earn a grade for your CE credits based on the following scale.

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87% of required CE credits - 100%

83% of required CE credits - 90%

77% of required CE credits - 80%

73% of required CE credits - 70%

67% of required CE credits - 60%

63% of required CE credits - 50%

57%  or less of required CE credits - 0%

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Career Plan Meeting: Before you can begin preparing for after graduation and your career, you have to know what that will entail. Thus, you will be required to meet with your advisor to discuss your plans for after graduation. This meeting should be scheduled ASAP after the start of the spring semester (Mon, Feb 15 - Fri, Feb 19). After this meeting, send an email to me and your advisor recapping what you discussed in your meeting.​

 

CV/Resume: If you are planning to go to graduate school, you will compile a CV. If you are planning to enter the workforce, you will compile a resume. There are examples and resources available for both on Connect. This will be submitted and reviewed by your advisor! You must get feedback on  your CV/resume from your advisor. After you incorporate their feedback, you will submit a final draft on Connect. This will be due during spring semester. ​

 

ACAT: Before you can graduate with your degree in psychological science, you must complete the ACAT exam. This is a comprehensive exam from APA to assess all that you have learned within the field of psychology. You must achieve an overall score that falls at at least the 30th percentile to pass! As a word of warning, students that don't take this test seriously have FAILED in the past (we have students earn as low as the 1st percentile! On the other hand, a high grade on the ACAT should be a point of pride and should be included on your CV/Resume. The date for the ACAT for Spring 2021 is Thursday, May 6th.​

 

Meeting with Upcoming Seniors: To help prepare next year's seniors for the undertaking you are starting to finish, a meeting will be held with all of this year's capstone students and the students planning to take capstone next year during the last month of spring semester. Students do not need to prepare any type of formal presentation but will discuss what they learned in capstone, what they wished they knew before starting, and the impact they believe their independent research project has had them, as well as answer the future student's questions. The meeting for Spring 2021 is Wednesday, April 7th and will be held on Teams.

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Overall Grading

The following table lists the percent of your final grade that will come from each of the designated areas.

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Individual Project - 80%

Participation - 20%

 

The following factors may also affect a student's grade:

 

Grades may also reflect class behavior, and those students who behave in a way deemed disruptive by the instructor may have their grades reduced and/or be referred to the Honor Council. Likewise, students that are active in class discussion may have their grades increased.

 

Academic misconduct. Any student who cheats or plagiarizes will be given a grade of “F” for the course and will be referred to the Honor Council. Cheating includes, but is not limited to: wearing earphones or hats to the test session, attempting to or leaving the classroom with a copy of the test or answer sheet, looking at another student’s test or answer sheet, or using a phone during the exam period. Plagiarism involves any attempt to pass off work from another source as your own. This applies to both tests and assignments.

 

Maintaining a Good Learning Environment

Phones and Other Devices

Please silence your phone and put it away during class. Yes, I can see you texting, tweeting, and snapping even when you put your phone under the desk or try to hide it on your desk. This not only distracts other students around you but also distracts me from my lecture. If I see a phone out an inappropriate time, I will call you out in front of everyone and your grade WILL be negatively impacted by repeated issues. In addition, please do not wear headphones during class. Once class begins, headphones should be removed from your head/ears and put away.

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That said, I would like for you to bring a tablet/laptop to class as we will use them often. You will need your laptop on most days.

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FOR FALL 2020

Due to precautions against COVID-19, certain policies will be different this semester. You will be required to have access to a laptop and you will need to bring it to class every day. Much of our work will happen electronically so access to a working laptop and internet access is a must.

 

Email

Please use polite email etiquette and don't email me about these issues or your email may be deleted. In general, my email responses will be very short (1-sentence). I am not trying to be rude, just efficient as I get many emails in a day. If your question requires a lengthy response, I would suggest scheduling a meeting with me instead. For all email responses, please permit at least 24 hours before expecting a response (e.g., you are unlikely to get a response to your email the night before an exam). In general, emails may not be answered over the weekend, holidays, or after business hours.

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Microsoft Teams

For Fall 2020 we will be using Microsoft Teams to live-stream class sessions as well as to aid in communication both inside and outside of the classroom. Thus, you are required to have Microsoft Teams setup on your computer. You are also strongly encouraged to set this up on your phone as well. There is a free app in the app store you can download. This software is free with your LC account. Do not create a new account, use your LC Microsoft account to log in. If you have trouble logging in, please contact IT. More information including tutorials on how to access and download Teams as well as a link to our course Team are provided on Connect.