PSYC 2200

I truly hate Erin with a passion. I had been waiting for her to retire, but no such luck. All of her lectures were on YouTube and she refused to help when I met her during office hours. Truly thought about taking the Bio option because I simply could not look at her anymore. Definitely do not recommend. RIP to all the Psych majors

Usually, I feel like my teachers and professors want me to succeed. That statement could not be less true for Clabough's class. While the material is genuinely interesting, it was taught in a horrible manner. The exams are impossible and the questions are written to trick you. They cover material from the textbook and lectures, and you cannot skim the textbook or zone out in class because the questions can be about the smallest detail. You’re only assigned 5-20 pages for every lecture, but each page is so dense and she could hypothetically quiz you on any detail that they still take forever. Clabough uses no notes or slides and she just rambles so the lectures can be impossible to follow. The only nice things about the class are that you can drop one exam (out of four midterms) and you can substitute the final with meditations and a reflection. Since she gives you these options though, none of the midterms have curves even though the class average is consistently 75%. There is absolutely no reason for you to take this class unless you need it for the psych major. Work wise week-to-week it’s not that bad, but 100% of your grade is exams and they’re all impossible,

This course covers A LOT of content, which anyone considering taking this course should definitely be aware of. That being said, the content is very interesting, I think that Dr. Clabough did a great job at pacing the content to ensure that she covered everything she needed to while still thoroughly going into each subject. Dr. Clabough is a very genuine and passionate professor, so definitely make the effort to get to know her. I think that a lot of students struggling in the class took that out on Dr. Clabough when really it was just that the course itself requires getting through a lot of content, and these students never figured out how to handle that. If you're interested in the subject and willing to put in the effort, absolutely would reccomend this course. #tCFfall2021

This class has interesting material but is formatted in the least student friendly way possible. Exams are not curved even when the class averages are crazy low. There are only grades for exams but she barely covered the material in lecture. The textbook is to be read like the bible and there is no accommodation for personal extensions. She gives 1 exam drop and that has to cover any medical/family/personal emergency you have. She did allow us to submit a reflective essay on medication as our final, but aside from this I would not recommend this course unless you have already taken Psych classes. (If you do take this course make amazing notes and review after every class)

I am trying to major in neuroscience, so I honestly really enjoyed this course and its content. Clabough is an amazing person and it is very clear that she is passionate about her work field. That being said, I would only recommend this class for those who need to take it as a pre-req. This is definitely a course you need to do the textbook readings for, you need to pay attention in lecture, and it is easy to fall behind if you do not review the material each day (or at least each day you have lecture). It took me a while to learn how to study for this class, but I would say the best way is to RECORD the lectures so you do not miss any content (anything is fair game for exams) and take notes on your computer and then recopy them on paper later. I would also recommend making a review guide before tests to organize info (brain areas, people, neurotransmitters, etc.). This class is definitely one you can do well in, but you have to be willing to put in the work, so being passionate about these topics is extremely helpful. Again, the professor is very genuine and worth getting to know, but it is crucial that you take initiative to stay on top of this course because she is strict on exams. She drops one exam grade, but no extensions or excuses are permitted ever outside of this one dropped exam. We were given the chance to write a reflection of meditation (40 days) as an alternative to the final, which was extremely helpful, though. The content was very interesting overall, but there is a lot that she covers and the readings are extremely dense.

This review is coming from a psychology major, so I only took this class as a requirement for the major. I love behavior and I was so excited to get back into the biological aspect of psychology and learn about the neural basis of behavior, but I left this class questioning my own abilities and competency in the field. I attended all lectures, read all chapters, even studied for hours with fellow classmates before exams, but I still couldn't get higher than a 72% on any exam in the class. There are 4 exams and then a final and you get to drop your lowest (including the final), so your grade is calculated as X/400 points. The only thing that saved me in this class was the alternate meditation assignment where you had to meditate 40 times over the semester for 10 minutes each and record that on a log and then write a 500-750 word essay with prompted questions. Each meditation is worth 2 points so you automatically receive an 80% for simply doing the meditations, and the remaining 20 points comes from the reflection. The textbook was extremely dense, so even if you were only assigned 5 pages of reading it could take an hour and a half to understand and take notes on the info. The lectures have few slides, if any, and if they are included its just pictures. You aren't supposed to take notes on a computer, but handwritten notes are difficult when the lecture is mostly spoken and you're trying to write down all that is being said down to smallest detail. The exams wouldn't have been so frustrating but there are questions where you have to select all that apply. Instead of it being scored as: getting points for selecting the correct answer and getting points for not selecting incorrect answers, it is scored as the amount of correct answers minus the number of incorrect answers. For example, if a question is worth 3 points and I select B and D but the correct answer is C and D I don't get 1.5, I get 0 points because it is one correct answer minus one incorrect answer. This process can be infuriating because there are ~9-10 questions like this that can completely destroy your grade. There is no curve in this class, so the average can be a 75% and it will simply not change. I was able to get a C in the class which was all I needed to not retake, but I was in a constant state of panic that I was going to have to retake it. Unless you have to take this class as a psych/neuroscience requirement, I wouldn't recommend putting yourself through this stress and frustration. (I think the spring section is going to have a discussion/interactive section which I think with be SUPER helpful to talk out this dense info. Since the class is currently: lecture, read, exam (which is not conducive to the content due to its complexity) I think the discussion section will be a big help). Professor Clabough is a very sweet woman, but I don't think the structure of the current class is helpful to 18-22 year olds that aren't experts in the field.

If you can avoid it, do not take this course. Dr. Clabough has no organization to her lectures which makes understanding and studying the course content extremely difficult. If you want to succeed in this course, transcribe her lectures because she will ask exam questions on something she mentioned off-handedly. The exam average for every exam was between a 70 and 75, and she does not curve if that tells you how difficult it is to actually learn from this course. The content isn't hard, but figuring out what the content is is the challenge. Good luck.

Let me just start off by saying that I was a bit scared to take this course after reading some of the reviews. And let me follow that up by saying it is not as bad as everyone made it out to be. Is the content dense and difficult at times? Yeah. (The TA's often do not know the answers to the questions you may have). But that is not Dr. Clabough's fault and she delivers the material in a digestible way. She is always willing to answer your questions, too. The course, this semester, was hybrid. We watched recorded lectures (2 per week) and then took 2 knowledge check quizzes on them. You didn't even have to do them a certain day...just by Monday night. Then, in discussion, we did interactive activities with the knowledge we had just learned. By doing this, we were able to engage with the material in a fun way (ex. using play doh) and also get to know our classmates. The course grading consisted of 816 points and your grade is calculated by doing X points/816 points.
500 points in assessments (4 tests, cumulative final, meditation assignment...all 100 points and the lowest gets dropped)
200 points active learning (10 sessions of active learning 20 points each...easy if you show up and participate)
116 points (29 lecture quizzes worth 4 points each)
The meditation assignment is so fun. Also, since she drops the lowest of the assessments, you do not even have to do one...meaning a lot of people probably do not take the final exam if you do well enough on the first 4. Although the exams were closed notes, they were not that bad. She gives a lot of "Select all that apply" but she gives partial credit. I was able to get consistent A- on the exams and still finish with an A in the course. She does not curve and she does not bump, but it truly is not necessary. If you are on the fence about taking this class, I would highly recommend it because I learned a ton and saw Dr. Clabough's efforts with us and really appreciated her.

Dr.Clabough has switched her instruction to an "active learning" classroom. This entails watching lectures on your own that have been pre-recorded, and then meeting once a week for a group work activity. The recorded lectures are usually very long; much longer than a 3 credit lecture should be. Along with this, her syllabus does not accurately represent the course. On her syllabus, she states that she will get rid of quiz scores, which she does not do. The percentages listed for final grades are very skewed and don't accurately represent your grade. It must be calculated using her point system; her percentages are listed incorrectly on the syllabus. Overall, her teaching is very ineffective and she is very inconsistent within her syllabus. As a result, many students (me among them) get screwed over when calculating grades due to the false statements within her syllabus. If you take this class, you must get A's on all exams in order to get an A in the class. Again, however, the syllabus does not reflect this well.

I ended with an A+ in this class. With now a hybrid class format, there is a lot more buffer room for your grade than in previous semesters. In-person class activities are easy 20/20s. The knowledge checks after each chapter reading and lectures are also free 100s. To do well on the exams, write down every detail Dr. Clabough talks about in her lectures because they can end up on the exams. Write anything you find important from the readings and take detailed notes. There is a LOT of reading - pace yourself and set out to read a little a day. sit down for 2-3 hours every day and work to memorize the information. Be it active recall with flashcards or just going over your notes again and again or drawing out diagrams to help with understanding, just memorize everything. The review sessions that the TAs did were super helpful and the questions were similar to the caliber found on the actual exams. The content in the class is super interesting, but you have to put in the time and effort if you want to do well.