Online courses directory (68)

In the 1970s, the Chinese Communist leader Zhou Enlai was asked to assess the outcomes of the French Revolution of 1789.  He supposedly answered: “It is too soon to say.”  Though this story has a somewhat apocryphal status, it captures a fundamental truth about the world in which we live: it is a world which has been shaped by revolutions, and their legacies are always difficult to evaluate. In this course, you will gain a better understanding of the modern world by studying some of the most important political revolutions that took place between the 17th century and today.  You will seek to understand the causes of each revolution, analyze the ideologies that inspired the revolutionaries, examine revolutionary uses of violence, and consider how historical revolutions still shape contemporary politics.  Close and critical readings of historical sources will be crucial in this process. The course begins with a theoretical analysis of revolutions and a careful examination of pre-revolutionary Europe…

This course will focus on the emergence and evolution of industrial societies around the world.  We will begin by comparing the legacies of industry in ancient and early modern Europe and Asia and examining the agricultural and commercial advances that laid the groundwork for the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.  We will then follow the history of industrialization in different parts of the world, taking a close look at the economic, social, and environmental effects of industrialization.  The course is organized chronologically and thematically.  Each unit will focus on key developments in the history of industry as well as on representative areas of the globe, using primary-source documents, secondary readings, and multimedia resources to illustrate the dynamic nature of industrial change.  By the end of the course, you will understand how industrialization developed, spread across the globe, and shaped everyday life in the modern era.

This course will focus on the history of humankind’s relationship with the environment.  We use the word “environment” to refer to the nonhuman components of the natural world.  We will examine how environmental factors have shaped the development and growth of civilizations around the world and analyze how these civilizations have altered their environments in positive and negative ways.  The course will be structured chronologically.  Each unit will include representative primary-source documents that illustrate important overarching themes, such as how early humans adapted natural resources for new purposes, how the expansion of civilizations led to environmental changes, how the interaction between European explorers and Native Americans led to significant and unexpected environmental consequences, and how modern societies have responded to environmental problems that threaten the well-being of humans and the environment.  By the end of the course, you will better understand the reciprocal rela…

This course provides an introduction to the history of technology for the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) major.  The course surveys major technological developments from ancient to modern times with particular attention to social, political, and cultural contexts in Europe and the United States.  You will also think critically about the theory of technological determinism, the ways in which technology has defined “progress” and “civilization”, and the major ethical considerations surrounding today’s technological decisions. This course begins with discussions of the promotion of technology in centralized states of the ancient and medieval worlds: the Roman Empire, Song and Ming China, and the Islamic Abbasid Empire.  After a period of relative decline, the states of Western Europe centralized and flourished once again, having benefited from the westward transmission of key ideas and technologies from the East. The focus of the course then shifts to the West, to the technologies of the…

Students of political science should understand how ethics, culture, religion, and morality help to shape public debate, policymaking, and policy execution. This course will provide you with an overview of the role that ethical, cultural, religious, and moral principles play in the formulation and execution of public policy by lawmakers and other public officials. After studying the foundational theories of ethics and morality in politics, you will review arguments about existing issues in domestic and international policy, studying each dilemma from a variety of perspectives.  Common themes seen in ethics debates include justice, equality, fairness, individual liberty, free enterprise, charity, fundamental human rights, and minimizing harm to others. These themes are integrated into various decision-making models, such as the Utilitarian Approach, the Fairness and Justice Approach, and the Rights Approach. In the execution of public policy, it is impossible to do no harm to others; often, public policy…

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories. This course is designed to align with Excelsior College’s UExcel Psychology examination. Visit the Excelsior website [1] to download the content guide for the PSYX-101 exam.  For more information about this partnership, and earning credit through Excelsior College, go here [2].    [1] http:/…

This course will introduce you to the fundamental principles of psychology and to the major subjects of psychological inquiry. It has been designed to not only provide you with the tools necessary for the study of psychology but to present you with a sampling of the major areas of psychology research. The course begins with a short overview of how psychology developed as an academic discipline and an introduction to a number of the principle methodologies most commonly deployed in its study. The subsequent units are arranged around broad areas of research, including emotion, development, memory, and psychopathology. We will focus on well-substantiated research and current trends within each of these categories.

In this course, we will look at the properties behind the basic concepts of probability and statistics and focus on applications of statistical knowledge.  We will learn how statistics and probability work together.  The subject of statistics involves the study of methods for collecting, summarizing, and interpreting data.  Statistics formalizes the process of making decisionsand this course is designed to help you cultivate statistic literacy so that you can use this knowledge to make better decisions.  Note that this course has applications in sciences, economics, computer science, finance, psychology, sociology, criminology, and many other fields. Every day, we read articles and reports in print or online.  After finishing this course, you should be comfortable asking yourself whether the articles make sense.  You will be able to extract information from the articles and display that information effectively.  You will also be able to understand the basics of how to draw statistical conclusions.

This Research Methods course is part one of the two-part Research Methods series, which also includes the Research Methods Lab course. Research is the foundation on which any solid science is built. This course will introduce you to research methodologies frequently used in the social sciences and especially those used in the field of psychology. It is important that you are able to not only identify the techniques used by others but also employ them yourself. The course is designed to provide you with the foundation you will need to apply certain techniques in the search for your own answers. The course will begin with an overview of how research, and its appropriate methodology, came about in science and, more specifically, psychology. We will then go over the ABCs of conducting research, learning how to define “variables” and why they are important. While this course will also touch upon statistics and their importance, it will not require a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. The course will concl…

This Research Methods Lab course is part two of the Research Methods series. You should not attempt this course without having first completed the Research Methods course (PSYCH202A [1]). This Lab extends beyond the basics of research methodology and the logic of experimental design, concepts you learned in PSYCH202A [2].  You will learn to put these concepts into practice while conducting laboratory experiments. While we may not explicitly apply all of the concepts introduced in the Research Methods lecture course, remember that each of them will remain relevant during the evaluation and review phases of your research. This course intends to acquaint the student with a variety of different research techniques.  Students will participate in every stage of experimentation, from creation and editing to evaluation and review.   As such, this course will not only review relevant concepts from the Research Methods lecture, but will also broach a number of practical matters, including the standard organizatio…

This introductory course in biology starts at the microscopic level, with molecules and cells.  Before we get into the specifics of cell structure and behavior, however, let’s take a cursory glance at the field of biology more generally.  Though biology as we know it today is a relatively new field, we have been studying living things since the beginning of recorded history.  The invention of the microscope was the turning point in the history of biology; it paved the way for scientists to discover bacteria and other tiny organisms, and ultimately led to the modern cell theory of biology. You will notice that, unlike the core program courses you took in chemistry and physics, introductory biology does not have many mathematical “laws” and “rules” and does not require much math.  Instead, you will learn a great number of new terms and concepts that will help you describe life at the smallest level.  Over the course of this semester, you will recognize the ways in which the tiniest of molecules…

In BIO101 [1], you were introduced to biology on a microscopic scale when you learned about the functions of molecules, genes, and cells.  In this course, you will learn about biological changes that happen on a very large scale, across entire populations of organisms and over the course of millions of years, in the form of evolution and ecology.  Evolution, the process by which different species of organisms have developed and diversified from earlier forms, has been a central theme in the field of biology ever since Darwin first published his theories about it.  Mounting evidence from many different branches of science all point to the fact that species have experienced a gradual but definite physical change.  In this course, we will learn about evolution and theories that stem from evolution. We will also learn about ecology, the study of the interactions between different types of organisms and their surroundings.  Changes in surroundings will force organisms to adapt and changeoften in terms of th…

DISCLAIMER: This course is designed to address the fundamentals of clinical psychology. It will NOT provide the education or experience needed for the diagnosing and treating of mental disorders. This course will cover the basic concepts of clinical psychology, or the study of diagnosing, treating, and understanding abnormal and maladaptive behaviors. We frequently refer to these behaviorswhich include depression, anxiety, and schizophreniaas mental diseases or disorders. While you might have a general understanding of these disorders, this course will cover each in great detail. Many of you are likely familiar with the idea of therapy, whether because you or someone you know has been in therapy, or because you have seen it in popular TV shows or movies. Because many approaches to therapy draw from research on clinical populationsthat is, populations suffering from some sort of mental disordertherapy is closely related to the field of psychopathology. Although this class will not teach you how to cond…

This course will introduce you to cognitive psychology, or the study of the ways in which we come to know about the world around us and about one another.  While you may understand “cognition” as “thinking” or “thoughts,” we will here use the term to refer to almost any process that takes place within the human mind. Though cognitive psychology as a formal branch of study has only been around since the late 1960s, it has been studied for decades as an area of interest in psychological inquiry and has its roots in philosophy.  In the late 1880s, for example, Ebbinghaus conducted some of the very first scientifically based studies of cognition when he attempted to explain the mechanism of memory.  Memory, along with attention, perception, language, and decision making, are amongst the most prominent issues within the broad and diverse field of cognitive psychology.  While we could spend an entire semester exploring just one of these issues, this course will instead provide you with an overview…

This course will introduce you to the concepts and ideas in the area of social psychology. Social Psychology aims to discover the different ways in which people interact with other individuals, groups, and the larger society as a whole, as well as why people act in certain ways. As with an anthropology or sociology course, social psychology looks at the inner workings of groups of people. However, it differs from these courses in terms of its focus; social psychology focuses primarily on the single individual’s psychology as part of the group or society, rather than the culture or group interaction (though both of these areas have some relevance in social psychology). This may seem to be quite a broad subject area and it is. Humans are social creatures (in other words, they have evolved to be able to interact and communicate at high levels with individuals of their own species) and almost invariably exist in a social context (even a situation in which society is absent could be studied by social psychologi…

Developmental psychology concerns itself with the changes (psychological and otherwise) that occur as a result of our physical and mental maturation. Typically, “development” refers to the systematic changes that take place between our conception and death. While this definition may seem quite broad, it will serve as a good starting point in our quest to understand the field of developmental psychology. The first thing we must realize as developmental psychologists is that our change is systematic. This means that the process by which we grow and mature over time is not defined by random, isolated events but by orderly and relatively long-term patterns. This also means that while individuals themselves may differ quite a bit, the developmental patterns that they undergo are similar. These concepts are crucial in that they allow us, as psychologists, to study the way in which people develop and to make predictions about the future based on that development. Developmental psychologists study both continuiti…

PURPOSE OF COURSE…

PURPOSE OF COURSE…

This course will introduce you to the major concepts of and debates surrounding industrial and organizational psychology. Industrial and organizational psychology is the application of psychological research and theory to human interaction (both with other humans and with human factors, or machines and computers) in the workplace. The phrase “industrial and organizational psychology” (sometimes referred to as “I/O”) may be somewhat misleading, as the field deals less with actual organizations and/or industries and more with the people in these areas. As mentioned above, “I/O” is an applied psychological science, which means that it takes research findings and theories that may have originally been used to explain a general phenomenon of human behavior and applies them to human behavior in a specific setting (here, the workplace). Consider, for example, the fact that many jobs require applicants to take a personality test. Psychologists originally developed this test to detect and diagnose abnorm…

This course introduces learners to the principles of learning and behavior by surveying relevant theoretical and empirical approaches within psychology.  The overall emphasis is on the theoretical foundations of psychology as they relate to human learning and behavior.   The following topics will be reviewed: historical perspectives of early learning theories, prevailing theories of human development, classical and operant conditioning, effects stimuli have on learning and behavior, social learning, motivation, cognitive developmental theory in the context of learning stages and processes, memory and human information processing models, and problem-solving methods.  Understanding these human processes is an integral part of psychology and other domains of human behavior, such as marketing, sports, health, education and relationships. Learning theories are an outgrowth from philosophies of thought.  The philosophical approaches of rationalism and empiricism, and the works of Plato and Descarte form the…