Faculty Resources
Assignments
The assignments in this course are openly licensed, and are available as-is, or can be modified to suit your students’ needs. Selected answer keys are available to faculty who adopt Waymaker, OHM, or Candela courses with paid support from Lumen Learning. This approach helps us protect the academic integrity of these materials by ensuring they are shared only with authorized and institution-affiliated faculty and staff.
If you import this course into your learning management system (Blackboard, Canvas, etc.), the assignments will automatically be loaded into the assignment tool, where they may be adjusted, or edited there. Assignments also come with rubrics and pre-assigned point values that may easily be edited or removed.
The assignments for Introductory Psychology are ideas and suggestions to use as you see appropriate. Some are larger assignments spanning several weeks, while others are smaller, less-time consuming tasks. You can view them below or throughout the course.
You can view them below or throughout the course.
Module |
Discussion |
Assignment |
| Psychological Foundations | Perspectives in Psychology
Explain behavior from 3 perspectives. |
Topics in Psychology
Watch a TED talk |
| Psychological Research | Analyzing Research
Describe and discuss a PLOS research article. |
Psychology in the News
Compare a popular news article with research article |
| Biopsychology | Using Your Brain
Describe parts of the brain involved in daily activities. |
Brain Part Infographic
Create a visual/infographic about a part of the brain *larger assignment |
| State of Consciousness | Sleep Stages
Describe sleep stages and ways to improve sleep. |
Sleep and Dream Journal
Track and analyze sleep and dreams. Record sleep habits and dreams a minimum of 3 days. *larger assignment, needs introduction at least 1 week prior to due date |
| Sensation and Perception | Cultural Influences on Perception
Demonstrate cultural differences in perception. *If used in conjunction with the “Perception and Illusions” assignment, this post could ask students to bring in examples/evidence from the illusion task. |
Applications of the Delbouef Illusion
Apply Food Lab research and the Delbouef Illusion to recommend plate size and dinner set-up. Apply an understanding of Martin Doherty’s research on developmental and cross-cultural effects in the Ebbinghaus illusion. Find an illusion, describe it, and explain whether or not it may show cross-cultural effects. |
| Thinking and Intelligence | Thinking about Intelligence
Choose to respond to two questions from a list. |
What Makes Smarts?
Describe 3 smart people and analyze what contributes to their intelligence. Thinking and Intelligence—The Paradox of Choice Examine an experiment about cognitive overload and decision-making when given many options. |
| Memory | Explaining Memory
Create a mnemonic and explain an early childhood memory. |
Study Guide
Apply knowledge from module on memory, thinking and intelligence, and states of consciousness to help a struggling student. |
| Learning | What I Learned
Write examples of something learned through classical, operant, and observational learning. |
Conditioning Project
Spend at least 10 days using conditioning principles to break or make a habit. *requires sufficient time (10 days) of working on changing behavior, and should be introduced with two weeks of advanced notice. |
| Lifespan Development | Stages of Development
Pick an age and describe the age along with developmental theories and if you agree or disagree with the theoretical designations. |
Developmental Toys Assignment
Find toys for a child of 6 months, 4 years, and 8 years, then explain theories for the age and why the toys are appropriate. |
| Social Psychology | Thinking about Social Psychology
Pick one question to respond to out of 4 options. |
Designing a Study in Social Psychology
Create a shortened research proposal for a study in social psychology (or one that tests common proverbs). *larger assignment, possibly the largest assignment. Could be broken into multiple parts and given advanced notice. |
| Personality | Personality and the Grinch
Use two of the theories presented in the text to analyze the Grinch’s personality. |
Assessing Personality
Take two personality tests then analyze their validity and reliability. Examine various types of validity and design a new way to test the validity of the Blirt test. |
| Emotion and Motivation | What Motivates You?
What motivates you to do your schoolwork? |
Theories of Emotion
Demonstrate the James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer, and cognitive-mediational theories of emotion. Growth Mindsets and the Control Condition Take a deeper look at the Carol Dweck study on mindset and analyze how the results may appear different if the control benchmark varied. |
| Industrial-Organizational Psychology | Thinking about Industrial/Organizational Psychology
Pick a favorite I/O topic or give advice on conducting an interview. |
KSAs Assignment
Investigate and reflect on KSAs needed for future job. |
| Psychological Disorders | Diagnosing Disorders
Diagnose a fictional character with a psychological disorder. |
Disorder At-a-Glance
Research one disorder and create an “At-a-Glance” paper about the main points. |
| Therapy and Treatment | Thinking about Treatment
Choose to respond to one of four questions. |
Treating Mental Illness
Describe 3 different treatment methods for the fictional character diagnosed for the “Diagnosing Disorders” discussion. *This assignment builds off of the discussion assignment in the previous module, in which students “diagnosed” a fictional character with a psychological disorder. |
| Stress, Lifestyle, and Health | Thoughts on Stress and Happiness
Give advice on managing stress or increasing happiness. |
Time and Stress Management
Pick from three options to do things related to tracking stress and time management. *requires advanced noticed |
Licenses and Attributions (Click to expand)
CC licensed content, Original
- Assignments with Solutions. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution
CC licensed content, Shared previously
- Pencil Cup. Authored by: IconfactoryTeam. Provided by: Noun Project. Located at: https://thenounproject.com/term/pencil-cup/628840/. License: CC BY: Attribution