PSYCH 110
Fundamentals of Learning
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 10, 100A. Designed for juniors/seniors. Experimental findings on animal and human conditioning; retention and transfer of training; relation of learning and motivation. Intended to provide empirical basis for theory and research in this area. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - So I actually wanted to write my first review for any class I have taken in my four years here since I just feel like people won't trust some Bruinwalk reviews because the reasoning behind a review could have been just because a student didn't receive the grade they hoped for entering in. I got an A in this class but the amount of studying and honestly unnecessary tactics to get that grade felt like it wasn't me showing that I learned something from this class at the end of the day. Taking this class felt like I was just trying to avoid all the stupid obstacles she placed on her tests just to get by. I want to attest that everything that is said in the 20+ reviews is all true (except for the positive review). Her fault as a teacher is being very ingenuine and superficial in the way she says she is "helping" or "concerned" about students. This was largely seen on the second exam where she made a remark in a lecture saying that she was surprised that students in her office hours knew so much of the material that was covered in the second exam. That wasn't because the majority of students who complained didn't study well or not understand the material. She was blind to the fact that there could be a fault in the way she was testing the concepts. It felt like she couldn't be at fault, especially when she kept uttering that the average of the second test was higher than the first as a claim to support herself in justifying the test. While grades do matter for people's GPAs, that's not a reason to say that your tests are actually good in any sense. The amount of ambiguity and the number of questions from previous exam materials on the tests made it so hard for absolutely no reason (for somehow ensuring that student learning is " priority #1"). If a test was supposed to test you on integral concepts that were covered in the exam's lectures, then how is it justifiable that testing previous material and creating weird application questions is a good measure of student learning? My final remark is just the language and unprofessionalism she displayed in the emails she would send to the class. Students who get angry will make comments on forums or emails that will not be as professional as they ideally should be (especially during unprecedented events like the coronavirus), but that doesn't mean that the professor should reciprocate that same level of unprofessionality in her replies. When she tweeted things about her students being entitled (and the appropriate effect of students reporting this to the Deans), her language thereafter completely showed disregard to the level where her twitter apology was forced, her emails about exams showed an unprecedented level of passive-aggressiveness I had ever seen from any professor, and finally the total disregard for student's situations by saying that it's "good for student learning" to not adhere what Academic Senate suggested about finals in the wake of the coronavirus. She always backed her statements saying that the averages of the class were good just to show the impression to the department that she ran an effective class. Numbers don't lie, but in this case, they really do and these reviews don't lie at all. I don't think most students in the class were able to learn having to deal with an obstacle known as this professor to have to prove that their studying felt worth it to try to succeed in class. I may have gotten the grade I got but I did look forward to this class and its material when I first enrolled. It really left a bitter taste that this was the way this whole class (and one of my last classes at UCLA) was handled. Shoutout to TA Nancy and Mary though. They carried the team on their back in making sense of a lot of the concepts in class and actually being really nice and approachable. Even when a question in one of the section quizzes seemed to trip a lot of students, Nancy really tried to understand the students to help understand a quiz question. It's a sad thought that the TAs were much more successful in being better teachers than the actual professor of the class.
Winter 2020 - So I actually wanted to write my first review for any class I have taken in my four years here since I just feel like people won't trust some Bruinwalk reviews because the reasoning behind a review could have been just because a student didn't receive the grade they hoped for entering in. I got an A in this class but the amount of studying and honestly unnecessary tactics to get that grade felt like it wasn't me showing that I learned something from this class at the end of the day. Taking this class felt like I was just trying to avoid all the stupid obstacles she placed on her tests just to get by. I want to attest that everything that is said in the 20+ reviews is all true (except for the positive review). Her fault as a teacher is being very ingenuine and superficial in the way she says she is "helping" or "concerned" about students. This was largely seen on the second exam where she made a remark in a lecture saying that she was surprised that students in her office hours knew so much of the material that was covered in the second exam. That wasn't because the majority of students who complained didn't study well or not understand the material. She was blind to the fact that there could be a fault in the way she was testing the concepts. It felt like she couldn't be at fault, especially when she kept uttering that the average of the second test was higher than the first as a claim to support herself in justifying the test. While grades do matter for people's GPAs, that's not a reason to say that your tests are actually good in any sense. The amount of ambiguity and the number of questions from previous exam materials on the tests made it so hard for absolutely no reason (for somehow ensuring that student learning is " priority #1"). If a test was supposed to test you on integral concepts that were covered in the exam's lectures, then how is it justifiable that testing previous material and creating weird application questions is a good measure of student learning? My final remark is just the language and unprofessionalism she displayed in the emails she would send to the class. Students who get angry will make comments on forums or emails that will not be as professional as they ideally should be (especially during unprecedented events like the coronavirus), but that doesn't mean that the professor should reciprocate that same level of unprofessionality in her replies. When she tweeted things about her students being entitled (and the appropriate effect of students reporting this to the Deans), her language thereafter completely showed disregard to the level where her twitter apology was forced, her emails about exams showed an unprecedented level of passive-aggressiveness I had ever seen from any professor, and finally the total disregard for student's situations by saying that it's "good for student learning" to not adhere what Academic Senate suggested about finals in the wake of the coronavirus. She always backed her statements saying that the averages of the class were good just to show the impression to the department that she ran an effective class. Numbers don't lie, but in this case, they really do and these reviews don't lie at all. I don't think most students in the class were able to learn having to deal with an obstacle known as this professor to have to prove that their studying felt worth it to try to succeed in class. I may have gotten the grade I got but I did look forward to this class and its material when I first enrolled. It really left a bitter taste that this was the way this whole class (and one of my last classes at UCLA) was handled. Shoutout to TA Nancy and Mary though. They carried the team on their back in making sense of a lot of the concepts in class and actually being really nice and approachable. Even when a question in one of the section quizzes seemed to trip a lot of students, Nancy really tried to understand the students to help understand a quiz question. It's a sad thought that the TAs were much more successful in being better teachers than the actual professor of the class.
Most Helpful Review
Professor Stahlman is young, upbeat and knowledgeable about the subject material. He's generally nice enough, but also somewhat hotheaded and gets stressed out easily and on those days he can be a jerk and very arrogant. He explains things really quickly in lecture, so if you're thinking about taking him, I would definitely consider podcasting. You have to be able to diligently keep up with lecture material because everything builds on previous lectures. His exams are very conceptual and very hard to do well on considering they are only out of 30 points. The means are usually in the low C and D range. Also, he's the kind of professor who will try to trick you based on subtle wording (eg. always, never) even if you actually understand the concepts which is kind of dumb. And then half the questions aren't worded clearly so you don't even know what he's trying to ask. Most of them are hypothetical questions/experiments based on the concepts from the experiments he went over in class. I think this was probably one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA because the material is super dry and circular and the theories you learn about are all flawed, so at the end of it you still feel like you didn't learn much. And I don't think Stahlman is funny at all, as hard as he tries to be.
Professor Stahlman is young, upbeat and knowledgeable about the subject material. He's generally nice enough, but also somewhat hotheaded and gets stressed out easily and on those days he can be a jerk and very arrogant. He explains things really quickly in lecture, so if you're thinking about taking him, I would definitely consider podcasting. You have to be able to diligently keep up with lecture material because everything builds on previous lectures. His exams are very conceptual and very hard to do well on considering they are only out of 30 points. The means are usually in the low C and D range. Also, he's the kind of professor who will try to trick you based on subtle wording (eg. always, never) even if you actually understand the concepts which is kind of dumb. And then half the questions aren't worded clearly so you don't even know what he's trying to ask. Most of them are hypothetical questions/experiments based on the concepts from the experiments he went over in class. I think this was probably one of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA because the material is super dry and circular and the theories you learn about are all flawed, so at the end of it you still feel like you didn't learn much. And I don't think Stahlman is funny at all, as hard as he tries to be.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2023 - Trott is a great teacher, his lectures are engaging and he gives good examples to make the lecture content interesting. However, although Trott is a great lecturer, he is not a great professor. As a summer course the material moves extremely fast, and Trott makes it very clear that he does not care for his students’ time. We are given a 2 day period to take tests, neither of which take up a class, and one of which is a Sunday. There are no review classes, and tests are given outside of test time. One of the tests was assigned to Sunday-Monday, the Monday of which was a Holliday so we were forced to take the test on a weekend or a day off. The material is difficult so this makes this more difficult. In addition, Trott’s tests are written horribly. They are as confusing as possible, each question specifically designed to trick us. He also makes sure that all of the questions are outside of the material we have talked about, making sure that he answers no questions outside of the material that could potentially reflect a test question. So, he teaches the basis of the material and refuses to teach anything deeper. Therefore, the test questions are not only extremely confusing and badly written, but they require a deep understanding of the material which he refuses to provide in class. If you care about your GPA do not take this class, if you do not, the material is intense and interesting, but tests make this class extremely stressful and not fun.
Summer 2023 - Trott is a great teacher, his lectures are engaging and he gives good examples to make the lecture content interesting. However, although Trott is a great lecturer, he is not a great professor. As a summer course the material moves extremely fast, and Trott makes it very clear that he does not care for his students’ time. We are given a 2 day period to take tests, neither of which take up a class, and one of which is a Sunday. There are no review classes, and tests are given outside of test time. One of the tests was assigned to Sunday-Monday, the Monday of which was a Holliday so we were forced to take the test on a weekend or a day off. The material is difficult so this makes this more difficult. In addition, Trott’s tests are written horribly. They are as confusing as possible, each question specifically designed to trick us. He also makes sure that all of the questions are outside of the material we have talked about, making sure that he answers no questions outside of the material that could potentially reflect a test question. So, he teaches the basis of the material and refuses to teach anything deeper. Therefore, the test questions are not only extremely confusing and badly written, but they require a deep understanding of the material which he refuses to provide in class. If you care about your GPA do not take this class, if you do not, the material is intense and interesting, but tests make this class extremely stressful and not fun.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - I was honestly terrified to take this class after reading the reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this class turned out. Professor Wassum is one of the most amazing professors I have ever had. She genuinely cares about student learning, and would often be found answering student's questions on the BruinLearn discussion board into the early hours of the morning. However, there are a couple of things I wish I knew at the beginning of this class: 1. You don't need the textbook. I didn't read it beyond the first week of class. I found her lecture slides & lectures to be perfectly comprehensive. 2. Take very, very detailed notes. Dr. Wassum talks superrrr fast. She knows her stuff. With that being said, I'd often leave in-person lectures feeling pretty confused at times, but I'd go home & re-watch the lecture video about a day later & take notes to fill in any gaps I may have had. This often took a very long time, since I would pretty much pause the video every few minutes to write anything important down, but this process was soooo essential to my ability to understand & retain the information. On my first exam, I didn't perform very well, but was able to get 100% on my last 2 exams simply because I started to re-watch lecture videos & take more detailed notes. 3. Make a study guide for exams. For my first exam, I kinda just winged it. I studied a little bit, but I relied a little too hard on just knowing the exam was open book. For the second and third exams, I made study guides that focused on understanding the experiments/concepts she presented during lecture. The exams focus heavily on your understanding of the concepts in an experimental/real-world context, so explaining each experiment (what it was testing, what happened, what the results were, what it told us about learning, etc.) helped me soooo much on the tests. My study guides literally consisted of just pages and pages of each experiment explained, and I referred to this often during exams. Overall, Dr. Wassum is a great professor who cares about her students and wants us to succeed. I would take this class again.
Fall 2022 - I was honestly terrified to take this class after reading the reviews, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this class turned out. Professor Wassum is one of the most amazing professors I have ever had. She genuinely cares about student learning, and would often be found answering student's questions on the BruinLearn discussion board into the early hours of the morning. However, there are a couple of things I wish I knew at the beginning of this class: 1. You don't need the textbook. I didn't read it beyond the first week of class. I found her lecture slides & lectures to be perfectly comprehensive. 2. Take very, very detailed notes. Dr. Wassum talks superrrr fast. She knows her stuff. With that being said, I'd often leave in-person lectures feeling pretty confused at times, but I'd go home & re-watch the lecture video about a day later & take notes to fill in any gaps I may have had. This often took a very long time, since I would pretty much pause the video every few minutes to write anything important down, but this process was soooo essential to my ability to understand & retain the information. On my first exam, I didn't perform very well, but was able to get 100% on my last 2 exams simply because I started to re-watch lecture videos & take more detailed notes. 3. Make a study guide for exams. For my first exam, I kinda just winged it. I studied a little bit, but I relied a little too hard on just knowing the exam was open book. For the second and third exams, I made study guides that focused on understanding the experiments/concepts she presented during lecture. The exams focus heavily on your understanding of the concepts in an experimental/real-world context, so explaining each experiment (what it was testing, what happened, what the results were, what it told us about learning, etc.) helped me soooo much on the tests. My study guides literally consisted of just pages and pages of each experiment explained, and I referred to this often during exams. Overall, Dr. Wassum is a great professor who cares about her students and wants us to succeed. I would take this class again.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2022 - Overall, I really enjoyed my experience in this class! The professor is very clear and is always super open to answering student questions -- I was never made to feel stupid for speaking up. What I also really liked about his class was that Wilkenheiser made it accessible to all students given COVID-19 by offering hybrid options to everything, and not penalizing students if they were unable to come in-person. He had Zoom options for both lecture and discussion, although I am not sure if this will be continued for future quarters. He had 4 non-cumulative quizzes in place of midterms and finals. The quizzes were very doable if you understood and reviewed the lecture material, and comparable in difficulty to the practice questions he posted. All the questions were very fair and he even dropped questions that he thought where poorly worded or that the entire class did badly on. They were also all online and open note. Discussion attendance was mandatory, but I found it helpful (shout out to my TA, Lindsey) since it reviewed the material from the previous week. You also turn in 5 reaction papers total for points, which are basically one-pagers that connect the content of the class to your personal experiences -- very doable, shouldn't take more than 2 hours at most if you're following along with lecture. The last component of the grade was 1 problem set. Because we moved through material slowly than previous quarters, he ended up making the problem set based on a scientific article. Similar to everything else, it was graded very fairly and very manageable in terms of workload. Again, I would highly recommend taking Psych 110 with Professor Wilkenheiser if you can. The material may not be the most engaging, but he is very fair, accommodating, clear, and concise in his lectures!
Spring 2022 - Overall, I really enjoyed my experience in this class! The professor is very clear and is always super open to answering student questions -- I was never made to feel stupid for speaking up. What I also really liked about his class was that Wilkenheiser made it accessible to all students given COVID-19 by offering hybrid options to everything, and not penalizing students if they were unable to come in-person. He had Zoom options for both lecture and discussion, although I am not sure if this will be continued for future quarters. He had 4 non-cumulative quizzes in place of midterms and finals. The quizzes were very doable if you understood and reviewed the lecture material, and comparable in difficulty to the practice questions he posted. All the questions were very fair and he even dropped questions that he thought where poorly worded or that the entire class did badly on. They were also all online and open note. Discussion attendance was mandatory, but I found it helpful (shout out to my TA, Lindsey) since it reviewed the material from the previous week. You also turn in 5 reaction papers total for points, which are basically one-pagers that connect the content of the class to your personal experiences -- very doable, shouldn't take more than 2 hours at most if you're following along with lecture. The last component of the grade was 1 problem set. Because we moved through material slowly than previous quarters, he ended up making the problem set based on a scientific article. Similar to everything else, it was graded very fairly and very manageable in terms of workload. Again, I would highly recommend taking Psych 110 with Professor Wilkenheiser if you can. The material may not be the most engaging, but he is very fair, accommodating, clear, and concise in his lectures!
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