Blaisdell is a great professor, but the material is mind numbingly boring. He does his best to make it interesting, and since he's a very accomplished researcher in his field he is partially successful. The tests are weird - 50 true/false questions and thats it, and they make up almost all of your grade. The practice tests he posts online are from the previous year and he keeps it pretty similar to that. When you study, know what would make the false ones true and why the true ones are true.

Alright, so I was dreading taking this class my whole time of being here due to what I’ve heard about it. I am very impressed. Blaisdell is truly a great guy who wants you to do well. It’s boring material but he does his best to help you understand it. What really helps is the essays you turn in once a week. For each essay, you pick a topic from the assigned chapter that pertains to your life and turn in a one page essay for six points. It totals up to 42 points, which really helps you in the long run. It’s why I got the grade I did. I got a 31/50 on the first test and a 37/50 on the final, but still got a B- in the class because of the homework, the curve (which can only help you), and the SONA extra credit points. TAKE BLAISDELL FOR THIS CLASS!!! You will be happy you did. The class is boring as hell but if you try, it’ll pay off. One tactic that we learned from taking the practice tests he hands out is that there are always more true than false answers on the tests, so make sure that when you turn in the tests, there’s more answers that you marked true rather that false. I did that on the final and it helped a lot. Great class, great guy, dry material. You don’t regret taking him. All of the other 110 professors suck.

I would ONLY take this course if you are interested in mundane lab research... the course consisted ENTIRELY of explanations of lab rat experiments. The material is very dry. Coming to class and having to remember one lab rat experiment after the next every single time we came into class made it very difficult to stay focused and made it hard to distinguish between all of the experiments/researchers/outcomes because they were all presented in the exact same way. This course is most appropriate for psychology students who intend to pursue a career in research. For students who intend to go into counseling or ANY other aspect of psychology, the material in this course is extremely useless and also very difficult to care about. He was a great professor though! He did his best to make it engaging (he'd be fun and entertaining in almost any other course) and posted slides for us to review at home. It just was not the course for me.

Material can be difficult to understand but Professor Blaisdell does a great job in making sure students can understand it at a basic level for exams. Midterm and final are 50 T/F questions. Memorize all his powerpoint slides to do well. Study his practice exams/study guides that he provides and know the correct answers to the false ones & you will do well on the exams. Extra credit is extremely useful in this class. I got B's on both my midterm and final & still ended up with a solid A in the class.

Grading Scheme:
70 points - Essay assignments
50 points - Midterm
50 points - Final
4 points - Extra credit

Professor Blaisdell:
I really enjoyed Professor Blaisdell as a lecturer. He's very knowledgeable and has contributed a lot in his field. He's passionate about the subject, and he's very good at relaying his knowledge to students. He uses powerpoint slides and goes slow enough to make everything understandable. I thought the content was interesting somewhat. He assigns readings in the textbook, and he pulls some questions from there not covered in lecture, so I recommend reading it and supplementing your notes from lecture. Just rent it from reserve in Powell. Record his lectures to fill in the gaps in your notes later.

TA Tatiana Altman:
I personally did not really like her TA-ing style. It felt a little unorganized and wasn't particularly helpful. If discussion wasn't somewhat mandatory, then I wouldn't have gone.

Essay Assignments Grade: 70/70
These "essays" are basically a paragraph relating a concept in an assigned chapter in the textbook to your life. It can be to another class or a personal example of a concept. These are pretty easy and are due each discussion section. There were 8 total but only 9 were counted. As long as you put a little effort, you should get full marks.

Midterm Grade: 46/50
The midterm consists of 50 T/F questions, which can be intimidating at first, but are actually pretty alright. He sends out a practice midterm and answer key. And it turns out that a lot of the questions on the practice exam are on the actual one, except the wording is changed to make the original question perhaps T instead of F and vice versa. I suggest going over your notes, doing the practice exam, and trying to change all the questions with F answers into T ones and possibly vice versa for the T questions.

Final Grade: 46/50
The final is formatted the same way as the midterm and was not cumulative. I have the same recommendations for studying this.

Extra Credit: 2.35%
Doing 4 hours with SONA can help your grade, so why not.

Overall Grade: A+
Overall, I liked this class a lot, especially with this professor. The material was for the most part interesting, but what made it for me was his teaching style. Very clear and informative at just the right pace.

These reviews are far more disparaging than what the class turned out to be. Blaisdell took it very slow and perhaps covered 10-15 slides a lecture. However, they were very in depth and he always answered and questions/confusions people had. He was a very clear and articulate lecturer. As for the tests, it is what it is. Its not that difficult if you take good notes and read the textbook, but they can be tricky. Weekly assignments help dilute the weight of the test category. Material is dry, but the course subject was pretty dry to begin with. I would take again and recommend.

Overall, this course was difficult, but doable with Blaisdell. The material is EXTREMELY dry, and there are a ton of different theories and definitions that are very easy to mix up. As far as psych courses go, this is definitely a more difficult one both in terms of workload and the concepts. But since it is a core class that is required, all of that makes sense. Blaisdell himself is a funny lecturer and does what he can to make the boring material seem a bit livelier, which does help.

Blaisdell knows what he's teaching extremely well- he's actually one of the leading psychologists in the world researching learning theory. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. Obviously, he gets the material through and through...however, he knows it so well that sometimes it feels like he's just so far above the class in his understanding that you can't get to his level.

The midterm and final are both 50 points, true/false questions only. That's not as bad as it sounds because he gives you a practice midterm and final that are literally identical to the tests. Learn those, and you're fine. Plus you get 70 free points just for turning in one weekly half-page paper.

TLDR: class is dense and dry, but hey, welcome to 110. Blaisdell is funny, class is manageable because of practice midterm and final that are identical to tests. Would take again

Very interesting class! Definitely recommend it to anyone!
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I don't know why the ratings for Blaisdell are so low! He is actually a pretty good teacher and his class is relatively straightforward. His test may appear a little difficult for the first midterm since the structure of his test are kind of weird at first (true and false). The class consist of
2 Midterms and a Final
Weekly Papers reflecting on the chapter

It's not a bad class and office hours are pretty helpful!

Blaisdell teaches the class fairly well. However, he was completely unreasonable when he print his tests in a font smaller than size 11! It was almost impossible to read, even for someone with perfect eyesight!

When we asked him if he could make the font a little bigger, he refused, justifying himself with the following reasons:

1. Using a slightly bigger font would require using another sheet of paper.
2. People cheat and the smallest font ever prevents cheating. (This is so completely insulting to students that it disgusts me).
3. The students are permitted to bring magnifying glasses to the exam (This is such a joke that I literally laughed out loud).
4. He believed most people did not have a problem reading the font. (He's crazy!)

No student and no human should be tested with font this small. It is insulting and unfair. Period!

P.S. He is also a terrible communicator who did not send out emails with the students' schedules in mind. He provided times for important events such as practice test uploads, homework, and review sessions way too late!