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Ordinarily, lectures in Years 1 and 2 generally take place in the a Lecture Theatre (B020) and involve the entire year group. Lectures are scheduled for up to two hours but generally include breaks. For most of our lectures, audio and visual information is captured and recorded so that it can later be made available on the VLE. Lectures are carefully planned and structured to explain the key facts and phenomena under discussion and to lead you to a deeper and more critical understanding, often covering complex subject matter and the most recent findings from psychological research.However, for the 2020-21 academic year, your lectures will be delivered via a series of videos which will be made available each week on the VLE. You will also have an activity to do which will be followed up by a live Q&A session with the module leader at the end of the day.
Tutorials
Tutorials taking place in Years 1 and 2 involve small groups of students meeting to discuss specific topics linked to current teaching blocks. Tutorials are usually lead by Graduate Teaching Assistants - research students who have been trained to run tutorials and who have been provided with detailed guidance from the teaching block organiser. Tutorials will generally require you to prepare in advance by reading. The best tutorial groups will encourage everyone to be involved in discussing the topics at hand. As well as being a useful way of learning about and reinforcing ideas relevant to the lecture programme, tutorials are an excellent setting to develop your critical thinking skills in discussion with others.During the academic year 2020-21 there will be online versions of these tutorials for students who are studying at a distance due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Practicals/Workshops
Practicals/workshops give you the opportunity to put the research skills that you have learned in the Research Methods strand into practice in the context of ideas and issues from the other content-led strands. A practical might, for example, require you to collect and analyse data from a simple experiment or to analyse existing data using a specific statistical technique. Practical class sessions may last for up to three hours but most will be shorter. The purpose of practicals is to establish the idea of psychology as a scientific/experimental discipline with its own methodology. An important aspect of practical work is writing experimental reports, so data analysis and writing up may be expected to involve time in addition to that allotted to the class itself. Practical skills are an absolutely central element of the degree; they allow you to ask and answer new questions about the human mind, brain and behaviour. What you learn will help you when you come to design, implement and analyse your final year project.
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