Overview

This short video is an introduction clip I made for my online students in summer, 2019. It gives you an idea of how I approach the course and the type of energy I bring!

Course Layout

I teach two versions of this course:
  • One is online (an iCourse), which I only teach in the summer.
  • The other is face-to-face (F2F). It is structured in a hybrid format, which I teach every fall/spring. ​​
    • Hybrid means that half of the course is delivered in an online format whereas the other half is structured in-person.
    • In my class, students do half of their work in MindTap and the other half in lecture once per week!

Teaching Assistants

Because Fall and Spring Intro Psych classes are so large (200-300 students each) and I tend to teach two sections (~400-600 students) on top of my other two courses (totaling 500-800 students per semester), I rely heavily on teams of undergraduate and graduate teaching assistants to ensure that students get the best learning experience within my means. ​
Since I always went to smaller schools, I know the value of feeling like you matter. Having teams of TAs is one of the best ways to make huge classes seem a little bit smaller! They lead exam review sessions, hold office hours, and are generally responsible for helping you out with the little things. 

Student Emails

More emails from students
The feedback below comes from emails at the end of the semester, months later, or (recently) years later! These students received no compensation for their comments and gave me full permission to post them here.
"Good evening! I thought it would be cool to tell you that after the last unit about emotions I really liked the concept of catharsis and am now doing my English final essay about it! My essay is all about how everyone should engage in healthy stress management and emotional management techniques like therapy or physical exercise because it prevents overflow of emotional reservoirs that can lead to feeling overwhelmed! My professor thought the topic was interesting and was wondering where I got the concept from so I thought you would enjoy hearing about this. I love your class and it is really cool getting to apply the concepts to my other classes too! :) Have a lovely day, I look forward to being in your lecture on Wednesday!"
-Preethi, Intro Psych, 2021
"Hello Dr. Jennings! I just wanted to reach out and thank you for the flexibility on my exams and tests. I have had to fight for a lot of my accommodations in previous classroom settings, but you made your classroom environment so open and accommodating and I am so appreciative. Just know you made this class way less stressful and I am so thankful. I signed up for your class this summer, so I hope to see you soon!"
-Bri, Intro Psych, 2021
"Hello, this is Avery from Psych 101. I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your psychology class! I went into the class with very little knowledge of the subject, so I was a bit apprehensive. However, I am super glad that I took this course, especially with you as the professor. Your teaching style, I found, was very effective in helping me learn the concepts from the textbook. I also appreciated all the comments that you included on Cengage; it was helpful to see your explanations/examples/statements because they were easy to conceptualize compared to the textbook. I am looking forward to enrolling in another psychology class, and I will make sure to enroll in your courses if I have the chance! Thank you so much for the fantastic class experience, and I hope nothing but the best for you and your future endeavors!"
-Avery, spring 2021
"Hi Dr. Jennings! I am a freshman in your PSY 101 class. I just wanted to say thank you so much for this past semester!!! Your class has been one that I really look forward to each week, and each class has me dying laughing (and questioning my whole life). Your passion about the subject is contagious, and the way you are easily able to break down complicated concepts is so amazing to me. I am so bummed we never had an in-person class, but I hope I can take another one of your classes in the future. I am currently a business marketing major, but I am realizing I don't think I like business or see myself doing it in the future... I am not really sure what I want to do or major in, but your class made me really interested in psychology so I'm thinking maybe I will get into more of that. Do you have any recommendations for good courses to take after PSY 101 to see if you want to pursue psychology? Thank you so much for teaching the way you do, and I will miss the zoom chat discussions next semester!!!"
-Grace, Intro Psych, 2021
"This is Brigham from your PSY 101 class. I just finished the exam. The options for answers on the last question - the one about characteristics of different parts of the United States - made me laugh out loud. I really appreciate you putting forth so much effort to make the content of your lectures relatable to your students and I really enjoy coming to your class, even if psychology isn't exactly right in my wheelhouse. I imagine you don't get too many appreciative emails for all you do, especially around exams, so I thought I'd send you a thank you. We could use more professors like you! Looking forward to class next week!"
-Brigham, Intro Psych, 2021
"Hi Dr. Jennings! I hope your summer has been amazing! I've been one of your TAs for the past year, and I took your PSY 101 course in 2018. I am sending this email to thank you for all you've done for me, and for all that you've taught me. I've been studying for the MCAT this summer, as I am taking the test in August, and although I took your class almost three years ago, almost everything I've reviewed in the psychology portion of my prep books have been so simple to go over. I remember everything so well, thanks to your course and the way you taught it. I'm grateful for the incredible professor you were, and I'm grateful you gave me an opportunity to be a teaching assistant as well. As I think about my future I feel more prepared and confident, in large part thanks to you! Have a wonderful summer."
-Daniel, Spring 2021
"Hopefully this is a nice break from all the chaotic emails filled with questions and confusion but I won't take too much of your time. I just wanted to reach out and let you know that it's very disappointing for me and probably most other students to have to switch to online classes for the rest of the semester because we will not be able to attend your class. I had never had any interest in psychology, nor did I know anything about it, but your lectures and class as a whole have been by far the most interesting and fun class I have taken at ASU. I looked forward to attending your lectures every week because I never left once without learning something new. Lectures seemed to fly by and before I knew it, we had to leave. I just want to thank you for making your class so interesting and enjoyable in the short time that I was able to attend it on campus. Hopefully we will all be able to succeed in this online format together and hopefully I will have time to take another class of yours while I am here. Thanks for everything!"
-Mason, spring 2020
"I know it's been a while since we last spoke, and you might not remember me, but I hope everything is going well for you. I just wanted to say happy holidays and thanks for all the insightful and challenging classes we had in PSY 101 last year in the spring. It was a pleasure having you as a professor, and it's really awesome seeing some of the concepts we learned about getting applied in some of my management and marketing classes last fall semester classes 😊 Hope you enjoy the break season and let me know if you would ever be interested in catching up!"
​-Mark, Intro Psych, 2019

Anonymous Survey Results & Course Evaluations

To read my argument against Ratemyprofessors and some critical considerations about traditional course evaluations, please see my blog post. I post my course evaluations here to model transparency and evidence that RMP is full of biased, inaccurate ratings. Course evaluations are not much better (in fact, they only ask about our flaws), so I also include anonymous survey feedback about content specific to my courses and teaching for a more informative approach.