This course is designed to provide students with one of the most crucial skills needed when pursuing a career in the helping professions: cultural competency. As helping professionals, we are expected to maintain an understanding of cultural competency standards, knowledge, and theory of the interaction of human systems including individual, interpersonal communication, group, family, organizational, community, and societal (Council for Standards in Human Service Education, 2009). The purpose of this course is to sensitize students to the complex issues involved in cross-cultural service delivery.

          Read my cultural needs assessment and diversity training design

The focus of this course is on enhancing the capacity of students to make difficult and necessary ethical choices. A goal of this course is to prepare students to ask important questions, test the strengths and limits of different approaches to seeking answers, and act more thoughtfully, courageously, and creatively in uncertain situations. Students will explore the ethical decision-making process, personal and professional codes of ethics and accepted standards of practice, and the major ethical issues confronting the helping professions today and in the near future.

This course will explore the history, theory, and practice of the creative arts therapies. Students will gain a basic understanding of the history and theories of art, dance, music, drama, and narrative therapies. Students will develop skills using creative arts therapy techniques. Students will not emerge from this course as competent creative arts therapists, as this class is really the first step in the understanding of an integrative and complex field. However, students will gain a good understanding of the theory and application of the creative arts therapies and begin to develop a personal theory of using the arts in a therapeutic process.

This course is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of research methods in human development. Even if you are not interested in pursuing a research-related career when you become a professional of any sort, you will be expected to keep up-to-date with the latest trends in research and be capable of thoughtful criticism of information. Topics include, but are not limited to, selecting a research topic, the language of research, reviewing the literature, ethical considerations, basic measurement, and writing a literature review. In this course, students will complete all facets of a research project.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to theoretical orientations, basic skills, and interventions current psychotherapists in various settings employ. Students will accomplish this goal through diverse pedagogy including lectures, experimental activities, presentations, role-play, and independent reading. Throughout the semester, students will be challenged to step outside of their comfort zone and engage fully with the material-- to practice the skills we cover and to explore how these counseling skills may have meaning for you personally and professionally. Students will gain an increased understanding of the therapeutic relationship, however, the work in this semester will not qualify students as competent counselors. If interested in pursuing further education in counseling, this class will prepare students to approach that process.

This course is designed to introduce students to the basic processes and influences on human development from conception through adolescence, in the domains of neurological, physical, social, and emotional development. Students will learn how scientific methodology is utilized in developmental research and how research findings are interpreted, misinterpreted, and disseminated to the public. We will examine how the research reviewed in class can be applied to real-life situations, such as parenting, teaching, and the making of policy. We will strengthen multicultural awareness by examining how diversity shapes the developmental processes.

This course will focus on the thoughts and behaviors that deviate from the norm, are maladaptive, and/or cause distress. By the end of the course, students will be able to think critically about psychological disorders, diagnoses, and treatment; learn and understand benefits, critiques, limitations, and implications of diagnosis and classification; and read and understand current research findings and trends relative to the development and description of maladaptive behavior, as well as gender and demographic influences on the prevalence of psychiatric illness.

This course is a broad overview of the study of group dynamics from a social science perspective. We will discuss theories and research on group structure and functioning and we will examine issues of power, influence, leadership, and conflict.

This course is designed to investigate the nature of family communication. Specifically, this course will examine the changing and complex definition of the concept of family and discuss various family forms and family diversity; examine family interaction from different theoretical lenses including family systems theory and relational dialects view of communication; address the role of family identities, structure, conflict, and stress on family communication; and critically assess the idea of what constitutes a "functional" family. This course will develop students' ability to identify and critically analyze the influences and outcomes of family communication from a systemic lens.

          Read my final term paper applying communication theory to an interview

Social psychology encompasses an almost bewildering variety of topics, some of which may seem to have almost nothing to do with one another. What most of them do have in common, however, is that they deal with more or less normal variations in everyday human behavior. This would include such diverse topics as how we explain the things that happen to us, the processes underlying the formation of our friendships, why humans aggress against others, what makes us conform to or resist group pressure, and how the presence or absence of others affects our performance. In short, we will spend this course studying human thought and action, with an emphasis on the way that humans interact with each other.

          Read my final term paper on social psychology theories applied to a real-world situation

In this course, we will cover a variety of topics pertaining to the study of cognition, including perception, attention, learning, memory, problem-solving, and imagery. In addition to discussing scientific studies and theoretical models of cognition, we will also link basic research to everyday applications, providing a link between theory and practice. Given the relevance of learning and cognition to all aspects of daily life, this course should provide students with insight as to the functioning of the mind, along with a foundational understanding of relevant research in the area.

This course is an introduction to the application of neurological and neurophysical principles to understanding human behavior and thought. The brain controls every part of your existence, from the way you perceive and interact with the world, to the dreams and feelings you experience. In this course, we will examine the function and anatomy of the central nervous system and how it relates to psychological functioning. 

In this course, we will address theoretical perspectives and philosophical issues in human development across the life span. We will examine the benefits and drawbacks of contemporary issues in the study of human development. Students will critically examine current research questions in human development, analyze and critique empirical research articles to gain an understanding of the research methods, hypotheses, theories, and findings of the study in the field, and evaluate the accuracy of theories. Students will demonstrate skills in oral presentation appropriate to the field of human development. It is important to note that this course is a collaborative and reciprocal learning endeavor. As such, it is my hope that we will learn together and share our opinions with each other about the topics to be covered.

This course is designed to provide a comprehensive, research-oriented approach to the complexities of the study of how humans develop from conception through childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Specifically, we will focus on psychological, physical, and social development across the lifespan. We will address major issues and controversies within the study of development and discuss major theories posed to address the process of human development. We will approach issues from a scientific standpoint, examining empirical research designed to assess the pathways and mechanisms of development with particular emphasis on how they are addressed by the helping professions.

This course will introduce students to the scientific study of psychology and to the principles of human (and other animals') behavior and mental processes. We will review the concepts associated with the major subdisciplines of psychology, considering how these many subdisciplinaries are interrelated and work together to inform our understanding of the complexity of psychological experience. Students will learn how scientific methodology is utilized in psychological research, and how research findings are interpreted, misinterpreted, disseminated to the public. We will explore how psychological processes are relevant to our everyday lives and how to become a thoughtful consumer of psychological ideas.