Sample course · full build

Introduction to Psychology

15 instructional weeks + finals week (Week 1–Week 16) Free sample edition

Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com

This is a complete course: fifteen instructional weeks and a finals week, every student component, built with The Course Maker and ready to import. Weeks are relative (Week 1 to Week 16); you set the dates when you import it. Browse the whole thing below. Click any piece to read it in full, then click back to return here.

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Free sample edition. No instructor, institution, or term identity appears anywhere in this edition, by design. The syllabus carries fill-in slots (instructor name, contact, office hours, institution policies) for the adopting instructor to make it their own. (Original objectives written from the standard Introduction to Psychology body of knowledge; not copied from any school's course outline.)

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This course is free, complete, and evergreen, and it is yours to keep; free downloads run through June 30, 2028. Students pay $0 for course materials: the readings and videos are links to freely available resources.

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What the paid build adds

This sample is complete and yours to keep. A paid build is the same course made yours in the ways a download cannot be:

Every date set to your term and your breaks, and re-paced to a second campus calendar at no extra charge.
Your syllabus, your policies, and your outline of record in the build, with an alignment report that shows which component addresses each objective and SLO, and a Universal design for learning section drawn from the course's own data.
Your name on every page as the course's creator.
Kept current every term: fresh assessment variants, every link re-checked and the dead ones replaced, and the subject brought up to date where it has moved.
The full instructor pack: answer keys and worked solutions, the alignment report, and the UDL map.
A record for your college's file: the design attestation, a disclosure statement for every edition, and what changed at the end of each term.

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Included in every course

ChapterRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a chapter to read, a slide deck with speaker notes, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.
Slide deck with speaker notesRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — a slide deck with speaker notes, a chapter to read, and captioned videos — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee.
Captioned video linksRequired
Required in every course. Every module presents the same content in three ways — captioned videos, a chapter to read, and a slide deck with speaker notes — so each student can choose how to take it in. The course is designed to reflect UDL's multiple means of representation, and the alignment report describes this to your curriculum committee. We link videos only when a caption track exists (from the creator or generated automatically), and we never host them.

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The syllabus

Policies, schedule, and grading

Read the full course syllabusPolicies, the week-by-week schedule, grading, and the bring-your-own-AI rules, with fill-in slots for the adopting instructor.→

Weighted gradebook

Assignment groups & weights

Configured in the export — the gradebook is set the moment the course is imported.

Assignment group	Weight	Notes
Tutorials & Practice	10%
Quizzes	10%
Workshops	20%
Assignments	25%
Discussions	15%
Exams	20%
Total	100%	Letter Standard

Objectives & outcomes

What students will be able to do

Objective 1

Explain what makes psychology a science and compare its major theoretical perspectives (biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, sociocultural).

Objective 2

Evaluate psychological research methods and ethics, distinguishing correlation from causation, random sampling from random assignment, and identifying sources of bias.

Objective 3

Describe the biological bases of behavior: neurons and neural transmission, the major neurotransmitters, and the structures and functions of the nervous system and brain.

Objective 4

Explain how humans sense and perceive the world and how sleep, dreaming, and psychoactive drugs shape states of consciousness.

Objective 5

Compare the major models of learning and memory and apply them to everyday behavior, including why memory is reconstructive.

Objective 6

Analyze higher mental processes (cognition, judgment and its biases, language, and intelligence) and the forces of motivation and emotion.

Objective 7

Describe cognitive, social, and emotional development across the lifespan and compare the major families of personality theory and their assessment.

Objective 8

Apply psychological science to social behavior, stress and health, and the classification and evidence-based treatment of psychological disorders, using accurate and non-stigmatizing language.

SLO A

Apply psychological concepts and theories to interpret real-world behavior and experience.

SLO B

Reason scientifically about claims regarding mind and behavior, evaluating evidence and sources critically.

How this course is built — read this first

Every teaching module carries the same set, in the order a student meets it: a Start Here overview, the chapter (the primary reading), the lecture (titled “Lecture: <module title>”), the slide deck with speaker notes, readings & resources (links only), the lecture tutorial and practice exercises worked with an AI tutor, the quiz, the discussion and the assignment, and the weekly Analysis Workshop. Exams: the midterm in Week 8 and the final in Week 16, a finals week with no module.

The discussion and the assignment each ship in both formats: the adaptive version is the published, graded item, and its traditional alternative (no AI) is a separate item that ships unpublished beside it. An instructor who prefers the traditional format publishes it and unpublishes or deletes the adaptive one.

What you see here is every student page. The instructor pack (answer keys and worked solutions, rubric calibration, image prompts, audio-brief scripts, and the alignment report) ships only in the download, never on this site.

Adaptive and traditional

Discussions & assignments: both formats in every module

Same learning objective either way; what changes is how the work happens.

Adaptive · published

Work it through with an approved chatbot

The student does the work in a guided conversation with an approved chatbot, using a copy-paste prompt the course provides. For a discussion, the AI is a Socratic partner that challenges their thinking and never writes the post. For an assignment, the AI is a coach: it asks questions, checks the reasoning shown, and waits for the student to revise. The student submits the chat link with the required summary or report.

Traditional alternative (no AI) · unpublished

The familiar way, one click away

The student does the work themselves and submits it, and the instructor grades it against the rubric. No AI required. It ships unpublished, opening with a one-line note to the instructor; publish it instead of the adaptive version if you prefer.

All 16 weeks

Every week, every component

Each week is a heading; every component under it links to the full student page. Week 8 is a teaching module that also carries the midterm bundle; Week 16 is the finals week, with the final exam bundle and no module.

Week 1

The Science of Psychology

what psychology is: the scientific study of behavior (observed) and mental processes (inferred)the field's history: Wundt's 1879 laboratory and introspection; structuralism vs. functionalism; psychoanalysis; behaviorism; the humanistic, cognitive, and biological erasthe six perspectives (biological, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, sociocultural) and the biopsychosocial levels of analysiswhy psychology is a science: empiricism over common sense, hindsight bias, theory vs. hypothesis

Week 2

Research Methods & Ethics

the scientific method as a loop: theory, hypothesis, operational definition, data, replicationthe three designs and what each can claim: descriptive (case study, naturalistic observation, survey), correlational, experimental (IV/DV, control group, random assignment)correlation is not causation: reading r, the third-variable problem, the directionality problem; random sampling vs. random assignment; reliability vs. validityresearch ethics: informed consent, right to withdraw, protection from harm, justified deception and debriefing, confidentiality, IRB review

Week 3

Biological Bases of Behavior

the neuron and the neural impulse: dendrites, soma, axon, myelin, terminal buttons; resting potential, threshold, the all-or-none action potentialthe synapse: neurotransmitters cross the gap, reuptake clears it; the major neurotransmitters with 'associated with' languagethe nervous system: central vs. peripheral, somatic vs. autonomic, sympathetic vs. parasympatheticthe brain: medulla, cerebellum, amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, thalamus, the four lobes; neuroplasticity; the 10-percent myth

Week 4

Sensation & Perception

sensation vs. perception; transduction; bottom-up vs. top-down processingpsychophysics: absolute threshold, difference threshold and Weber's law, sensory adaptationvision from light to retina; rods vs. cones; hearing to the hair cellsGestalt principles, depth cues, and why constancies and illusions show that perception is constructed

Week 5

Consciousness

consciousness as a continuum; the circadian rhythm, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, light and melatoninthe sleep stages (NREM-1, NREM-2, NREM-3, REM) through the 90-minute cycle; the functions of sleep, especially memory consolidation; how much sleep adults needdream theories: wish-fulfillment (manifest vs. latent), activation-synthesis, information processingpsychoactive drugs in three families (depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens); tolerance, dependence, withdrawal

Week 6

Learning

classical conditioning: UCS, UCR, CS, CR; acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discriminationoperant conditioning: reinforcement and punishment, positive and negative as add and remove; shapingschedules of reinforcement (fixed and variable, ratio and interval) and why variable-ratio persistsobservational learning: the Bobo doll study and vicarious reinforcement; classical vs. operant conditioning

Week 7

Memory

encoding, storage, retrieval; the three-stage model: sensory, short-term (about 7 plus or minus 2 items for 15 to 30 seconds), long-term; working memorywhat improves encoding: deep processing, elaborative rehearsal, chunking, the spacing effectmemory types: episodic and semantic (explicit) vs. procedural (implicit); forgetting: the forgetting curve, proactive vs. retroactive interferencereconstructive memory and the misinformation effect; why confidence is not accuracy; the brain-and-memory callback

Week 8 Midterm

Midterm Review & Exam

cumulative review of Weeks 1 to 7: the science, its methods, the brain, sensing and awareness, learning and memorythe 'how do we know?' checklist (design, claim, third variable) applied to two studies already met (light new material that bridges to the second half)the midterm exam

The midterm exam bundle

Week 9

Cognition, Language & Intelligence

concepts and prototypes; algorithms vs. heuristicsjudgment biases (availability, representativeness, confirmation bias, framing, overconfidence) and obstacles to problem solving (fixation, mental set, functional fixedness)language: phonemes, morphemes, grammar; the developmental order from babbling to telegraphic speechintelligence: g, multiple intelligences, the triarchic theory; how IQ is measured (standardization, the mean-100 scale, reliability, validity) and why a score is not a person's worth

Week 10

Motivation & Emotion

theories of motivation: instinct, drive reduction, arousal (the Yerkes-Dodson curve), incentive; Maslow's hierarchy as a descriptive modelhunger: the hypothalamus, leptin and ghrelin, and the psychological and cultural pulls on eatingthe three components of an emotion; the amygdala and fearthe three theories of emotion (James-Lange, Cannon-Bard, Schachter-Singer two-factor) contrasted on one event

Week 11

Development Across the Lifespan

the three big questions: nature and nurture, continuity vs. stages, stability vs. changePiaget's four stages with their hallmarks and age ranges; Vygotsky's zone of proximal development and scaffoldingattachment: Harlow's contact comfort and Ainsworth's Strange Situation; Erikson's psychosocial stages on the lifespanadolescence and aging: identity, fluid vs. crystallized intelligence, development as lifelong

Week 12

Personality

personality as a characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and what makes a description of it scientificthe four major families: psychodynamic (id, ego, superego, defense mechanisms), humanistic (self-concept, unconditional positive regard), trait (the Big Five), social-cognitive (reciprocal determinism, self-efficacy)reading one person through the Big Five as five continuous dials, not a typeassessment: self-report inventories (the MMPI) vs. projective tests, and which the evidence supports

Week 13

Social Psychology

attribution: dispositional vs. situational; the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving biasattitudes and behavior: cognitive dissonance, the foot-in-the-door phenomenon, central vs. peripheral routes to persuasionconformity and obedience: Asch's line studies (normative vs. informational influence) and Milgram's obedience studies, including how the situation moved the numbersgroup effects (social facilitation, social loafing, groupthink, group polarization, deindividuation), the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility, prejudice and helping

Week 14

Stress, Health & Coping

stress as a response to a perceived challenge; kinds of stressors; eustress vs. distressthe general adaptation syndrome (alarm, resistance, exhaustion); fight-or-flight and cortisol; tend-and-befriendLazarus's primary and secondary appraisal; the mind-body link (immunity, heart disease)problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping; evidence-based stress management (social support, exercise, sleep, relaxation, mindfulness)

Week 15

Psychological Disorders & Treatment

defining abnormality: distress, dysfunction, deviance; the biopsychosocial model and why context mattersthe DSM-5-TR as a classification system, not a label of a person; a survey of the major categories (anxiety, OCD, depressive and bipolar, PTSD, the schizophrenia spectrum), accurately and without stigmathe diathesis-stress model: disorders as health conditions, not weaknessthe major therapies (psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioral and exposure, cognitive-behavioral, biomedical) matched to their ideas and the evidence; stigma and what helps people get care; where the course has taken you

Week 16 · finals week Final

Finals week

No module this week: the final exam bundle