Psychology 3315E-001
Addictions: Theory and Research
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
1.0 CALENDAR DESCRIPTION
This course introduces students to major topics in the prevention and treatment of various forms of addictive behaviour. The course also involves a structured community service learning component in which students will help addictions-related organizations meet their identified needs. This work will not necessarily involve direct client contact.
Prerequisites: Psychology 2820E or both Psychology 2800E and 2810. Registration is by special permission only and must be obtained from the course instructor in the spring/summer before the course begins in the fall term
Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enrol in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
2 seminar hours, 3 placement hours, 1.0 course (This course has a service learning component)2.0 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Dr. Riley Hinson
Office and Phone Number: 7308 SSC, 519-661-2111 ext 84649
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: hinson@uwo.ca
Time and Location of Classes: Tuesdays, 2:30-4:30 STVH 3166
If you or someone you know is experiencing distress, there are several resources here at Western to assist you. Please visit: http://www.uwo.ca/uwocom/mentalhealth/ for more information on these resources and on mental health.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you. You may also wish to contact Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) at 519-661-2111 ext 82147 for any specific question regarding an accommodation.
3.0 TEXTBOOK
NO REQUIRED TEXTBOOK
4.0 COURSE OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the course is to provide students exposure to both the scholarly literature and research related to many aspects of addiction. From the placement, students are expected to gain experience as to how some of the ideas and concepts discussed in lecture unfold in settings providing addiction related services.4.1 STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the course the successful student should be able to:
- Memorize, describe and apply main concepts and principles related to drug use and addiction
- Locate and critically evaluate scholarly material related to real world challenges faced by those with drug use problems and those providing help to such individuals
- Communicate scientific information in oral and written forms that are accessible to those involved real world delivery of addiction services and treatment
- Critique information presented in scientific and popular media related to drug use and drug addiction
- Manage and deliver a project that is of value to a community organization involved in providing services to those with drug addiction, which would involve conceptualization, planning, coordination of efforts, time management
- Engage in reflection about drug users and those who are engaged in helping them to experience personal growth and to be able to more accurately inform others about drug addiction
- Recognize and develop own sense of commitment to civic engagement and social responsibility
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Learning Outcome
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Learning Activities |
How Assessed |
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Knowledge and Understanding |
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1. Depth & Breadth of Knowledge Memorize (M), describe (D) and apply (A) main concepts and principles related to drug use and addiction |
Reading Class discussion Guest lectures Community project |
Oral Presentations of current news Contribution to Class Discussion (DA) Final Report (DA) Final Presentation (DA) |
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Abilities |
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2. Knowledge and Application of Methodologies Locate and critically evaluate scholarly material related to real world challenges faced by those with drug use problems and those providing help to such individuals |
Community project Classroom activity |
Oral/written reports Final Report Contribution to class activity Final class oral presentation |
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3. Communication Skills Communicate scientific information in oral and written forms that are accessible to those involved in real world settings. |
Community project Classroom activity |
As assessed by setting supervisor Contribution to class activity Final Report Final class oral presentation |
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4. Autonomy and Professional Capacity Manage and deliver a project that is of value to a community organization |
Community project |
As assessed by setting supervisor (in consultation with course instructor) |
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Attributes |
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5. Awareness of Limits of Knowledge Engage in reflection about what you have experienced in the community settings |
Community project CEL logs Class presentation on reflection Class discussion |
Instructor evaluation of CEL logs Contribution to class discussions Final report and presentation As assessed by setting supervisor, in consultation with instructor. |
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6. Autonomy and Professional Capacity Recognize and develop own sense of commitment to civic engagement and social responsibility. |
Community project Field trips
Class discussions |
Instructor evaluation of CEL logs. Final report and presentation Post course reflection session
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5.0 EVALUATION
Your grade will be based on the following:
15 points
Plan and discussion of project occurring during week of Oct.22. Each group will meet with me to discuss their project. Expectations are that a detailed outline/plan of what they are doing and how they plan to accomplish the finished project will be discussed. Where appropriate a preliminary annotated bibliography is expected. A brief overview in either written or power point form is also required. Note that this will be a group-based graded component, so each group will have to decide how the responsibilities will be assigned. Meetings with each placement group will be scheduled during the week. These meetings will take the place of the lecture for that week. There will be no class that week.
25 points
In-class presentation/discussion of news article related to drugs/drug use/treatment, etc. Each student will make one at some time in the term (some may occur during the latter part of first term, but most will occur at the beginning of the second term). Part of the points for this component will be based on class participation by students not making the presentation during a particular week.
Here is how this works: Each student will find a newspaper article/magazine article/website that presents information relevant to addictions (broadly conceived). A few examples of what students found last year were an article on the decriminalization of all drugs in Portugal, an article on a smart nicotine patch, and an article on a drug prevention program in Iceland. You will send me the URL/link. I will determine if it is appropriate and if so I will post it on OWL. This becomes a target article---you will use it to make a power point presentation that should allow for a total of about 40 minutes of presentation and discussion during class. The article should be viewed as illuminating a “target point” for discussion, in other words the power point presentation will not involve just a presentation of what is in the article (there will, of course, be some of that but we will be able to read the article since it is posted on OWL), rather you will use it to talk about a larger point. For example, the article on decriminalization of drugs in Portugal lead into a discussion of does it really work, what does “it works” mean, could it work in Canada or other countries, what message is sent by decriminalizing drugs, etc. The presenter, submitter, and other students will all then need to be prepared to discuss these during the class. For each student presentation, students will be evaluated as follows:
- The presenter will be evaluated on the quality of the oral presentation, the quality of the power point presentation, and answering of questions and providing discussion. For each presentation, the student presenter will be evaluated on a 15 point scale.
- The remaining 10 of the 25 points will come from evaluation of the student when they are an audience member (i.e., not presenting) and providing comments that will be posted on OWL (a type of forum-like discussion). It works this way--- For each presentation, the non-presenting students will also have some responsibilities that will be graded---each non-presenting student will read the articles that will be presented that week as posted on OWL, and each will submit to me comments/ thoughts that each article raised for them. These will be appearing on OWL as they are submitted, and students cannot submit the same comment/thought, so you will have to read what has already submitted and think of something different.
- Submission and quality of question/comment/thought graded from 0-2: 0 if no question/comment/thought submitted or if it is not adequate (I will let you know this and you will be able to submit another one); 1 submitted a question/comment/thought and it was quite acceptable; 2 submitted a question/comment/thought and it clearly reflected a deep consideration of the major points that could be raised by the article
- Actual participation during the in-class presentation graded from 0-2: 0 no active participation; 1 student was engaged in questions/conversation/comments; 2 student asked particularly insightful questions or provided particularly insightful comments and elevated the level of discussion
- Each student will have N-1 (number of students -1) non-presenting graded components during each term, and for each of those components there will be the 2 aspects (question submitted, and participation during presentation). Currently there are 16 students in the class so let’s see how it works with that number. With 15 non-presenting graded components students can earn up to 120 total points---15 x 2 for questions and 15 x 2 for participation for each term. The final 10 out of 20 points will be based on how many of these 120 points a student gets. The maximum number of points earned by any one student will become the 100% standard (that person will get all 10 of the marks). Other students will earn marks based on what proportion of this 100% standard they earned. So if the max marks earned is 110 (that student would get 10 out 10 marks), and some other student earned 90, they would have 90/110=81.8% of the standard and get 8.2 out 10 marks.
50 points
The write up of the project. There is no specific format since it will vary by project, but it should use APA formatting (where appropriate) and should comprise a scholarly review component and a write up of the project. I will meet with each group during the second term to discuss the format of this written presentation—e.g., will it be like a review paper only, or a journal article, or some other format. Note that this will be a group-based graded component, so each group will have to decide how the responsibilities will be assigned. While no specific number of pages is required write-ups in the past have been between 25-40 pages (excluding references).
50 points
1 hour power point presentation of your project, with community partner in attendance. Evaluation will be based on quality of presentation and answering of questions that arise during the presentation. Note that this will be a group-based graded component, so each group will have to decide how the responsibilities will be assigned. It is possible that different students in a group could get a different grade, e.g., if one student did not seem to be very involved in the oral presentation or did not do as good as job on their component, so think about evenly dividing up the presentation.
40 points
Community partners will give you points to a maximum of 40 based on their evaluation of involvement in the organization, participation, handling of any responsibilities, and conduct of project
15 points
Attendance and participation in activities other than the In-the News presentations, both in the classroom and outside the classroom.
- This would be based on things like how many of the events/field trips did you attend and actively take part in, or if we have a guest speaker did you contribute to discussion.
- Completion of CEL logs (to be described by during first class)
5 points
- There will be a Community Service Learning in Psychology Showcase in in late March or early April. Each group will prepare a poster (the department covers the cost) and these were presented on poster boards in the UCC foyer. We (3315E, 3317E and potentially other CSL courses) will be involved. In addition to preparing the poster, students from each group should be present to answer questions. Note that this will be a group-based graded component, so each group will have to decide how the responsibilities will be assigned. It is possible that different students in a group could get a different grade, e.g., if one student did not seem to be very involved in the preparation of the poster or did not participate in the actual presentation in the UCC foyer. The date will be near the end of second term and will be determined later.
Your course grade will be the percentage of the total 200 points that you earn.
Although the Psychology Department does not require instructors to adjust their course grades to conform to specific targets, the expectation is that course marks will be distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level and 2000-level courses
72% 2190-2990 level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
The Psychology Department follows Western's grading guidelines, which are as follows (see http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf):
A+ 90-100 One could scarcely expect better from a student at this level
A 80-89 Superior work that is clearly above average
B 70-79 Good work, meeting all requirements, and eminently satisfactory
C 60-69 Competent work, meeting requirements
D 50-59 Fair work, minimally acceptable
F below 50 Fail
6.0 TEST AND EXAMINATION SCHEDULE
7.0 CLASS SCHEDULE
A 2 hour class meeting is scheduled for each week. The first few classes will involve a discussion of different classes of drugs, some of the important concepts related to drug use, some of the history of the conceptualization of drug addiction and treatment, and DSM V 's approach to drug use disorders. These classes will be more of a lecture format.
After the initial material has been presented, the classes will be more of a seminar format.
The topics will be chosen to be relevant to the projects that you will be doing with the community partners--topics may be harm reduction, gaming among adolescents, supportive housing, after care programs, co-dependency, drug treatment courts. Some topics may also arise as a result of our field trips or guest speakers.
Some of the classes may be replaced by special activities such as field trips, visits to drug treatment organizations, or guest lectures. Some of the field trips and visits to organizations may take place outside of scheduled class meeting times. It is hoped that all students will be able to attend these extra-class activities, and they will be used as part of the participation grade.
Here is a schedule of events. It is tentative. There are a number of activities that are being coordinated between our class and Psychology 3317E. Most of those will occur in October, so the schedule will change. Those coordinated activities will take place during the usual class time since, by design, 3315E and 3317E are scheduled 2:30-4:30 on Tuesday.
Sept. 11: Welcome to class and discussion of projects and class organization during first half of class
time. Brea Hickey will come during the second half to make on presentation on Community Service Learning.
Sept. 10-14: RECOVERY WEEK LONDON—SEE ANNOUNCEMENT ON OWL ABOUT EVENTS
Sept. 18: Community Partner Fair---all of the community partners will gather to meet with students. This is where you will have an opportunity to find out more about each community partner and the project we will be doing for them.
Sept. 25: SPECIAL CLASS: We will join with Dr. Leora’s Swartzman’s Community Psychology CSL course in 20F Westminster Hall (see campus map, a pleasant 15 min walk through the hospital parking lot, across the river), along with personal from the CSL office for a presentation/discussion of ethical and professional issues related to community engaged learning placements. There are special issues that arise when students are placed in settings that have a vulnerable client population, and these will be covered in this presentation.
Oct. 2: TBD
Oct. 9: THIS IS READING WEEK AND THERE WILL BE NO CLASS. HOPEFULLY THIS IS NOT THE WEEK WE NORMALLY GO TO THE OPEN AA MEETING---MORE ON THAT AS IT DEVELOPS
Oct. 16: What do you know, or think you know, about drugs? We will explore student’s knowledge about drugs, and present some information on the various drugs. And, prior to this class students will compete the DSM V learning modules about substance use disorders, comorbidity, and internet gaming. We will have a discussion of this during class.
Oct. 23: During this week I will meet individually with each community placement group to discuss their project—there will be a graded component to the meeting---see evaluation above. There may be no class during the scheduled Tuesday time slot but I reserve the right to schedule a guest speaker if this is the only date they can come. If we do not have a class the 2 hour class time can be used to schedule a couple of groups. Appointments will be scheduled from Monday to Thursday of this week.
Oct. 30: TBD
Nov. 6: One of the Fridays in November we will be visiting Westover Treatment. That trip will replace the class for that week. The exact date has not been settled.
Nov. 13: One week in either October or November we will be attending an Open AA meeting at night. That will replace the class scheduled for that week.
Nov. 20: One week in October or November we will have a class visit by the Director of Quintin-Warner House along with some residents at the treatment facility, and for another week we will have a visit by Bev Thompson who is recognized as one of the founders/initiators or drug treatment in Southwestern Ontario
Nov. 27: One week in October or November we will have a class visit by the Director of Quintin-Warner House along with some residents at the treatment facility, and for another week we will have a visit by Bev Thompson who is recognized as one of the founders/initiators or drug treatment in Southwestern Ontario
Dec. 4: TBD
HAVE A NICE DECEMBER BREAK
Jan. 8: 2 In-the-News presentation
Jan. 15: 2 In-the-News presentation
Jan. 22: 2 In-the-News presentation
Jan. 29: 2 In-the-News presentation
Feb. 5: 2 In-the-News presentation
Feb. 12: 2 In-the-News presentation
Feb. 19: NO CLASS
Feb. 26: 2 In-the-News presentation
March 5: 2 In-the-News presentation
March 12: TBD or potential start of Community Project presentations
March 19: Community Project presentations
March 26: Community Project presentations
The CEL in Psychology Showcase poster in the UCC Atrium will occur around these dates.
April 2: Community Project presentations
April 9: Community Project presentations
Any of the above is subject to substitution based on having guest speakers or opportunities to visit sites.
8.0 STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC OFFENCES
Students are responsible for understanding the nature and avoiding the occurrence of plagiarism and other scholastic offenses. Plagiarism and cheating are considered very serious offenses because they undermine the integrity of research and education. Actions constituting a scholastic offense are described at the following link: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf
As of Sept. 1, 2009, the Department of Psychology will take the following steps to detect scholastic offenses. All multiple-choice tests and exams will be checked for similarities in the pattern of responses using reliable software, and records will be made of student seating locations in all tests and exams. All written assignments will be submitted to TurnItIn, a service designed to detect and deter plagiarism by comparing written material to over 5 billion pages of content located on the Internet or in TurnItIn’s databases. All papers submitted for such checking will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between Western and Turnitin.com http://www.turnitin.com
Possible penalties for a scholastic offense include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
9.0 POLICY ON ACCOMMODATION FOR MEDICAL ILLNESS
Western’s policy on Accommodation for Medical Illness can be found at:
http://westerncalendar.uwo.ca/PolicyPages.cfm?Command=showCategory&PolicyCategoryID=1&SelectedCalendar=Live&ArchiveID=#Page_12
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain accommodation:
http://counselling.ssc.uwo.ca/procedures/medical_accommodation.html
10.0 OTHER INFORMATION
Office of the Registrar web site: http://registrar.uwo.ca
Student Development Services web site: http://www.sdc.uwo.ca
Please see the Psychology Undergraduate web site for information on the following:
http://psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/student_responsibilities/index.html
- Policy on Cheating and Academic Misconduct
- Procedures for Appealing Academic Evaluations
- Policy on Attendance
- Policy Regarding Makeup Exams and Extensions of Deadlines
- Policy for Assignments
- Short Absences
- Extended Absences
- Documentation
- Academic Concerns
- 2018 Calendar References
No electronic devices, including cell phones and smart watches, will be allowed during exams.
