Section
Attend Lab/Discussion Sections
An important goal of this course is to develop your ability to think collaboratively with other people. You will accomplish this by actively engaging with other members of our class community in your lab/discussion sections through listening, speaking, and writing, with the goal of helping all section members gain a deeper understanding of course concepts and how to apply them to understand and solve problems.
Please see Missed Work to learn what to do if you cannot make your section in a given week.
Learn about each of the following below:
Can I switch my section?
Once you are enrolled in a section, you may be able to switch, but you need to do so with caution so that you don’t accidentally get dropped from the class! At the start of each semester, our class is often completely full with waitlists for every section. Sometimes, a spot appears to be “open” in another section simply because a student on the waitlist hasn’t been moved into the class yet. Sometimes, eager students drop their current section hoping to enroll in what they think is an open space, but that is actually reserved for a waitlisted student. And then the student can’t get back into the class.
If you want to move to a different section, you can add yourself to the waitlist for another—but you won’t be enrolled in that section unless you have dropped the other section first, and this is a little risky. If you want to take this route, we recommend you add yourself to the other waitlist and monitor carefully. If the only reason you want to move sections is for convenience, we strongly encourage you to stay put and save yourself time and energy. Students will be moving in off the waitlist through the end of the first week of class. After the first week, waitlists are purged and enrollment codes are required for registration in any section—we prioritize these to students who were previously waitlisted.
We encourage you to reach out to us at psy101@duke.edu if you need to switch sections. Sometimes we can help, but usually not until the second week of class.
When is section & who teaches it?
Lab Sections meet once a week for 50 minutes. Click HERE for the section schedule and Teaching Fellow for each section.
Do I have to attend section?
Attendance and engagement in section each week is an important part of your learning experience. Thus, it is required and will be factored into your course grade.
How is section engagement evaluated?
Sections count for 10% of your course grade. In addition to attendance, your TF will also consider your engagement during section when assessing your section grade and the extent to which you are a collaborative thinker. Specifically, your TF will consider:
preparation for section (e.g. reading assigned material),
whether you are actively supporting your learning and the learning of others (e.g. listening carefully, responding to a prompt, building from other students’ contributions, contributing positively to small group tasks),
and other thoughtful forms of engagement with the course (e.g. visiting your TF regularly during the semester).