John Kounios

School: Drexel University
Department: Psychology
Location:Philadelphia, PA
Overall Rating
rated by 17 students
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 Pros: Only lectures
Cons: Exams are extremely difficult and curves still leave many people with D's and F's
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 Professor K knows a lot about the topic. He tries to present it in fun ways, but the subject matter isn't too fun to begin with, but he tries. During the lectures he will present simple versions of studies and asks us to participate. He has also played videos relevant to the topic.
He changed the textbook this term. I saw a lot of comments about the dry material, it's the topic not the professor. He even stated on the first day of class that the textbooks for this subject are usually terrible, but hopes this new one will serve the class better. It is dry, but at least this text is readable and relates back to what was presented in lecture.
He posts his lecture notes and lectures on learn. I read the new text for the first midterm, as well as studied his lecture notes after attending lectures. I received an 89 on the first midterm when grades ranged from 40-94, with seven students who opted to not to take the first midterm. I should have received a B of some sort, but received an A, since people did not do well. Most people believe psychology matters are easy and simple. You need to do the work. I'm not sure why other reviewers say he is incompetent. It's the students who don't do well, not him. He already has his degree and did the work.
There are three midterms and an optional final. If you miss a midterm you have to take the final. If you do poorly on an exam, you have the option to replace the bad grade with whatever you get on the final. If you take the final, with taking the three midterms, your lowest midterm grade will be replaced regardless of how you perform on the final. The final is going to be cumulative, so you need to seriously consider whether or not to take it. If you got an 87 on a midterm as your lowest score and then receive a 67 on the final, your grade will suffer. On the other hand, you could do better, say receive a 97 on the final, then your 97 will replace the 87. This all depends on how confident you are that you will do better on the final than you have on your lowest midterm.
He answers emails quickly and effectively, as I have emailed him about several issues and received a helpful response within 10-30 minutes.
We also have labs to do online, which will literally take 10-15 minutes of your time for each, but as long as you complete it that's an easy 10% for your grade.
Attendance isn't required and there are no projects.
Overall, I enjoy having him as a professor and believe he is an effective educator.
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 Pros: HE knows what he's talking about. He has great knowledge in psychology.
Cons: The problem with him is that all of his tests are based on the textbook. If you read the textbook you will pass,otherwise you will have a hard time.
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 Pros: This professor is one of the leading researchers in the Nation on this subject. You will learn, but be prepared to do a lot of reading.
Cons: He lectures are monotone snoozers.Bring some coffee.
Very personable and busy, but will talk to you to tell you what you need to do to get the grade you want.
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 Professor Kounios is very articulate and well-informed in the realm of cognitive psychology. He is approachable and patient.
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 A lot of exams. The final is optional, and will take the place of your lowest exam... but if you do worse on the final that will also replace the lowest exam for an even lower grade. Read the textbook...not all the material on the exams are in the PPTs.
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 His lectures are soooo boring and he just reads off the slides. Pretty much just read the textbook and you'll do fine as that is where the quiz questions come from. The class was pretty much a joke but I liked the format of 4 quizzes instead of papers and tests all the time.
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 This teacher is horrible at making class fun, and he takes forever to get back to you in e-mail, and get your grades back to you. He tries really really hard to make the WebCT page for the course look like crap. There are four quizzes and an optional final, but he doesn't put the grades up for the last quiz in time to even know if you should take the optional final or not. He does have good slides, but he doesn't post them up before class so don't expect to be able to print them out and take notes on them.
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 Dr. K is an alright professor. This course was required, and I'm pretty happy with it.
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 I loved Kounios. He was a very good teacher.
As stated before, he taught our class via PowerPoint slides. Lectures weren't exactly thrilling, but what can you expect? It's not the most thrilling of subjects, but he did do his best with it, and explained everything in a way that you could clearly understand it.
The text book was, for the most part, completely unreadable. I read all of the chapters for the first test, understood so little that I ended up confusing what I did understand, and bombed the first test miserably. From that point on, I only took notes on what he said in class. From that point on, I got nothing but A's in the class and ended up with a B+ in the course. Attendance is not required by him, but I'd recommend spending the time in class to understand what's on the test.
If there is something that you don't understand, take the time after class to ask him. Dr. K will sit with you until you DO understand the material. More then once he even missed his train to help me understand information he covered in class simply because my brain couldn't wrap around the information.
The only reason that I didn't give Dr. K a 10 is because of the proctor he assigned to our tests. She was very sweet, but didn't exactly know the material, or offer much insight in general. On one the last test, there was a question that I just didn't understand. There was a term in it that I simply never heard, and it wasn't from our notes or our text. Granted, it was due to my lack of knowledge and interest in football related subjects, but when I asked her for help, she had no idea what it meant either which wasn’t very helpful. She tried to call his cell phone but he wasn’t available, so her advice was to guess, which totally drove me insane. It was the last question on the test, I was finished except for that one question, and I was standing there debating with myself whether I should guess or not when 2 other people came up and asked the same question. We were explaining that we thought it was an unfair question and that she should get him to drop it from the test as she was unable to even explain it. Eventually, I just yelled out into the classroom for someone to explain what the word meant. Out of the 10 people remaining in the classroom only one knew what the term was referencing and he told us what it meant allowing all of us to answer the question. Granted, it was not his fault: the term, I have since learned, is common knowledge among a great deal of people with an exception of the 9 of us that were completely stuck on it, but that one instance was something that angered me because he should have at least told his proctor what the term meant just in case. It sounds kind of dumb now, but at the time it was very important to me.
Anyway, with an exception of that one instance, I love Kounios and would take him again in a heart beat.
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 The course was easy, just read the book carefully and take notes and you'll pass his quizzes with flying colors. No papers, not even a required final. No attendance taken and HUGE curves on the ::cough:: pathetic ::cough:: quizzes. If anything I was sort of upset because the curve was so ridiculous that I earned a legit A and several people had below a 50 (he posts grades by student ID on webct) and still passed. Lectures are all powerpoints straight from the textbook with that you can download off webct.
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 professor Kounios is a cooL guy, the only thing is he cant teach. he knows his material but cant present it properly. he has ppt slides and reads from those. lectures are boring and tests are mediocre. you better do really good on ur tests because the final has nothing to do with anything no lie. its 50 questions based on nothing.
only thing i liked in class was the evil monkey.
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 He gave out four tests during the quarter- each worth 25% of your grade. Honestly, if you read the chapters and did the PRACTICE QUIZ through the text book website, then you have probably 95% of the info covered on the tests. He's not the most exciting teacher, but he knows his stuff very very well.
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 Very boring. He does not know how to teach material at all. There basically is no point in going to class because the slides he reads from are all online. Understanding the concepts and everything is basically an independent adventure. His class is all about the tests and he just tells you the chapters, but it could be anything, so I wouldn't recommend taking him all.
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 I hate him. Overall, his grading policy is okay, and he doesn't try to bore us out of our minds, but his test are absolutely HORRIBLE. If you do not do good on tests, don't take this guy. It is not worth it.
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 This guy might know a lot, but he sure doesn't know how to teach it to you. We all have to take this class, so the tests should be fair. However, he just gives you a lot of material with no guidance on what the test will cover.
He needs to forge home
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 Very nice guy.

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