James W. Newton

The only reason I give a low overall grade is because this professor is far from engaging. He tries to be funny, which is a cool attempt. But it could be a lot more engaging.

The exams are long, but decrease the point value for each question which helps. His exams are cummulative, and cover A LOT of material.

He claims to offer 6 extra credit options, but this semester he only offered 5 which some had strict eligibilty guidelines; therefore, many students were not eligible to participate.

He's a good guy, knows his stuff, and he does use PowerPoint presentations (just highlights from the book) and movies to accompany the boring material.

Boring, sorry but yeah, boring. I almost fell asleep the first day. I don't think anyone could handle more than an 50 mins. The movies were good. The ethics are good but overall the class is boring and it's an intersting subject.

I take the final tomorrow in Prof. Newton's Social Psych course. Overall, I've been pleased to be enrolled in his class. There are several films that are shown throughout the course which are relevant to the topic being learned on that particular day, and help greatly in understanding the material. Lectures are routine, though somewhat dry. (If anything, he is one of the few professor's I've had that can be heard in a large class without the use of a mic.) Just about everything that's covered in lecture is also covered in the book, but in a 50 min. class, is obviously condensed. He takes roll every class meeting, which doesn't serve you any good if you don't like showing up to class and don't have any friends to intial your name on the roll sheet. If you enjoy lively discussions amongst your fellow students, this isn't the class to be in. Prof. Newton isn't very engaging of the class in discussions or even for asking questions--I've noticed several times that he will purposely avoid giving attention to someone who has their hand raised, just so he can get through the material at hand--which to some extent, is understandable in such a short class session, but I also believe that he should rearrange his lecture material to allow time to (at the least) answer questions, if not allow for some discussion of the topics.