Hi everybody

My name is Rebecca Smart. I have been teaching at CUNY on and off since starting as a graduate student at the Grad Center in 1994 (I taught at Hunter College). I am currently an adjunct at BMCC and Baruch teaching psychology. At BMCC, I mostly teach Introduction to Psychology, but have also taught almost every psychology class you can name. My favorites are Intro, Development and the course I am currently teaching at Baruch: Drugs, Brain and Society.

This course covers both paharmacology (what drugs are and how they work in the brain and on the body), as well as the social issues associated with addiction and the war on drugs, and also the cultural impact of drugs.

The learning goals for this class, as listed in my syllabus are:

• To demonstrate how drugs interact with the nervous system to produce their effects, the different classes/types of drugs and the specific drugs in each class.
• To criticallyevaluate the methodology of past and current studies on drug action as well as drug dependence, with respect to the strengths and weaknesses of the studies. Specifically, we will evaluate empirical papers in the area of drug use/dependence research, and distinguish among different research designs typically employed in the area of study. Additionally, we will interpret and synthesize findings from primary research in discussion of current studies.
• To analyze the impact of individual characteristics, developmental environment and societal attitude towards drug use/ dependence.
• To apply this understanding to critically evaluate the changing influence of attitude towards drug use/dependence on treatment of the user, at an individual and societal level in written and oral form.

I am interested in developing more interactive assignments/discussions for this class. Despite my best efforts to change how I present the material (using videos, memes, class activities etc), I still have only a few (and the same) students actually talking in class throughout the semester.