Johnson is the man! He goes through these teaching zones where his face starts to get really serious, he starts walking around a little bit making these hand gestures as he talks, and everything just sounds so crystal-clear and unambiguous. Love that he brings his own kids into the teachings, a little bit of personal embellishment never hurts. Funny, genuine, and effective, he's one of the best professors here, and my strongest recommendation for the 130 class.

I had psych 130 in fall 2008, I took the course as an elective course. it is not that hard. he gives 3 point extra credit that will help your grade so much. but the course was not well prepared. he is funny and kind man and he does his best to make his lecture not boring.
read the lecture notes and the book and you should be fine in his class.
recommended as an elective course

I'm probably going to get a lot of "this comment was NOT helpful" but the truth be told, Prof. Johnson's not that great of a professor. Don't get me wrong, he's a great guy and tries to help those that need his help but his incompetence really shows. You would usually get a lot of "I don't know" or "that's a really good question, but..." from him when you ask him something related to his lectures. He also promised people that as long as you've read the reading, you should do well on the tests. That's not usually the case. At least not for the majority of the class. Even though I got an A, I still stand by what I've written.
Please don't let my comments discourage you from taking him because he truly is a great person and I even feel guilty writing this evaluation. But don't be surprised if what I wrote was displayed in real life when you take his class. The good thing is, out of the 4 tests you take (how many classes do you have that has 3 midterms and 1 final?!), he'll drop your lowest score. There's a paper and a presentation about your paper. Those are not terribly hard. 93% is an A, and 90% is an A-. 3 extra *percentage* points are added to your final grade in the end if you do 3 hours worth of experiments.

100 points possible, 93 is an A, 3 possible EC points so really you could get a 90 without those points.

Professor gives you questions on the articles assigned to each class, your group discusses it, answers, and gets a grade out of 5, most groups get 5s. Each group grades its members (out of 10 points), so it could help you all agree to help each other out instead of being so harsh. You also get a point for those reviews. The average of these reviews (of 10), + the group grade, + the 1 point = your score for the day (out of 16). 15 days of class X 16 points = 240 possible points. Divide by 4 = your 60% of grade, the other 40% is off 2 papers (20% each).

So as you can see, group work is crucial to do well in the class. If you're good at that, and suck at writing papers like me, you can still get an A rather easily. Be nice to people, and you will get an A as long as you follow the directions for the paper.

Professor Johnson is awesome too! Believe me, the class is an awesome choice. Look at the grade distribution (for 130), obviously you can't go wrong.

Johnson was a great professor. He was engaging and made the class fun. All you have to do is read two articles before every class and you get into groups and answer questions regarding one of the articles. You're then reviewed by your members of your group and graded for your collective group response to the question. There's also a research proposal you have to do and those things basically make up your entire grade. There are no exams. It's a pretty easy course and the professor is great. Definitely recommend taking it.

Like others have mentioned, there are no tests, and you read two articles for each lecture and answer questions about them in class with your group members. Instead of the two short papers other people have written about, he had us write an NIH proposal about a scientific topic of our choice.

How the class works:
-Groups have about 8 people in them and change every 2-4 weeks. Each class you cross your fingers and hope your group gets an easy question. Easy ones are something like: define x. Tricky ones vary, but the most common example was: design a study to show x.
-Almost everyone used a google doc to write a one page response, which you turned in online during class. Your group would then get together with another group who had the same question, and you would compare answers and write a new posting based on the two responses.
-You give each of your classmates a rating out of ten before the end of the day to earn attendance. Usually everyone just gets a ten as long as they manage to show up, but sometimes people do give you a lower rating if you don't bother to help out at all.
-The NIH proposal was worth a lot of points. There was no length requirement , but it was a little tricky and it took a lot of time to write. Just look up NIH proposals online and imagine you're writing a mini version of that (don't let it freak you out though!). It was due the week before finals.

In summary, don't take this class if you:
-won't show up (you'll probably fail)
-hate group work (some people were really unlucky...)
-hate reading research articles (you'll have to read a whole bunch)
-plan on not writing your paper
-have not taken 100A or 100B (I mean, you could, but I really don't think you should)

Final note:
Professor Johnson is awesome, and he really cares about every single one of his students. He's funny and approachable, and he really took the time to answer everyone's questions about the course, as well as about the field in general. I'm pretty sure this will be one of the most memorable classes you'll ever take at UCLA.

Best.Professor.Ever.

Take this class. I would stop the review there but professor Johnson honestly deserves a good review. He doesn't give tests cause he had students cheat on them in the past and just decided to make it more about the material. You learn pretty easily in this class cause it's super super low stress. You just have to read before each class and you'll easily be able to answer the question for that day with you group. Just be clear in your response and you'll get a good enough grade. The only other grade in the class is a draft proposal to the NIH for a research topic of your choice. It's not the same thing as the paper you have to write for 100B so don't think it is. It's a different format, but the thought is similar that you have to come up with a novel idea (about anything in the field of science/health/psychology) and research it thoroughly. Write as much as you can and include graphs and pictures and you'll get a 100%. Got an A+ in the class (didn't know they gave out A+s). Anyways, he's funny and awesome so just take it. okay? okay.

This class was really easy, if you are prepared for every class you will get an A. The only project is one paper at the end of the quarter which is not too difficult.

The grading scheme for this class is essentially: 1 point for submitting a peer review (attendance), 3 points for your groups' written work, and 2 points for what your group mates rate you (they rate you out of 10, then you get an average of all their ratings of you, then times that by .2). So 6 points a day, and he allows you to miss 2-3 days worth. On top of this, you can participate for up to 3 extra credit points, and write a 10 point paper. This is what makes the class "easy".

However, by no means is this class a walk in the park. Remember your group mates will rate you. Some people always give 10s, but some people will not. Sometimes your group members don't notice how much you participated, and sometimes I've had a person or two rate me lower cause I was late to class or (constructively) criticized their edits of the group assignment. The readings you'll do every week are mentally taxing if you aren't familiar with cognitive science imo.

I'm still in this class, and do enjoy it. I find the TA to grade a bit harshly on the 3 point assignment. It's a lot more relaxing in comparison to having to study/cram for an exam, but honestly sometimes I have a hard time understanding the terms used in his articles. Sometimes the questions he gives each group are a little out our scope of understanding. Be wary of this, but 100% take this class if it's offered. If you just show up everyday, read the articles, and "do the work" then you'll end up with a good grade.