Week 6 Blog Prompts

These prompts are for 9/29-10/6.

Option 1:

Recently, several states have legalized recreational use of marijuana. This has lead to both celebration and condemnation depending on who you ask. Medicinal use of marijuana is still controversial as well. In your blog post, take a position on both medical and recreational use of marijuana. Should they be legal or not? Find a source to support your arguments and a source that summarizes the opposite position and discuss both in your post. Make sure to critique how trustworthy each of the sources are.

Option 2:

In this TED talk, Russell Foster outlines 3 prominent theories about why we sleep. Watch the talk and argue for the theory you find the most convincing. Include a link to another source that provides more information about the theory you choose, summarize the information from that source, and critique how trustworthy you find the source.

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Week 5 Blog Prompts

For your blog prompt this week (9/23-9/30), you are to choose one of the following TED talks:

Each talk focuses on a different aspect of the brain. In your response, address the following issues:

  • What drew you to choose the talk you did?
  • Briefly summarize the talk.
  • What did you find most interesting about the talk?
  • How trustworthy did you find the presenter and the information she or he presented? Explain why.(Note: you must go beyond talking about the reputation of TED talks in general)
  • Come up with a research idea of your own based on the information presented in the talk and briefly outline how you would conduct it.
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Week 4 Blog Prompts

Here are the options for this week’s blog prompt:

  1. Assess the reliability of parenting advice on the internet. You will find a website or news story offering parenting advice (include a link to the site in your post) and critique the advice it gives based on the information in Chapter 3 and lecture this week. You may not be able to judge the truth of all pieces of advice, so be sure to point out what looks like good advice, what looks like bad advice, and what is undetermined. Make sure to tie your assessments back to information in the book or lecture.
  2. In 2012, a high school commencement speech went viral because the speaker (David McCollough, Jr.) told the students “You’re not special.” Watch his speech here. React to what you heard. It was not long ago you were at your own graduation ceremony. What would it have been like for you to hear this message? Given what you’ve read about teenagers’ cognitive, emotional, physical, and moral development in Chapter 3, how effective a message is this for teenagers?
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Week 3 Blog Prompts

Here are the options for this week’s blog post:

Option 1

For this week’s discussion, I want you to design a research study about a topic you find interesting in psychology. You can choose any topic you would like as long as you relate it to something from our textbook. In your post make sure to do the following:

  • List your research question
  • State your hypothesis (what you think the outcome would be and why)
  • Decide which methodology you would use (i.e., survey, observation, etc.) and explain your choice
  • Describe your procedure (what you would have participants do, how you would recruit participants)

Make your research idea something feasible that you could actually do as a student researcher. In other words, assume you have a fairly small budget and a limited amount of time. If you’re a psychology major or minor, you will eventually take Research Methods and have to conduct a research project, so this is great practice to start thinking about what you might want to do.

For your comment on a classmate’s post, I want you to make a suggestion about a way to improve the study he or she described. I also want you to say why the suggestion would be useful.

Option 2

Mythbusters is a popular TV show on the Discovery Channel which tests popular ideas using scientific methods. The show generally does a pretty good job, but now that you’ve read the chapter and discussed the scientific method, you are in a good position to critique the show. Select one of the minimyths (short clips from the show) below and critique the methods used to test the myth. Remember, critique means list the strengths and the weaknesses. For each weakness, discuss why it is a problem and suggest a solution.

Is Yawning Contagious?
Is Talking on a Phone While Driving as Dangerous as Driving Drunk?
Do Beer Goggles Really Exist?
Is it Dangerous to Drive in Heels?
Are Women Better Than Men at Reading Emotions?

 

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Week 2 Blog Prompts

There are two options for this week’s blog prompt:

  1. The major schools of psychological theory were introduced in class this week. Typically students feel drawn to some theories more than others. Based on what you’ve learned so far (as well as any other knowledge of these theories), select the theory you think is best. In your post, make a case for why this theory is superior to the others. I also want you to select the theory you think is worse than the others and explain why. For this assignment, you must choose only 1 theory to be best and worst. As we will discuss in class, each theory has limitations and strengths, so it is up to you to try to balance these factors. The second part of this assignment is to find a resource which would help us all learn more about the theory you selected as the best. For example, you could find a scholarly journal which publishes research from that theory, a website with more information about the theory, etc. Put a link to the resource in your post, explain what the resource offers, and explain how trustworthy you think the resource is. For help on evaluating sources, see the guide on Abell Library’s page.
  2. Psychological theories are highly influenced by the lives of the people who come up with them. For your post, I want you to research the personal life of one of the major theorists we discussed in class and make connections between that person’s life and the theory he or she developed. Make sure to use trustworthy sources and include your references in your post.
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Introductory Blog Prompt

Here is the prompt for Week 2:

For the first blog entry, I want you to explain:

  • Why you chose to take this class
  • Which 3 topics from the syllabus look the most interesting to you (and why)
  • Which 3 topics from the syllabus look the least interesting to you (and why)
  • What one question you want to be able to answer by the time this class is over

I look forward to seeing what you think!

Note: For those of you not in the class, I have attached the syllabus so you can see what all the fuss is about  PSY101C_fa14_macfarlane

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