First blog post

My name is Kenneth Hardy and I am a sophomore. I chose to take this class because I need a social science and psychology as I am pre med. I have very little background in psychology other than reading the book Games People Play, and listening to my sister talk about her DSMs. When I hear the word psychology I think about my sister because she really seems to have a passion for it. Sleep, memory, and moral development seem the most interesting to me because I have always been interested in memories and dreams, and I am a philosophy minor. While being a philosophy minor doesn’t make moral development intrinsically interesting to me, I think ill find it interesting in that context. I am reluctant to name three that I find least interesting as the rest all seem quite interesting to me, but to a slightly lesser degree compared to those mentioned explicitly above. I don’t necessarily have a specific question I would like to have answered either, however I would like to more fully understand the subject my sister is so passionate about. Also knowing more about human behavior and the way the human brain works is just useful information.


Spring Semester 2017: A New Semester, A New Approach to Blogging

Hello readers,

I hope you have all been well since we last left you at the end of spring semester 2016. Spring semester 2017 starts tomorrow morning, and a new batch of student bloggers will be joining us for the next 14 weeks, as they explore the exciting world of psychology. I hope you will welcome them and engage with their writing.

I’m trying something a little different than I have in the past this time around. In previous iterations of this course blog, students wrote posts after we’ve covered new material in hopes it would help them solidify material from the lesson and add depth to what we covered in class. While it seemed to serve that purpose, I want to try something new this semester. This time, students will write posts before we cover new material in order to organize their original impressions and identify assumptions they are bringing to the material. Students will then comment on each others’ posts later in the week (once we’ve learned the psychological theories or principles involved) to help each other improve their understanding and highlight growth over time. In my mind, this better mimics the scientific method and simulates the experience of starting to become a psychologist. I’ll say more about this later, but I wanted to give you all a warning that things will look different this year. Now I’m off to bed so I’ll be fresh when I meet my new class at 9am tomorrow.