Author Archives: Ian

Week 7 Blog Spotlight: Topic – Learning

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After taking a week off for spring break, we were back at it to learn about learning. We covered the three major learning theories (classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning) and the blog prompts for this week focused on several applied problems related to learning. Most students chose to take two different online tests that assess preferred learning styles and discuss their results. A few students decided to take a look at evidence for the claim that playing violent video games produces more violent children. Take a look at their posts via the links below and let them know what you think by leaving comments.

Links to posts about video game violence: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

Links to posts about learning styles: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6, Link 7, Link 8, Link 9, Link 10, Link 11, Link 12, Link 13, Link 14

Week 8 Blog Prompts

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 discuss how trustworthy you find the source.

Week 7 Blog Prompts

Option 1:

Not everyone learns the same way. Each of us do best under certain conditions, and these tendencies are called learning styles. Take these two online learning style assessments (Link 1, Link 2). Report your results, discuss how credible you find them (both in terms of how well the results fit your experience and how well the assessment is designed), and discuss how you can use your preferred learning style improve your study skills. Finally, how well does AC do at teaching to your preferred learning style?

Option 2:

Violence in the media has been controversial for decades, but over the last 20 years there has been increasing attention to the amount of violence in video games. The rise of first-person shooters and games with graphic displays of blood and gore has led to criticisms of the video game industry and claims that children are becoming more violent as a result. For this blog post, find a source on each side of the debate and summarize their arguments. Also critique how trustworthy you find each source and decide whether or not you think violent video games should be allowed or permanently banned.

Week 5 Blog Spotlight: Topic – Memory

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While there were two options in this week’s prompts, all six students chose the same one. I don’t blame them, as Elizabeth Loftus’s TED Talk is fantastic. She outlines her research on memory, specifically how fragile and easy to manipulate it is. Her work has identified how false memories were accidentally implanted in clients by therapists, the problems with eyewitness testimony in court, and even how to create false memories in people. In the talk, she even goes so far as to suggest we could possibly implant memories as a means to help people. Check out her talk then read through my students’ reactions and share your own via comments on their pages.

Week 6 Blog Prompts

This week’s blog prompts are from chapters we aren’t covering in lecture, so take advantage of this opportunity to delve deeper into psychology and explore sensation and perception.

Option 1:

Synesthesia is a condition in which people’s perceptions of one sense activates another (for example hearing colors or seeing sounds). Watch Daniel Tammet explain his experience of synesthesia in a TED Talk entitled “Different Ways of Knowing.” Share your reactions to this video and discuss how you think this condition would affect someone’s day-to-day life. You also need to find an internet source which provides more information on the condition. Make sure to critique the credibility of the internet source and provide a link to the source in your post.

Option 2:

Can we use magic to help people on the autism spectrum? This is actually a serious question. There is some evidence that people on the autism spectrum are less likely to be fooled by the slight of hand on which magicians rely. For this post, watch this video from the PBS show NOVA where neuroscientists work with magicians to understand how the way the brain processes visual information plays into magic. Then watch this brief clip also from NOVA about the potential for magic to give insight into or potential serve as treatment for autism and read this article from the LA Times about a new theory of autism as a “magical world” (the journal article upon which this story is about is available here). Share your reactions to these materials and discuss whether or not magic could be used to help those with autism.

Week 4 Blog Spotlight: Topic – Neuroscience

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 Week 4 of the semester had us focusing on the wonder that is the human brain. We started off discussing how we investigate the brain (specifically the types of brain imaging used), then moved on to neurons, brain structures, and lateralization. To connect with cutting edge brain research, I gave my students the option of 7 different TED talks which focused on the brain (because who doesn’t like TED Talks right?). Most chose the talk focused on serial killers, with a call for a new approach to mental illness coming in second. The links to the talks are below, and the full prompt for the week is available here. Please take a look at my students’ reactions and share your own thoughts and ideas via comments on their posts.

Week 5 Blog Prompts

Here are the blog prompts for this week:

Option 1:

Elizabeth Loftus is one of the preeminent researchers in false memories. Her research has shed light on the fallibility of eyewitness testimony, the over-reporting of satanic ritual abuse, and the ease of implanting false memories. Her TED talk outlines much of her research and illuminates the fragility of our memory. Watch the TED talk and discuss your reactions. Make sure to specifically address Loftus’s implication that we could manipulate memory for positive outcomes (like enjoying vegetables) by discussing potential pros and cons and stating whether or not you believe we should consider tampering with memory.

Option 2:

Now that we have discussed memory, evaluate your study habits. Describe how you studied for the first exam in this class and explain what you could do differently for the second exam to improve your preparation. Also explain why these differences would be better than what you did before. You also need to find a website that provides advice about studying and critique the recommendations based on what we discussed in class and what you read in your textbook.

Week 3 Blog Spotlight: Topic – Human Development

Microphone stands in spotlight by kjeik, on Flickr Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  kjeik 

This week in class we tackled the human development chapter. After discussing Ainsworth’s Strange Situtation Test, Baumrind’s parenting styles, Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, and the moral development debate between Kohlberg & Gilligan, I asked my students to choose between a blog post where they evaluated parenting advice they found online or react to a high school graduation speech from 2012 that went viral. The full prompts for this week are available here. Most students opted to discuss the graduation speech entitled “You are not special” which was delivered by David McCollough, Jr. This attention-grabbing title caught the attention of nine students this week, who shared how they would have reacted to this speech and connected it to some aspect of development. You can view their thoughts at the following links:

Three students opted to critique parenting advice. One put Dr. Phil’s recommendations to the test, another chose a Yahoo! article about how to select a quality nanny, and the third investigated Psychology Today’s 3 things you should never say to your child. For those of you who are parents, share your reactions to these students’ assessments via comments on their posts. My students and I look forward to seeing what you have to say!

Week 4 Blog Prompts

For your blog prompt this week, 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.

Week 2 Blogging Spotlight – Topic: Research Methods

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Creative Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License   by  kjeik 

Though this was the topic the highest number of my students reported being the least interested in, the posts this week did not seem to reflect a lack of interest. Perhaps it was the prompts for the week that got them excited. Perhaps they are just good at faking interest (which doesn’t bode well for me this semester…or does it?). In any case, here are some of the highlights.

Five students chose to take the first option of designing their own research study to answer a question of their choosing. Their topics covered a broad array of ideas from several areas of psychology: the effects of additional sleep vs. exercise on energy levels, how climate may influence perceptions of temperature change, how duration of television exposure affects eyesight, how exposure to laughter affects smiles, and whether or not a stage model is the best way to conceptualize moral development. Reading through these posts I’ve already got numerous ideas for cool studies we could conduct on campus. Hopefully some of them will take me up on offers to make these ideas a reality.

Most students, however, chose to review and critique a short video where the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters conducted a test (links to the videos themselves are available via the Week 2 Prompts post). Students were nearly equally interested in the myth choices presented in the prompts. Two students chose to tackle “Is it more dangerous to drive in high heels” (Link 1, Link 2). Two students were drawn to the test of “beer goggles” (Link 1, Link 2). Two more looked at gender differences in reading others’ emotions (Link 1, Link 2). Investigating the relative danger of driving while talking on the phone vs. driving drunk caught the attention of two students (Link 1, Link 2). The winner, by a nose, this week was whether or not yawning was contagious, with 3 students providing a critique (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3).

Make sure to check out their posts for more details and please feel free to post comments, questions, or reactions to what you read. We look forward to hearing from you!