Category Archives: Blog Prompts

Thanksgiving Break Blog Prompts

Here are the options for 11/24-12/1:

Option 1:

TED talks by Ellen Saks and Eleanor Longden share many commonalities but also significant differences. Both speakers were diagnosed with schizophrenia as undergraduates and ended up being hospitalized. Each discusses her path to getting a handle on their mental health. Discuss the similarities and differences between the talks and the treatment each speaker received on her path to health. You also need to explore how we could identify students with mental health issues sooner and how we could get students to accept help.

Option 2:

Week 13 Blog Prompts

Here are the options for 11/17-11/24:

Option 1:

As mentioned in class, the Implicit Association Test (which can be accessed through this link) is a tool to identify biases which may be outside your conscious awareness. The results of this test cannot determine whether or not you are racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., but they are useful to help you understand yourself and how you interact with others. For this post, you must take two separate IAT tests from the link above. You do not need to share your results if you don't want to, but you ...

Week 12 Blog Prompts

Here are the blog options for Week 12 (11/10-11/17): Option 1:

Stress is something all too common in college students' lives, but what if you could change your relationship with stress. Kelly McGonigal discusses doing just that in her TED talk "Making Stress Your Friend." Watch the video, share your reactions, discuss how reasonable you find its message to be, and discuss how you could implement some of the ideas into your life.

Option 2:

We all have different methods for coping with stress. For this prompt, please discuss your typical strategies for dealing with stress and evaluate how ...

Week 11 Blog Prompts

Here are the options for 11/3-11/10: Option 1: We all want to enjoy life and seek ways to make ourselves happy. Indeed, we spend much of lives chasing the goal of happiness. But how good are we at actually finding it? Dan Gilbert discusses the ways in which we sabotage our own happiness in his TED talk. Watch the video, share your reactions, and discuss ways in which you can incorporate more synthetic happiness into your life. Option 2: Motivation is not a stable force, but often waxes and wanes. Throughout your time at Austin College, your motivation for school will undoubtedly be ...

Week 10 Blog Prompts

Here are the blog prompt options for Week 10 (10/27-11/3):

Option 1:

One of the most commonly discussed dimensions of personality is introversion vs. extroversion. In many ways, US society values extroverts more highly, but Susan Cain discusses the Power of Introverts in her TED talk. Watch the talk and discuss my assertion that extroverts are more valued in the US. What about Austin College? Are there advantages to being either introverted or extroverted here?

Option 2:

One popular form of assessing personality is the MBTI. In fact, many of you took the MBTI before you came ...

Week 9 Blog Prompts

Here are the blog prompts for Week 9 (10/20-27): Option 1:

Many people consider intelligence to be largely determined by genetics, but there is substantial evidence that the environment and social processes play a large role as well. Since schools are a place where children try to determine how smart they really are, it is important for educators to understand the impacts of their subtle or not-so-subtle interactions with students. Watch these three videos: Jane Elliott's classic blue eyes/brown eyes experiment, Claude Steele explaining stereotype threat, and Rosenthal & Jacobson's discovery of the Pygmalion ...

Week 8 Blog Prompts

Here are the blog prompts for 10/13-10/20:

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 ...

Week 7 Blog Prompts

Blog post prompts for 10/6-10/13:

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:

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 ...

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 ...