The Amazing Dr. Joseph Swope and His Fabulous Web Site

Dr. Joseph Swope (Joe) is a high school psychology and AP Psychology teacher from the East Coast (Maryland). He's also worked at the Springfield Power Plant and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters (if his Facebook profile is to be believed). In any case, Joe is prolific in his giving back to the psychology community. Check out his bio to the right.



In short, if you teach psychology, go to his site, swopepsych and sign up for an account--it's free and the resources are so amazing!

Here are a few of the items that he has shared.

Joe has put his video lectures/textbook online. Great resources for students and teachers.

His expansive list of resources can be found here.

He is also an author of a book called Need for Magic that incorporates social psychology concepts throughout.

So what does Dr. Swope's site have to offer teachers? 

• hundreds of video clips from movies and television shows
• lots of activities and worksheets for various classwork and homework use
• Video textbook has 93 thirty minute videos--each was shot with two 1080i (that is hi-def) cameras with microphones around the room to pick up on the class dynamics
• Sooooo many resources
• A log-in system for teachers and students
• Coming soon: a system where the teacher can assign a particular video, have the student watch it and take a quiz with a resulting email to the teacher with quiz results. Joe is also working on randomizing the quizzes to reduce cheating.
• A site that offers what teachers and students can actually use--Joe is a high school classroom teacher--he knows what we need and what we don't

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Books, Summer Reading, and a Long List

Tsundoku: The Japanese word for buying books that you'll never read. This is me (this is Chuck posting). I possess all the books below. I've purchased most of them in the past year in order to read them "sometime soon." So many book, so little time. I have a habit of purchasing books when I see them recommended in podcasts, in articles, on Facebook or Twitter. This is one of way too many shelves filled with books. Wait, that's not right. There are never too many books!

Most of these can be used by students who are doing summer reading. Apparently, the last time we did a summer reading list was 2013 and can be found here.


My Psychology Summer Reading 

• Hit Makers: The  Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction
• The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
• The Hidden Brain 
• Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do
• The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
• Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity
• A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics: A Neuroscientist on How to Make Sense of a Complex World
• The 3 Dimensions of Emotions: Finding the Balance of Power, Heart, and Mindfulness in All of Your Relationships
• Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body
• Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School
• The Gift of Fear and Other Survival Signals that Protect Us from Violence
• The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less
• Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness 
• This is Your Brain on Music 
• The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons
• You Are Not That Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
• Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives
• How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 
• To Sell is Human 
• The Myth of Repressed Memory 
• Witness for the Defense: The Accused. the Eyewitness and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial
• The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
• The Emotional Brain 
• Nurture Shock: New Thinking About Children
• The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success
• Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our  Motivations
• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
• Thinking Fast and Slow 
• The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
• The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
• Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology 
• The Three Christs of Ypsilanti 
• Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics 
• The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness
• Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning 
• Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything
• The Memory Illusion: Remembering, Forgetting, and the Science of Memory

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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New Book by Michael Britt: Psych Experiments

Recently, a friend of the blog and creator of The Psych Files podcast/educational website, Michael Britt, published a book called, Psych Experiments. In short, for those teachers who want the learning of research methods to come alive, this is the book we've been waiting for. This is a book written with high school students in mind--no unnecessary complications and attempts to bulk up the academic language for publication. Just old-fashioned direct language that is highly understandable.

After piquing the curiosity of the reader with some psych history and a couple cool stories, Britt lays out the thinking behind the book. He explains that the replications will not be exact, but rather "conceptual replications" by examining the key ideas behind the famous and infamous experiments.

In preparation for the research to be carried out, Britt emphasizes respecting the participants, using informed consent and ability to withdraw. He examines the ethics, risks, and benefits. Britt points out that he also avoids using technical terms like independent and dependent variable, operational definitions, etc. in order to make the book accessible to non-academics. Teachers can use this intentional omission as a tool to use with students.

With his signature style, Michael Britt takes classic research studies and breaks them down into understandable bits in a way that is highly readable and informative. The primary and basic information for each research study covered in a way that students will find very helpful.

Here is one example:

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Noticing a Face in the Crowd
I NEVER FORGET A FACE

Psych Concept: Identifying Emotions
Name of Experiment: Constants Across Cultures in the Face and Emotion
Original Scientist/Research: Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen (1971)
Name of Replication/Extension: Finding the Face in the Crowd: An Anger Superiority Effect
Replication Scientist/Research: Christine H. Hansen and Ranald D. Hansen (1988)

Overview of the topic
Original experiment/research described
"Let's Try It" section
"What to Do" section to carry out one's own version of the research with step by step instructions
The Results section
Why It Matters section

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So what kinds of research does Britt put into the book? Well, the book is less than 300 pages but manages to deal with 50 research studies. Here are some of the topics he deals with:

• classical conditioning
• manipulation and money
• memory
• creativity
• method of loci
• getting workers to be more productive
• mental sets
• psychiatric labels
• ergonomics and design
• roles and how they impact behavior
• romance and partner choice
• conformity
• happiness
• persuasion
• cognitive dissonance
• inkblots
• false memories
• attractiveness
• brain imaging
• curiosity
• superstitions
• discrimination
• and so much more!

So I give my strongest recommendation for purchasing this book. Go out to a bookstore and get it. Go on Amazon and get it. Just get it! It will likely become an integral tool in your teaching tool belt.






posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Psychology Shopping: Megapost

Are you ready to do some shopping?  If so, below is a list of places you can find wonderful items for your own personal collection and/or your classroom.

Please be sure to add any places or ideas in the comments!

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Books

I will do a separate post on all of these at some point in the future, but here are a few pictures of my bookshelves-I can recommend nearly all of these; I have not gotten to all of them (and this is not even all my psych books)--sorry for the mess, I just recently moved:

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PsychKits

http://psychkits.com/ 
Includes inversion goggles, activities, and many other resources

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Amazon.com

The THSP Psych Store--lots of possibilities

Lots of different brain models

Psychology Games

Psychology Jewelry--seriously, this is a thing!

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Apps

iScore5 Psychology App
https://www.facebook.com/iScore5APPsych/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iscore5-ap-psych-2016/id1084611907?mt=8

Psych Hero
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/psychero-test-prep-for-ap/id492497083?mt=8

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Psychology Posters

Holstee Manifesto Poster
https://www.holstee.com/collections/all/products/holstee-manifesto-poster 

If you can print out your own posters (and possibly have them laminated by your school), Pinterest has numerous possibilities:
https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=psychology%20posters&rs=typed&0=psychology%7Ctyped&1=posters%7Ctyped


From the APA, Classroom Posters--downloadable
http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/classroom-posters.aspx


Anatomical Prints
Skull Anatomy
http://anatomicalprints.com/human_skull_anatomy_chart.html

Anatomy Warehouse
Spinal Nerves
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/spinal-nerves-anatomical-chart-a-102614

Organs of the Ear
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/the-ear-organs-of-hearing-and-balance-anatomical-chart-a-102574

Brain Poster-$11
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/the-brain-anatomical-chart-a-102567

Brain Model
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/deluxe-human-brain-anatomy-model-a-100130

Brain Model with Arteries-$344
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/deluxe-brain-anatomy-model-with-arteries-9-parts-a-100472

Giant Brain Model-$467
https://www.anatomywarehouse.com/giant-regional-brain-anatomy-model-a-103132

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Teachers Discovery Store-Psychology Page

Social Studies dot com
They have a little bit of everything, but especially books and DVDs. They tend to be a bit more expensive

Cafe Press Psychology Jewelry

Cafe Press All Gifts

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The Psychology Shop
for lots of different ideas including Jung and Freud finger puppets--don't even think about commenting on this one
Freudian Slippers

Zazzle Psychology Gifts

Etsy Psychology Gifts

Sniffy the Virtual Rat (Lite Version)


Again, if I have missed anything, please leave a note in the comments or email me at thspblog@gmail.com 



posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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A Murder Over a Girl: Justice, Gender, Junior High

A Murder Over a Girl is a new book by Ken Corbett, a gender studies expert and NYU professor who went to Southern California to learn why a 15-year-old transgender student Larry 'Letitia' King was murdered. Corbett takes the reader through painstaking detail through the trial with its various witnesses, describing each with both a flair for observation, and inferences about the context, motivation, and meaning of the words they used. The book is not just about the murder or even the trial, but about how context matters for everything and how we shape the context in our own lives can lead us down very different paths. This book is fascinating, trouble, and insightful.

Cover Art

Corbett analyzes race, identity, poverty, culture, gun violence, and adolescence in a way I have never read before. Some parts of the book were hard for me to read due to the abhorrent nature of the ideology examined. That said, I believe this is a necessary book for all psychology and sociology teachers to help us understand the role that culture plays in our personal and collective lives. After so many years of teaching experience, I learned to look at education and my students through a new lens after reading this book.



From the Amazon description:

A psychologist's gripping, troubling, and moving exploration of the brutal murder of a possibly transgender middle school student by an eighth grade classmate On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school. Profoundly shaken by the news, and unsettled by media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and of race integral to the case, psychologist Ken Corbett traveled to LA to attend the trial. As visions of victim and perpetrator were woven and unwoven in the theater of the courtroom, a haunting picture emerged not only of the two young teenagers, but also of spectators altered by an atrocity and of a community that had unwittingly gestated a murder. Drawing on firsthand observations, extensive interviews and research, as well as on his decades of academic work on gender and sexuality, Corbett holds each murky facet of this case up to the light, exploring the fault lines of memory and the lacunae of uncertainty behind facts. Deeply compassionate, and brimming with wit and acute insight, A Murder Over a Girl is a riveting and stranger-than-fiction drama of the human psyche.

From the Publisher:

On February 12, 2008 in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney and the rest of his eighth grade class walked to the computer lab with their teacher, Dawn Boldrin. As his classmates typed their history papers, Brandon quietly stood and shot 15-year-old Larry King—who for just two weeks had been wearing traditionally female accessories and identifying as “Leticia”—twice in the head. Larry died in the hospital two days later. Psychologist Ken Corbett was unsettled by the media coverage that sidestepped the issues of gender identity and race, and went to California to attend the trial. In his new book, A MURDER OVER A GIRL, Corbett, a leading expert on gender and masculinity, details the case, and all the social issues still littering the American landscape eight years later. The brutal murder begged the question: How this could happen? Ellen DeGeneres spoke out; Newsweek and The Advocate ran cover stories. Once again, a “normal boy” like Brandon had taken a gun into a school and killed another student in cold blood. But others, still, wondered: How could this not happen? In many ways this was a “perfect storm” of race, poverty, gun violence, and gender identity fueled by ignorance and fear. Brandon had been raised by drug-addicted parents. His mother shot his father days before their wedding, and his father later shot his mother in front of him. His home was a veritable culture of guns. Larry’s birth mother was a 15-year-old drug addicted prostitute. He had recently been removed from his adoptive parents’ home after reporting abuse. Larry identified as gay from the age of 10, and by 15 had realized he was a girl. He wore makeup and stilettos to school with his uniform and had asked the boy who would be his killer to be his valentine. Brandon says he was being sexually harassed by Larry and sought peace the only way he knew how. Eight years later, the citizens of this country have yet to get on the same page on so many of the major issues at play: gender identity; sexual and racial equality; gun control; drug laws. Neither experts nor lawmakers nor voters can come to a consensus, and yet, teachers—most of whom have received no training in any of these areas—are thrust to the forefront in the classroom.

 posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Request for Suggestions

Hello Everyone,

I received a great question from one of my US Government students today.  He wanted to know if I could give him a list of books (top 5) in psych to give him a good overview of the field.  He mentioned Freud (and to be honest, I internally cringed). While I have my personal favorites, I would love to hear from you all.

What recommendations do you have?  What are the best books about psych for a non-psych person to get acquainted with our field?  You can post in the comments or email me at schallhornpsych @ gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from many of you. I will compile the list and publish in a few weeks.

Thanks in advance,

Chuck Schallhorn

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Repost: Summer Reading and Teacher Resources

Originally posted in May of 2012.  Reposted for ideas for reading and classroom resources.
================================================================

It's that time of year when we are thinking about assigning summer reading for ourselves and our kids and getting ready for next year.  Below are some resources that I have either seen and/or read.  I make these recommendations since I have positive personal experience with each one.  I am certainly not saying that these are the only good resources out there, they are only a list of items on my bookshelf--that I can see/recall.  I have many more.  Each link below takes you to the Amazon.com site where you can order the books immediately should you wish.

(note: As I finish this list, I am kind of stunned that I've read all these books.  Too bad all the info has not stayed with me.  Perhaps it's time to go back to learning to play guitar.)

Books for summer reading:

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain

Minds on Trial: Great Cases in Law and Psychology The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche

Imagine: How Creativity Works

How We Decide

Proust Was a Neuroscientist

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Sleep Thieves

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

My Lobotomy

A Natural History of the Senses

A Natural History Of Love

Thinking, Fast and Slow

An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain

The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

The Social Animal

Readings About The Social Animal

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

Influence: Science and Practice (5th Edition)

Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World

A Geography Of Time: On Tempo, Culture, And The Pace Of Life

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition

50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology: Shattering Widespread Misconceptions about Human Behavior

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Outliers: The Story of Success

The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls

The Story of Psychology

Emotions Revealed, Second Edition: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us

The Sociopath Next Door

Columbine (on my reading list, but not yet read--highly recommended though)

The Self Illusion: How the Social Brain Creates Identity (I have not read this, but it looks fascinating)

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

WHY Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen
Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

DVDs to get your hands on:

 (sorry--VHS only)

Some Valuable Resources for Every Teacher:

Activities Handbook for the Teaching of Psychology

As and A-Level Psychology Through Diagrams (Oxford Revision Guides)

Challenging Your Preconceptions: Thinking Critically About Psychology
The Human Brain Book

Forty Studies that Changed Psychology: Explorations into the History of Psychological Research (6th Edition)

Teaching Introductory Psychology: Survival Tips from the Experts The Critical Thinking Companion for Introductory Psychology






posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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