APA Top 20 Principles Badges--New Program

For those of you not familiar, for several years, the American Psychological Association has had a series of principles that are most important in education. What is new is that the APA Center for Psychology in Schools and Education (CPSE) is recognizing schools that successfully promote the 20 principles with a "badging" program. The program allows schools to demonstrate programs that illustrate one or more domains of the Top 20 principles and then can "Badge" their website.



Schools apply online with a written statement and specific samples of evidence showing how their chosen “Top 20” Badge category and its respective set of principles are reflected in their classrooms school-wide. In order to assist applicants, examples of successful use of evidence are provided in the application. All complete submissions are evaluated by members of the Coalition for Psychology in Schools and Education, and in addition to a badge, participating schools receive written feedback from the coalition, including suggestions for improvement.

These "Top 20 Principles" can be found here and are in the graphic below.

The principles focus on several domains:
1) thinking and learning
2) motivation
3) social-emotional learning
4) classroom management
5) assessment

In short, this is an excellent way to bring psychology not just to your classes, but to your entire school. To check out the process and to learn more to convince your principals to participate, click here.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Share

Back to School Motivation-A Must-See Video

Yesterday, I was sitting in my in-service meetings.  My Principal showed us this video by Dalton Sherman, a young man who is well on his way to doing great things.  Please take the time to watch.  It is very much worth it.  By all means, share it with your colleagues as well.  These days with classes of more than 40 students, we need to be reminded of what our roles are. 



Posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Share

Psych in the news

Phil Zimbardo does a TED talk about time. As ScienceBlog notes: "In this video, [he] says happiness and success are rooted in a trait most of us disregard: the way we orient toward the past, present and future. He suggests we calibrate our outlook on time as a first step to improving our lives."

Word Spy's word of the day: phantom fat. "People who were formerly overweight often still carry that internal image, perception, with them," says Elayne Daniels, a psychologist in Canton, Mass., who specializes in body-image issues. "They literally feel as if they're in a large body still."

If white coats are so bad (because of the spread of infection) why do doctors still wear them? Because a white lab coat says "I am a scientific healer."

Good news skinny dudes! "Beefcakes may be able to attract women by rippling their muscles, but the downside of all that brawn is a poor immune system and an increased appetite, a new study finds." (via Freakonomics)

How the outcomes in Iran's election returns reveal possible fraud: humans are bad at making up random numbers. (via Freakonomics)

"It’s the latest in a series of studies that show that sound from both human ears is processed differently within the brain. Researchers have noted that humans tend to have a preference for listening to verbal input with their right ears."

"Once people own something - they have an established or imagined "property right" to the object - that something dramatically increases in subjective value." How does this endowment effect work?

Numerous studies have now demonstrated that REM sleep is an essential part of the learning process. Before you can know something, you have to dream about it.

And finally, which dime is the right one, and why are we so bad at noticing changes to familiar things?

Share

Psych in the news

Among Many Peoples, Little Genomic Variety. "But as analyses of genomes from dozens of distinct populations have rolled in -- French, Bantu, Palestinian, Yakut, Japanese -- that's not what scientists have found. Dramatic genome variation among populations turns out to be extremely rare."

Positive Is Negative. "Despite what all those self-help books say, repeating positive statements apparently does not help people with low self-esteem feel better about themselves. In fact, it tends to make them feel worse, according to new research."

In New York, Number of Killings Rises With Heat. Seven homicides in New York City. None connected in any way but this: They happened during the summer months, when the temperatures rise, people hit the streets, and New York becomes a more lethal place.

Get a Life, Holden Caulfield. "Some critics say that if Holden is less popular these days, the fault lies with our own impatience with the idea of a lifelong quest for identity and meaning that Holden represents ... Ms. Feinberg recalled one 15-year-old boy from Long Island who told her: “Oh, we all hated Holden in my class. We just wanted to tell him, ‘Shut up and take your Prozac.’”

The return of trepanation? Trepanation, the ancient practice of drilling a hole in your skull to relieve pressure on the brain, is now being studied as a possible treatment for dementia.

Keeping an Open Mind to Animal Homosexuality. 'Sure, it’s widely recognized that the animal kingdom is full of male-on-male and female-on-female action, from fruit flies on up to bottlenose dolphins and, of course, Homo sapiens. But though the origins and evolutionary consequences of homosexuality are varied, biologists tend to oversimplify such behavior.

Do you have what it takes to be a NASA pillownaut? Great story (with pictures like the one at the top) of how research is done. Imagine telling your kids that your role in helping space research was spent lying in bed!

Share

Psych in the news

"Patients often have difficulty getting the help they need — partly because therapists tend to regard borderline patients as manipulative and demanding of an inordinate amount of time and attention." A nice column in the NYT by Jane Brody on borderline personality disorder. Questions can be left for a BPD expert here and she'll provide answers to some of them next week.

"I am not trying to say cats are stupid, just they are different." A British researcher finds cats none too bright in her little tests. (No word as to whether she was clawed to death shortly after publishing her findings.)

Even the world’s best pros are so consumed with avoiding bogeys that they make putts for birdie discernibly less often than identical-length putts for par, according to research by two Wharton School professors.

Is alcohol really good for you? A nice causation v. correlation piece.

One of the most celebrated findings in modern psychiatry — that a single gene helps determine one’s risk of depression in response to a divorce, a lost job or another serious reversal — has not held up to scientific scrutiny, researchers reported Tuesday.

Really, I swear this one will work! The next big weight-loss craze involves sprinkling stuff on your food to enhance the smell and taste ... so you eat less.

But now researchers are beginning to unearth clues as to how savants' formidable brains work, and that in turn is changing our view of what it means to be a savant. Also, see this related link of art done by savants (like the one at the top of this post).

How does language shape thinking? Great essay here by a Stanford prof whose research finds evidence for the old (and new again?) Whorf hypothesis.

Finally, I just found this (thanks to the fabulous Mindhacks) and haven't had a chance to check it out -- so please, if you do, leave your thoughts in the comments! -- but here is Weird Al and Al's Brain, a 3-D Journey into the Human Brain. (P.S. I love the t-shirt below if anyone's looking for the perfect birthday present ...)

Share

Psych in the news

[I'm guessing everyone is in AP mode, but in case you've got students who aren't taking the exam and are twiddling their thumbs, send 'em here! I'll post several a day over the next few days to clear out my bookmarks.]

• "Mr. Anecdote-Means-a-Trend" Malcolm Gladwell spins another amusing tale, this time about the strategies that underdogs use to win. Deadspin takes him to task on his lack of knowledge of basketball: "sooner or later you run into a Goliath who can dribble through a trap."
• New research may help unlock vegetative and minimally conscious patients.
• Why do poor kids have more trouble in school? Is it due to environment or biology? The answer, according to a new study, may be both.
• The perils of analyzing test scores by race. Plus, a follow-up.
• Relax. NBA players choke under pressure too.
• Does President Obama have the motivation to succeed?
• Bilingual infants have better mental control
• Is fatigue really just all in our heads?
• Yes, looks do matter. (Susan Boyle)
• Ear plugs to lasers: the science of concentration ("multitasking is a myth")
  

Share

Psych in the news

• Slate looks at the latest research suggesting that ADD/ADHD may interfere with a child's growth.
• Honda builds a brain-to-robot interface for Asimo. (Boing Boing Gadgets)
• Today's new autism and _____ link: Scientific American reports on a "baffling" connection between autism and vinyl flooring.
• The coolest and grossest photos of brain slicing accompany Jonah Lehrer's story about the Allen Brain Atlas.
  
• Human children vs. apes: who's better at tracking objects and why. (Cognitive Daily)
  
• William Saletan in Slate on homosexuals and the therapists who try to change them.
  
• Calling Phineas Gage: man survives being harpooned in the head. (I wonder if anyone said "Abreu was no longer Abreu...")

Thanks to Chuck for that final entry.

Finally, in the spirit of the day, some breaking news stories from across the Interwebs in case you missed them: here are links for bacon popcorn, Google's AutoPilot (that also emulates ELIZA!), Ben & Jerry's Cyclone Dairy (with milk made from 100% cloned cows!), how to make your Kindle smell like a real book, a trifecta from HowStuffWorks with rechargeable gum, moving the Alps to Dubai and kittens that never grow old and a real honest to goodness one on social psychology. Enjoy!

Share

Psych in the news

Soldiers undergoing mock interrogations can be tricked by simple psychological techniques into misidentifying their interrogator. Combined with other research carried out by Elizabeth Loftus, psychologists are closing in on the exact procedures for creating false memories in individuals. (Wired Science)

Paul Ekman looks at old footage of Alex Rodriguez A-lying about his steroid use and finds, shockingly, a "higher probability of lying." (NY Times)

Merel Kindt and colleagues have found that by giving propanolol to people before they recalled a scary memory about a spider, they could erase the fearful response it triggered. (Not Exactly Rocket Science)

Scientists are studying schadenfreude (which is one of my all-time favorite words). “We have a saying in Japanese, ‘The misfortunes of others are the taste of honey,’ ” said Hidehiko Takahashi, the first author on the report. “The ventral striatum is processing that ‘honey.’ ” Awesome! (NY Times)

Newsweek has a cover story on stress and finds that, hey, it might not be so bad!

I finally got around to listening to some of my backlog of This American Life shows -- which I could not recommend more highly, by the way -- and I thought readers might be interested in this segment. "Host Ira Glass talks to Will Felps, a professor at Rotterdam School of Management in the Netherlands, who designed an experiment to see what happens when a bad worker joins a team. Felps divided people into small groups and gave them a task. One member of the group would be an actor, acting either like a jerk, a slacker or a depressive. And within 45 minutes, the rest of the group started behaving like the bad apple. (13 minutes)"

Share

Psych in the news

Should scientists study race and IQ? No, society and science do not befit. Yes, the scientific truth must be pursued. (Nature)

The truth is, spotting a lie isn't as easy as it looks. (Washington Post)

Sensors help keep the elderly safe, and at home. (NY Times) [Slate calls is Lojack for people.]

Jonah Lehrer says diet soda's not our friend; the brain doesn't like to be tricked. (Science Blogs)

Toronto's holding the world's first (?) music concert accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing. (Boing Boing)

How your looks betray your personality. (New Scientist)

Share

Psych in the news

February 11

A new study has found that people grossly underestimate the length of these lines -- a finding which implies that we’re all misjudging distances as we drive, and are driving too fast as a result. (Science Daily)

A new procedure is attracting increasing attention because it allows people to move prosthetic arms more automatically than ever before, simply by using rewired nerves and their brains. (NYT)

Two groups have put together a stylebook to guide media professionals through the minefield of politically correct and politically incorrect ways of identifying and portraying the elderly. (NYT)

In recent years, scientists have started arriving at more counterintuitive insights about the circumstances that court choking. Well-meaning experts often advise performers to take their time—slowing down delivery, the thinking goes, helps to quell nervousness—but it is actually better just to get on with things if you are well rehearsed. (Scientific American)

A new study suggests that the location of a recollection in the brain varies based on how old that recollection is. (Scientific American)

Share

Psych in the news

Eating a Mediterranean diet appears to lower risk for mental decline, and may help prevent Alzheimer’s in people with existing memory problems, new research suggests. (NY Times)

Stanford University has put a series of engaging lectures up on YouTube where some of its leading researchers discuss cutting-edge cognitive science research. (Mindhacks)

Lengthy television viewing in adolescence may raise the risk for depression in young adulthood, according to a new report. (NYT)

In recent days, both the Daily Mail and Wired.com looked at Charles Bonnet Syndrome, a disease characterized by bizarre and vivid visual hallucinations that often involve characters or things that are much smaller in size than reality. (via Boing Boing)

If you’re like most people with an English speaking background you rated Hnegripitrom as more dangerous than Magnalroxate ... what is the link between ease of pronunciation and how our brain judges risk? (Very Evolved)

Internet sites that facilitate diet betting have seen an increase in traffic ... diet bets work for many people who couldn’t seem to shed pounds any other way. (NYT)

Share