Hyperdoc for Emotions/Stress Unit

Hi All,

Previously, I told you I would post the hyperdoc I created for the Emotions/Stress portion of the Motivation and Emotions unit. I finally have a chance to do that. FYI, this doc is created for my textbook Myers for AP, 2nd edition. Myers does not include everything and has some materials that I find to be superfluous. Careful reading will show where I have added and omitted questions.

As always, I appreciate feedback and constructive criticism.

Happy emotions!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fkpXZG4p0TOaxcWxN-gBKe8XG_wCUv-CdagGHu8WS6I/edit?usp=sharing



posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Teachers of Interest: Michael Corayer

I'm not sure when I "met" him online or how I got to know him, by I have been very impressed by the knowledge and writing of Michael Corayer. I've had a chance to read his books on mastering introductory psychology, available at the links below. His writing style is engaging and the stories he uses to bring the reader in are fascinating. I highly recommend checking out his blogs, his books, and his twitter account. Below is a short biography.

Michael is still working on the book series, the process of researching, writing, and editing has been taking much longer than expected but says it has been worth it just for the knowledge he has gained. He is working on the last few chapters of volume 4 now, so a full print edition should be available by the end of this school year. His goal is to have the book start helping teachers and students next fall. In the meantime, the first 3 volumes are currently available as ebooks through Amazon and other stores. (Here are the Amazon links for Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3).

Michael Corayer is originally from Brockton, Massachusetts. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Psychology from Harvard in 2006. In 2008, he moved to Shanghai, China, and began teaching IB Psychology at Shanghai High School International Division. Thanks to growing student interest in psychology over the next few years, he was able to expand the courses offered to include multiple sections of AP Psychology as well as elective courses in psychology. His students were engaged and hard-working and he is proud that last year they earned a 100% pass rate on both IB and AP exams, with the majority of AP students earning a 5. Thanks to encouragement and feedback from his students, he began working to turn his lecture notes into a book series designed to help other psychology students master the material. He left China in July of 2015 and is currently living in Austin, Texas.

Michael's personal blog

His Twitter Account

Amazon Links to Michael's Psych writings


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Open Educational Resources for Psychology

Is your district all abuzz with "Open Educational Resources" (OER) news? Did you see the video the White House/Michelle Obama posted about the free ebooks available for schools/students? There's quite a bit of chatter about it in my district, and I'm cautiously intrigued.

The promise of free, high quality resources for psychology teachers and students is obviously attractive, and it fits with the general "give psychology away for free" sentiment of our community. I love the tendency of psychology teachers to SHARE, freely and without concern for credit, etc. It's made our community stronger, and more high school students have access to high quality materials.

I have some mixed feeling, though: publishers of traditional textbooks (shout out to Worth and other publishers!) provided great, non-free resources to us in the past, and I wonder what might be lost if the OER movement eats into their market share. I hope the world of textbooks evolves toward some kind of balance between open, free resources and for-cost textbook (and other) materials.

As that evolution progresses, there are MANY free resources available to you and your students! This site provides a good overview of the OER "movement."

OER Commons

I'm intrigued by this free OER college level Psych textbook. I wonder if any AP teachers use this book yet, and how the college board might react to it during the syllabus audit?

Open Stax Psychology Textbook

 Psycholgist Rajiv Jhangiani posted a list of OER psychology links on his blog:

• BC Open Textbook Project: http://open.bccampus.ca/ 
• Resources for Teaching Research and Statistics in Psychology http://www.teachpsychscience.org/
• Go Cognitive: http://www.gocognitive.net
• Cognitive Psychology Wiki: http://cognitivepsychology.wikidot.com/
• STP Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology: http://teachpsych.org/otrp/resources/index.php
• APA Online Psychology Laboratory: http://opl.apa.org/
• Personality Pedagogy: http://personalitypedagogy.arcadia.edu/
• Animations for Teaching: http://garyfisk.com/anim/index.html
• Social Psychology Teaching Resources: http://www.socialpsychology.org/teaching.htm
• Timothy Bender’s Memory and Cognition Demonstrations: http://courses.missouristate.edu/timothybender/mem/mydemos.html
• Rossman/Chance Applet Collection: http://www.rossmanchance.com/applets/index.html
• Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education https://www.causeweb.org/webinar/activity/
• Interpreting Correlations: http://rpsychologist.com/d3/correlation/
• The Brain from Top to Bottom: http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/
• Research Methods Knowledge Base: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/
• Fostering Sustainable Behavior (textbook): http://www.cbsm.com/pages/guide/preface/
• TED Ed: Psychology: http://ed.ted.com/lessons?category=psychology
• Psychology Tutorials and Animations: http://psych.hanover.edu/Krantz/tutor.htm

If you know of other resources, please post them in the comments. Happy hunting!

posted by Rob McEntarffer

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AP Text--Coon and Mitterer

The textbook recommendation below comes with some background.  I have taught Psychology since 1987 and A.P. Psychology since 1992 (second year of course).  During that time, I have used a variety of texts, including Exploring Psychology, Psychology and You, Exploring Psychology, multiple editions of the Myers Psychology text, Ludy Benjamin's intro text from the mid-90s and the second edition of the Wade and Tavris text.  I currently use the Dennis Coon text Psychology: A Journey as my regular psychology text and his college text for my current AP course.

A few weeks ago, I asked the readers of this blog for info on their favorite textbooks, but neglected to share my own views about my favorite and current AP Psychology text, Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to Mind and Behavior by Coon and Mitterer, 11th Edition.  The publisher is Thomson/Wadsworth.  The book has 700 pages including an appendix on statistics.

While there are a few concepts that the book omits, it has really cut down on my handouts--so many things that I used to use as supplements, I now have within the text itself--it's almost as though the authors got inside my head and asked me what I wanted within the text.  The arrangement of and coverage of the content is pretty similar to most texts with the text finishing with a chapter on applied psychology.

The level of the text is at a semi-difficult level for my students.  My kids range from the college-bound top-ten student to the community college student without the grades to get into a four-year university.  Some use it with ease, and others have to work pretty hard to understand it-I have a large range of abilities.

The teacher's ancillaries are weak compared to Myers, but everything is on a few CDs and I can edit at will on the handouts, objectives, vocabulary, etc.  The test bank has 200-700 multiple choice questions per chapter, which allows me many options-the test generator is ExamView, which I've grown quite fond of over the years. 

I would recommend the text as a reference text for a new teacher, but with the lack of extras, such as the "Bold Manual" that comes with the Myers books, I would say that this is a book for veterans rather than newbies to teaching AP Psych.  That said though, I really, really like the book.

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Psychology Textbooks--The First in a Series of Posts

Every year on the various listservs, a number of discussions break out as to which Psychology text are good and which ones can work.  This will be the first in a series of posts discussing a variety of textbooks for both regular and AP Psychology.  For the uninitiated, psych teachers and professors tend to refer to general psych texts not by title, but rather by author, since most of them seemingly have the word, "Psychology" in their titles.

Other than colleagues, the first place most of us look to for textbooks is the Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology (OTRP), an online presence of APA Division 2: The Society for the Teaching of Psychology.  On this site is a section devoted to introductory psychology.  One of the resources on that page is a compendium of of information about intro texts, publishers, a rating of level of the textbooks (low, low-mid, middle, mid-high, and high), and other helpful information.

Obviously, this list needs to be updated, but an experienced teacher on several of the listservs probably has a feel for what is out there, even with new texts being introduced every year.  One of our goals is to highlight some of the texts that our readers use with their high school classes for both regular and AP levels.  To that end, this week, I will be discussing and evaluating the textbooks that I use (currently Coon and Mitterer for AP and Coon for regular psych).

If you'd like to be a guest contributor and tell us about one of your texts, contact one of the moderators and we will coordinate postings.  Information that we'd like to include is listed below.  Likely this is too much for some and not enough for others.  Please comment on what else you'd like to see.

• Title and Edition
• Author(s)
• Publisher 
• Textbook's companion website for instructors (URL)
  
• Companion website for students (URL)
  
• Date of most recent edition
• Level (use OTRP as a guide)
• Number of Authors
  
• Number of Female Authors
• Number of chapters
• Number of Text Pages
• Number of Pages per Chapter
• Text Pages Plus Back Matter
• Commentary on how much you have to supplement the text for your students (level of your students)
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the text
  

Supplements for the text:

• Describe and evaluate the supplements that come with the adoption of the text
• Strengths and Weaknesses of the text

We look forward to the discussion (and probably debate) about texts in the next few months.

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High School Level Textbook Survey

While the market for AP Psychology textbooks has many options, the high school level choices are fairly small. Below is a survey of the common texts used today. The current results of the survey will be revealed once you cast your vote.

If you answer with either of the last two choices (other and none of the above), please feel free to leave a note in the comment section as to which text you use. I am confident a number of people would be interested in what other texts teachers are using.

Online Surveys & Market Research

N=219 as of 01/27/12.
Thanks to all those who have participated.

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