Substantial Psychology Paper Assignment

Earlier in the summer, Eric Castro, one of our exceptional San Francisco Psychology teachers wrote

on a listserv a project he was working on for his social science department. That list is pretty inactive, so I wanted to post his request here.

Here is the request Eric posted:

In response to Steve Jones' and David Lane's questions, I've published what prompted my original solicitation:

http://eecastro.com/post/144609778450/research-assignment

The short version is that my Social Science department has surveyed and interviewed eight constituencies about our course offerings and curriculum: grammar school teachers, 9th graders, 12th graders, other departments at our own school, recent alumni, other high schools, college professors, and employers around the San Francisco Bay Area. From those has emerged two needs: greater ethnic and cultural diversity across our course offerings, and better preparation for college-level research and writing.

Eric Castro 

Social Science Faculty 

St Ignatius College Prep, San Francisco

Please post your ideas and feedback in the comments.




Posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Guest Post: Eric Castro and Writing in Psychology

Hello THSP Readers,

I (Chuck) am very happy to share with you a piece of writing from one of our West Coast colleagues, Eric Castro of St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco.  I was reading the archives of #psychat (on http://twitter.com) when I ran across the files he linked to and the ideas he had for writing in the psychology classroom. He was kind enough to put together this information and links below.

So thank you very much Eric!  We are very pleased and happy to have you on THSP as a guest poster.  For the rest of you who have great ideas to share, please reach out to one of us.  We want to include more voices in our psychological conversation.

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I feel a little disingenuous writing about “writing in Psychology” because I don’t think I do a particularly good job at it. That is not to say my students are not good writers; in fact, I think they’re excellent[1] — I just can’t claim any of the credit! Our English department and the others in the Social Science department teach my students how to write well. I don’t know how, I’m just grateful that they do.

If you’re still reading this, Chuck asked me to share one particular writing assignment that we do in the Development Unit; we call it The Toy Project. Based on those two pieces of information – Development unit and “Toy project” – you already guessed that it’s based on Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development. As you suspect, students go to a toy store near them, choose a toy that corresponds to a stage of cognitive development, and they write about it[2].

If you’re still reading this, there are a few additional details that we work into the project[3]. Here is how the project is currently assigned. Note:

• Students work in groups of their own choosing, from across any section/ any instructor
• Students can ‘Google Doc’ their paper (thereby collaboratively writing it), but do not have to
• Students have to take pictures of themselves in the toy store for full credit[4]
• The finished product is uploaded to Canvas, in our case, where I grade it — and Canvas automatically forwards the paper to turnitin.com for “checking”…
• There are three distinct parts to the paper. Part 1 connects one toy with each of Piaget’s Stages; part 2 harkens back to the Research Methods unit; and Part 3 connects to our discussion of gender schema theory vis-a-vis elements in the design of toys and toy stores.

One of the things that I like so much about this paper is that it can be done with any amount of technology. I had students take physical photos back in the aughts; they paperclipped Polaroids or 3x5 photos to their printed paper. That evolved into inserting digital images into their word processed paper before printing it. For a few years, every student had their own blog for Psychology (using Blogger), and they posted their assignment and embedded their images there. For a few years, I had them share a Google Doc with me, like this one. And now they use whatever they want to word process the paper, export it to a PDF, and upload it to our LMS.

As an aside, we do two other “projects” like this. One is the Scary Movie Project, which coincides with Sensation & Perception, and the other is a Social Norms Project. When I share any of these three, I’m invariably asked, “What’s your rubric for assessment?” This may stray from what Chuck was looking for… but I don’t have a rubric for these. First, the assignments are constructed in such a way that they guide students through each step or part of the assignment. Second, as I read the resulting paper, I am correcting for conceptual understanding, correct usage of Psychology vocabulary, and correct application of the concepts. I am not grading for grammar, syntax, spelling, or anything else like that. Again, this goes back to the I-don’t-teach-students–how-to-write… I’m lucky that they come prepared for this work. Third, I grade these papers on a very simple scale: A, B, C, D, or F. For these three papers, it is – frankly – rare for students to not receive full credit. Now, part of that is because these are sort of enrichment activities. They’re kinda just for fun. I certainly don’t tell them that! But it’s part of my hidden curriculum; I want them to have enjoyable experiences while studying Psychology.
On a final note, for each chapter besides the three mentioned above students complete a traditional free-response question, modeled on the FRQs from the AP Psychology exam, and those are graded according to strict College Board-esque rubrics.
I hope that gives some insight into one way of doing “writing in Psychology.” If you have any questions at all, give me a tweet!

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1. At the bottom of page 1 and page 3 of my 2014 AP Psychology Instructional Planning Report, you can see how my students did on the Free Response Question portion of the exam. I hadn’t been scanning the Instructional Planning Report, but you can see how my students did for 2011–2012 and 2012–2013.
   
2. I’ve been assigning this project/paper for 15-years… and I can’t remember where I got the initial idea. Toys + Piaget’s Stages seems like such an obvious assignment idea, I’m pretty darned sure I didn’t come up with it first. If I got it from you 15-years ago… THANKS!!
   
3. I say “we” because there are two Psychology instructors at St Ignatius College Prep, Yosup Joo and me. At our school, Psych is an elective for juniors or seniors.
   
4. The pictures must be inserted into the document (whether a Google Doc or otherwise word processed) as evidence that they know how to do this before going to college.
   

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2014 Neuroscience for Kids Poetry Writing Contest

I received this contest information in my email this morning and wanted to share.  There is something for everyone.  Check it out!

2014 NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY WRITING CONTESTThe 2014 NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY WRITING CONTEST is now open to students in kindergarten through high school, college students, teachers and parents. Use your imagination to create a poem, limerick or haiku about the brain and you might win a prize. The complete set of rules and the official entry form for the contest are available at:http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest14.html 

Here is a summary of the contest rules: 

All poems, limericks and haiku must have at least THREE lines and CANNOT be longer than TEN lines. Material that is shorter than three lines or longer than ten lines will not be read. All material must have a neuroscience theme such as brain anatomy (a part of the brain), brain function (memory, language, emotions, movement, the senses, etc.), drug abuse or brain health (helmets, brain disorders, etc.). Be creative! Use your brain! Visit the Neuroscience for Kids pages for ideas and information! 

- If you are a STUDENT IN KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE 2: write a poem in any style; it doesn't have to rhyme. 

- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 3 TO GRADE 5: write a poem that rhymes. The rhymes can occur in any pattern. For example, lines one and two can rhyme, lines three and four can rhyme, and lines five and six can rhyme. Or use your imagination and create your own rhyming pattern. 

- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 6 TO GRADE 8: write a brainy haiku (3 lines only). A haiku MUST use the following pattern: 5 syllables in the first line; 7 syllables in the second line; 5 syllables in the third line. Here is an example:Three pounds of jelly wobbling around in my skull and it can do math 

- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 9 TO GRADE 12: write a brainy limerick. A limerick has 5 lines: lines one, two and five rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables; lines three and four rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables. Here is an example of a limerick:The brain is important, that's true, For all things a person will do, To skiing to biting, It makes up the person who's you. 

- If you are a COLLEGE STUDENT, TEACHER, PARENT OR ANYONE ELSE: write a rhyming poem that explains why it is important to learn about the brain.Books or other prizes will be awarded to multiple winners in each category. 

Other rules:A. You must use an entry form for your writing and send it in using "regular mail." Entries that are sent by e-mail will NOT be accepted.B. Only ONE entry per person. If you cannot download the entry form, let me know (e-mail: chudler@u.washington.edu) and I will send a form to you attached to an e-mail.C. Students may enter by themselves or teachers may make copies of the entry form for their students and return completed entries in a single package. The contest is open to people from all countries. 

Entries must be received by February 1, 2014.

Additional information can be found here: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/contest14.html

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