This post - How and When to Show a TED Talk - emerged from a conversation on Twitter between myself and one of my favorite Tweeps, Eric Castro (eecastro), who teaches in California. Rarely a week goes by that I don't bookmark at least one item he passes along, and frequently I seem to read two or three links that he suggests a day.

As you'll see below, Eric mentioned using a TED Talk on day one, and, well, I'll let Eric take it from here (cross-posted from http://intellectualsprawl.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-and-when-to-show-ted-talk.html):

How and When to Show a TED Talk

I wouldn't say that we show a lot of TED Talks to our AP Psych students, but (a) Yosup and I do watch a lot of them for ourselves, and (b) we do show some to students.

Jon Ronson, who is a documentary filmaker and author, wrote The Psychopath Test: A journey through the madness industry, gave a TED Talk on his experiences with the question of sanity. Strange Answers to the Psychopath Test is 18-minutes long:



I would go so far as to say that this one video could serve as the introduction to our AP Psychology class. Either explicitly or implicitly, there is every single topic that we address in the course in this one video. But do I show it? And if so, when?

Part of me wants to lead off with this; use it as a teaser, use it as a draw. But, it's 18-minutes — an eternity for 17-year olds.

I mentioned this dilemma via Twitter, and you can see the dialogue that ensued between me and a Psych teacher in Durham, NC:

I'm not positive how I'll fit this into my 40-minute opening class, but I'm leaning toward teasing — just foreshadowing the questions and issues it raises — the video, asking students to take a position on the central question of the video ("Is there a definitive line that separates crazy from sane"), assigning students to watch the video for homework, and then having a discussion around the video during part of our next class (which will be an 80-minute period).

------------------
Thanks, Eric!
--posted by Steve

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How far will you go

Teaching operant conditioning just got a whole lot easier, thanks to this video (embedded above). The only problem I can see is that your students will want you to build them one.

(Apologies if I got this from you and didn't credit you - I got it somewhere in the past few weeks, saved it to my "watch later" queue on YouTube and just saw it.)

--posted by Steve

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Another modern day Phineas Gage

Just spotted this item from Huffington Post shared by Stephen Chew on the PsychTeacher e-mail list: news of a 24 year old Brazilian construction worker who was impaled in his head by a 6-foot metal bar - and lived. I'm posting the photo below and video, but first wanted to highlight a couple of comments:

From the man's wife: "When he arrived [at the hospital] he told the doctors he wasn't feeling anything, no pain, nothing. It's unbelievable."

From the hospital's chief of staff, Luiz Alexandre Essinger: "[Essinger] said Leite was lucid and showed no negative consequences after the operation. 'Today, he continues well, with few complaints for a five-hour-long surgery,' Essinger said. 'He says he feels little pain.'"

Via Huffington Post
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/734833/thumbs/o-BRAZIL-WORKER-BAR-THROUGH-SKULL-570.jpg?4

If you cannot see the video embedded above, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN2mghDckDc

WOW.
--posted by Steve

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Summer connections

The service learning trip to Cambodia was full of great moments. Many can be related to psychology terms, text, and ideas.  For example:

The rice fields below is farmed by a widow, the mother of a cook at the orphanage we visited. The care and cultivation is more than she can manage, so about 20 came to help her in the rice process. The rice was in the stage where it needs to be thinned, thus it is pulled (with roots) out of the ground, dries for 2 days, then is replanted spaced further apart.

 First, we were there to help pull out, what we called "unplanting." Our Khmer friends gave us a demonstration, emphasizing the importance of keeping the roots attached for the replanting.

"Why, this doesn't look so hard!" we thought, slowly baking in the hot sun with mud oozing through our toes.  Seemed like some good observational learning would do the trick.

As you can see in this picture, things then shifted to shaping.  There were many successive approximations that were rewarded prior to the official process.

Below: sunrise at the child rescue center.

--posted by Nancy Diehl (via Steve)

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Psychat returns tonight

If you are on Twitter, please join a very informal group of fellow teachers tonight for a live chat (of sorts) called #psychat. Beginning tonight, we hope to have #psychat most Thursday nights during the school year from 8-9 pm ET.

If you're wondering WHAT THE HECK IS HE TALKING ABOUT, check out this post from January by #psychat co-host Heather Kilgallon (@irishteach) and an older post I did about the same topic.

Since it's the beginning of this academic year and many folks haven't started yet, I would like to hold off on the academic topics and talk about the ways that you get geared up for the new year. What gets you motivated? How do you set up your classroom for success? What policies or procedures help get your class off to the right foot? And best of all, how do you use psychological principles in your classroom?

I hope that you can join us tonight!

--posted by Steve (@highschoolpsych)
(who's back in the classroom and apologized for the dearth of recent postings from him!)

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Computer/Presentation Remote Control

I recently did some research and purchased and am in love with a new tool for my class.  It is an RF remote (with a USB connecting device) that allows me to wander the room while still being able to control the computer.  The remote has a little mouse, but it is an incredibly useful tool for those of us who want to show multiple items on the screen as well as move around the room.  Below is a link for this wonderful little product.  It is plug-and-play with no software needed.  It works on both Macs and PCs and is the length of a 3x5 card at half the width.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Looking for Some Review? Psych Courses Online

I begin next week with classes starting on August 13.  I know, it's really early.  On the off chance some are still on summer break and would like to do some review/look for some teaching insights for psych, I ran across this website that has condensed some online courses into on set of links.

The entire site list of courses is here:
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses

The Psychology Courses are here:
http://www.openculture.com/psychology_free_courses

Many of these link to courses existing on iTunes, others on YouTube and other sources.  Some are introduction courses, some are more upper level.  They seem like a good source for review and learning some deeper content.  In any case, they are definitely worth a look.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Resource manual for new teachers of high school psychology

I'm very pleased to share this new resource for high school psychology teachers! The APA's Emily Leary Chesnes, who works with the board of TOPSS (Teachers of Psychology in the Secondary Schools), announced today that the TOPSS-created Resource Manual for New Teachers of High School Psychology has been released.

As you can see in the image above, the manual covers lesson plans, activities, resources, textbook selection and more. You can view it page-by-page online, or download the entire manual as a PDF Please check it out and let me know what you think!

As you'll notice on the acknowledgements page I was one of the authors, along with Jeanne Blakeslee, Nancy Fenton, Jann Longman, Katherine Minter, Kimberly Patterson and Janie Wilson, but I would like to give one major shout-out to Will Elmhorst who had the vision for this manual and initiated the creation of it a few years ago. The other major shout-out, of course, goes to Emily Leary Chesnes for keeping us all focused and motivated to get it completed!

--posted by Steve

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Thinking about psychology on summer vacation

 QUICK NOTE: I'm happy to introduce Nancy Diehl who is joining THSP as a moderator. Nancy will introduce herself in her first post below.  --Steve

Thinking about psychology on summer vacation?

Quick resource reminder: Scientific American Mind gives one minute summaries of recent relevant research.  Enough to touch your curiosity enough to find out more. My favorite recent one was called "Confusion Helps us Learn."

I wanted to submit this post prior to my 5:30 a.m. departure tomorrow.  We are leading a service learning trip to an orphanage in rural Kranglovear, Cambodia.  We are heading there with two teachers, a few friends, and about 5 students, many of whom are returning to the orphanage for the third time.  On this trip, we'll be living, eating, working and playing at the orphanage with the 24 kids there, building a large garden, hiking, biking and....??  Hoping to take many pictures to cue stories relating to psychological principles... to include in teaching, and then to use as a model for students to do the same to make connections and help make reviewing more fun.

One of the biggest parts of the trip is taking about 10 students from the orphanage to Siem Reap.  This six hour drive is HOURS further away from their village than they've ever been.  They'll visit Angkor Wat, the national treasure that is on the flag of Cambodia, eat in a restaurant for the first time, stay in a hotel for the first time... many firsts!

This post is my first, so a brief introduction.  I was trained as a clinical psychologist and worked in academia for the first ten years of my career.  Then, my family moved from the U.S. to Hong Kong in 2007, and I started teaching AP Psychology at Hong Kong International School. In these five years, we've traveled to many cities in 22 countries, and worked with students from a variety of backgrounds.
--posted by Nancy

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Vision explained visually!

XKCD is one of my favorite online comics (check it out!) and the most recent comic is a light-hearted but thorough explanation of the process of vision and visual phenomena. Great example of presenting detailed, technical information in a concise and entertaining way.


posted by Rob McEntarffer

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