Last Minute Prep ideas!

This idea came from

Julie Muskopf from Iroquois Senior High School - would be great to hear some responses (and maybe some of you could use them!)

"What are the essential last minute prep activities/reminders you plan on doing with your classes Monday morning before the AP test?"

posted by Rob McEntarffer

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DSM 5 and the AP Psych test: What is the big deal?

There has been a lot (a LOT) of chatter in the AP Psych community about the implications of the change from DSM IV TR to DSM 5. Depending on who you listen to, the impact is either HUGE or little.

Here's the "official word" from College Board:

"The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was published in May 2013 with revisions to the criteria for the diagnosis and classifications of mental disorders.
Beginning with the 2015 AP Psychology Exam, all terminology, criteria and classifications referred to among multiple-choice and free-response items will adhere to the new fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5)." 

That's a nice, clear message, but based on email/twitter/AP Central discussion board chatter, many AP teachers seem to disagree about how big a deal this change will be in terms of items on the exam. Some teachers seem to think it will cause major changes, and they are spending quite a bit of time working with students to understanding the changed features in DSM 5 , while others aren't sweating it and continue to focus on the information their textbook provides about psychological disorders.

My opinion, for what it's worth (and it may not be worth much - I'm not teaching AP Psych right now): the important understanding about the DSM for students remains the same as it ever was - they need to know that the function of the book is to categorize and provide official labels/descriptions of disorders, and that it's mostly used by clinicians for insurance purposes. I don't think it's worth the time to dive deeply into changes in the DSM (including the elimination of the Axis system, etc.)

Please chime in the comments section and let us know what you're doing, if anything, regarding DSM 5 in your classrooms.




(image source: http://www.dsm5.org/Pages/Default.aspx)



posted by Rob McEntarffer

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Suicide Prevention Resources

Over the time of our careers, many or most of us will have had to deal with depressed students who have suicidal tendencies. As teachers of psychology, people already think of us as counselors even if we do not have that particular training. My belief is that we need to educate ourselves and be prepared in case we do encounter students in distress.

April and May are the two months that have the most suicide attempts. After having suffered for months, the increased sunshine and energy can take a suicidal person's intentions and turn them into actions. While researching something else, I found an amazing resource. Here are links to assist in our preventing suicide.

The Role of the High School Teacher in Preventing Suicide
This article contains many resources as well as information on how to respond to students in distress. It is worth the time to read.

This link and others are courtesy of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center or http://www.sprc.org/. They have many resources available to educators nationwide.

Here is one link to get you started on their site: http://www.sprc.org/basics/roles-suicide-prevention.
On the left are links to resources for further reading and for parents as well as other people within your school organizations.

May you find the information helpful and may you be successful when you do have to deal with these challenging situations.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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AP Test Review resources from Joe Swope

Posting yet another AP review resource - hope your test reviews are going well, and that your kids are fired up for the exam! Go AP Psych!

Joe Swope (psychology teacher/researcher extraordinaire, fantasy author, and friend of high school psychology) sent this link to the "Try It!" part of his site - here's Joe's description of the rousource:

" ... an unlimited number of practice tests.  I configured it for only 20 questions at a time with unlimited time.  Answers are readily available at the end or even during.  There are a few click on the right part of the brain, neuron, chart questions and even a few animated questions.  Each time a student refreshes they get a different set of 20 in a different order and even the ABCDE's are randomized.  My kids say they like it, but then again I also make them say that or else."

"Try It" psychology review resources from Joe


posted by Rob McEntarffer

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More AP Review resources

(written by the fabulous Kristin Whitlock, posted by Rob McEntarffer because he has more time to do it right now :) 

I have a few links that I thought the AP teachers beginning their reviews might find useful.

Khan Academy
These lectures were designed for students who are preparing to take the MCAT test.  But they could be very useful for your students in review.  Here's the link:
https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/behavior

Learnerator Guide for AP Psychology
I haven't looked at this one in much depth, but it provides online quizzes in the different content areas.  If anyone has tried this out, speak up!
http://www.learnerator.com/ap-psychology

Teaching High School Psychology Blog
There is a post with a number of links for review.  Chuck Schallhorn has some lectures posted for review.  There are also a number of teacher websites that have review information.
http://teachinghighschoolpsychology.blogspot.com/2012/04/ap-psych-exam-review-links.html


posted by Kristin Whitlock, via Rob McEntarffer

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Brain Games Episode Guides-One Document

Brain Games is our new favorite series in my classroom. My TAs watched all the episodes and did their best to identify the seasons, episode titles, and concepts mentioned. I am certain there are errors or omissions, but neither student has had AP Psych.

I finally had the chance to put the seasons together into one document. Click here for the Word document.

Season One
1.1 Pay Attention
1.2 Watch This!
1.3 Remember This!

Season Two
2.1 Focus Pocus
2.2 It's About Time
2.3 Motion Commotion
2.4 Don't Be Afraid
2.5 Power of Persuasion
2.6 What You Don't Know
2.7 Battle of the Sexes
2.8 Seeing is Believing
2.9 You Decide
2.10 Use It or Lose It
2.11 Illusion Confusion
2.12 Liar Liar!

Season Three
3.1 Battle of the Ages
3.2 In Living Color
3.3 Laws of Attraction
3.4 Trust Me
3.5 Stress Test
3.6 What's Going on?
3.7 In Living Color
3.8 Mind Your Body
3.9 Follow the Leader
Bonus: Brain Games DIY

Season 4
4.1 Compassion
4.2 Addiction
4.3 Language
4.4 Risk
4.5 Battle of the Sexes 2
4.6 Superstitions
4.7 Food
4.8 Anger
4.9 Patterns
4.10 Intuition
Bonus: Digital Extras

If you want to purchase the DVDs, you can find them here:











You can buy Season 5 on video on demand now with Amazon Video or order the DVDs later when they are released.

posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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The Brain Song

I was just assigning one of my brain projects and ran across this example of an original song and video for someone's class.  I really liked it and wanted to share.

Original, creative work can be both a great way to learn as well as a way to review.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYwOtTMUz0c



posted by Chuck Schallhorn

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Time for the return of appsychreview

Thanks to Aaron Collins for the inspiration for the image above. 

It's back! For the fourth consecutive year, Twitter will be abuzz with students looking for someone to assist them as they are reviewing for the AP Psych exam on May 4, 2015 - and "we" will be there to help them out. By "we" I mean myself, plus a whole bunch of other veteran AP Psych teachers, who are willing to offer advice, mnemonics, and just good explanations for confusing questions that vex students. By adding the hashtag #appsychreview to their tweets, students alert teachers they need help, and teachers reply with short answers and/or links to images, sites, or videos that help.







Here's an example of mine from last year:

Cool mnemonic: http://t.co/5rWqFDtONl MT @britt_lemmon: diff. btwn. Broca's and Wernicke's areas? #appsychreview
— Steve Jones (@highschoolpsych) April 17, 2014

The following is largely a repost from last year's post about #appsychreview - if you have questions, please post them in the comments or e-mail them to me (Steve).

INFO FOR STUDENTS
-----------
1) Use #appsychreview to get help with questions you are struggling with. Maybe you can't tell the difference between, say, retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Well, we can help with that. Or you need a way to remember Erikson's eight stages, and so we can send you to see the great Dr. Britt.

2) DO NOT use #appsychreview for basic questions.  Questions like "Who is Piaget?" or "What was Milgram's experiment about?" are ones that will either be ignored or at best you'll be re-directed to the Wikipedia pages for that subject.

3) Be considerate. If you have a dozen questions, don't post them all. Before posting, look for similar questions on #appsychreview - believe it or not, you're not the first asking about Piaget's stages.  Then post a question or two. Someone will probably answer your question within 24 hours - and if you don't see a reply to your tweet by then, feel free to send your tweet to me (@highschoolpsych).

4) This is not an on-demand guaranteed service. People who currently teach or formerly taught AP Psych will answer your question as best they can. If you need more intensive help, there are plenty of AP Psych review books to choose from.

INFO FOR TEACHERS
------------
1) PLEASE DO NOT encourage your students to use #appsychreview to ask questions to gain extra credit in your class. One day two years ago we had more than 100 tweets in 15 minutes because a well-meaning teacher told his students they would get extra credit for doing so. This is a volunteer service of real teachers who are giving their time to help out students, not a bunch of automated robots.

2) The biggest question I get is: how do I know I can trust that my students will get the correct answer? The short answer is you can't - there's no guarantee. But in the three years we've done this, I've never seen anyone give incorrect information. Sure, some folks give explanations in different ways than I would, but that's to be expected. What's more impressive is the dozens of tweets that I've read where *I* learned a brand new way to explain something, or about a new resource because another teacher pointed to it in her answer. If you see an answer you think is wrong, let me know.

3) If you're answering a question, it helps greatly to give a link to a site or to an image which helps to explain the concept. For example, the amazing @mariavita1 gave this great answer to a question about the phi phenomenon by giving a few words and then a link to a site that more fully explained it.

4) How do you answer a question? Just reply to the question and be sure to keep #appsychreview in the tweet. There's no application process and no minimum number to answer - just jump in when you can and help!

--posted by Steve

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Big Summaries

This blog post from WIRED magazine got me thinking about the value of "big summaries"

"What I Learning Writing a Brain Blog for 17 Months"

 I like how Christian Jarret tries to take the "long view" of brain research in his blog post. Summaries like this that attempt to pull together a LOT of current research and make judgment calls about overall trends/principles can be very valuable. It's easy to use the web to find "cool new current brain research," but it's a LOT harder to find wisdom about what all the research might "mean" in the long run.

A couple of related "wonderings":

• I wonder if students could do this about some topics. Could a student at the end of an intro psych experience tackle a "Big Summary" question, like "Given what you know from the developmental, biological, personality, and other chapters, what is wrong with the phrase "nature vs. nurture" and how would you restate it?"
• I wonder if an experience like this might help students review for the AP exam. Some FRQs require a level of synthesis across chapters, and going through a "big summary" experience might help student's practice this kind of thinking.

posted by Rob McEntarffer

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Guest Post: AP/IB Review ideas from Mike Corayer

Mike Corayer, an AP and IB Psychology at Shanghai High School, sent this review idea and hopes it's useful for you all! Thanks Mike! By the way, you can find more materials from Mike at http://www.psychexamreview.com/

Fill the Board

I write a general topic at the top of the whiteboard (such as Sensation and Perception) then I give 5 or 6 students markers and a few minutes to write or draw anything they remember from this topic. I encourage students to incorporate drawings as much as possible. Any drawings should also include some related terms, theories, or labels.

After the writing is finished, students return to their seats and I head to the board to briefly go over all the terms, names, and drawings. At this point, we can add any related terms that might be missing and I try to get students to come up with these by asking questions.

I encourage the students to work together while they're writing on the board. This isn't a test and the purpose is not to judge. If a student is stuck,  other students should provide suggestions. Sometimes one student will write a single term which triggers another student to think of a related term and the board starts getting filled up that way. Even a “misplaced” term (from another topic or chapter) isn't  wrong because it gives me a chance to review that term and make sure students know why it is or is not related to the main topic we're reviewing.

One potential criticism of this technique is that students are just reviewing what they can already recall and therefore what they probably don't need to review! While this might be true for each individual student writing on the board, if there are several volunteers writing I generally find that we get a wide variety of terms and concepts. If we don't, this indicates that this is a topic I need to go over in more detail and students can clearly see the gaps in their knowledge in the white space left on the board.

Variations

Teamwork

One way to vary this is to simply create teams and cover multiple topics simultaneously. For instance, I might write “Consciousness” on one half of the board and “Personality” on the other. Then I give students different colored markers for each topic and they work in teams to fill their side of the board. They might even feel a little competition for which side can come up with more items.

Category Challenge

Write a general category (such as Memory) on the board, then one at a time, each team writes a related term on the board (no using notes!). If they write a term, they have to be able to explain what it means if I ask. The next team then writes another term related to the general category. This continues back and forth until one of the teams can no longer think of any terms related to the chapter (or if they write a related term but can't explain it).

Connect the Dots

This is a variation I use in my IB classes, where longer essay assessments often require students to make connections across multiple perspectives. In this case, things begin as normal, and I might write two general topics on the board and send groups of students up to start writing. After the board is full, we briefly review the terms, and I might add a few that were missing.

Next I give out different-colored markers to a few students. Their job is to circle something from one side of the board and then draw a line across the board and connect it to something on the other side. After a few connections are found (not everything will be connected to something) I ask the students to explain why they made that connection and what the relationship is between the two items.

I hope these ideas can help you to have more interactive and engaging review sessions, let me know if you have any questions and be sure to share any other ideas in the comments!

posted by Rob McEntarffer

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