"Why so serious?" meme - this year's "This is Sparta!"

Last year thousands of students inserted the phrase "This is Sparta!" into their AP essays. It looks like this year the phrase will be "Why so serious?" http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ap-tests-preparation/670387-why-so-serious-putting-smile-ap-test-graders-faces.html

What do you all think of this new tradition? It was actually amusing at the AP psych reading last year, but I was a little worried how student would respond this year after succeeding so well last year. How would you react if you knew your students participated? Does this worry or amuse you?

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New AP Psychology Course Description

The College Board has just released a new edition of the AP Psychology Course Description, commonly called the "Acorn Book", for the May 2010 and May 2011 exams. This book, written by the AP Psychology Test Development Committee, provides the primary framework of a typical AP Psychology course.

The Test Development Committee has re-designed much of the Acorn Book to include learning objectives for each of the fourteen content areas. This is a "must read" for all AP Psychology teachers this summer.

The new Acorn Book can be found at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/ap-psychology-course-description.pdf within the AP Central website or purchased from the College Board store at http://store.collegeboard.com.

A special thanks to Mary Spilis of Charlevoix, MI for providing the genesis for this posting. Please send any ideas you might have for future postings on the Teaching High School Psychology blog to Kent Korek at kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us or any of the other moderators.

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Wiki Pages

I took a slightly different twist on Wikis than Rob is proposing in the previous posting. When someone mentions wikis most people's thoughts turn to Wikipedia, the online free encyclopedia. A wiki, as defined by Wikipedia, is "any website that uses wiki software..." The key to most wikis is the software used and collaborative nature of the work. I wanted to take this concept and apply it to a group project for my AP Psychology students.

For many, many years, just prior to the AP Psychology Exam, I had my students work in groups to create review outlines of the various AP Psychology units. These outlines were then reproduced for everyone to use in their preparations for the exam. Students found the project very useful. For me the activity was, as most group projects are, a bit difficult to grade as you could never tell who was truly responsible for what. In addition, it was very hard to quickly reproduce the needed copies for over 125 students.

This year, rather than create paper reviews outlines, the students created electronic wiki outlines. Wikispaces (one of a number of companies that provides this service) at http://www.wikispaces.com provides free wiki space for teachers. Students worked on their outlines by going to the website, making needed changes right on the main document.

The site allows me to restrict membership to just my students and tracks all changes made to each page. I could look at the history page for each outline and see exactly what each student did. I must admit I still had some problems distinguishing who did what as some groups delegated the task of uploading all the material to the wiki page to one student. The site even includes a discussion page which some students used to work out problems they were having with the wiki word processor.

The activity was far from problem free and I have a number of changes for next year. Please contact me at kkorek@germantown.k12.wi.us if you are interested in hearing about those or for more information on the wiki outline project. For the first time through, I felt the project was successful enough to warrant repeating next year.

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Your Students = Wikipedia Editors

Anyone ever edited or contributed to a Wikipedia page? I've been fascinated with Wikipedia's group editing process since I first heard about the idea, and I've always wanted to get students involved. I tried to get this rolling in my psychology club this year, but we ran into too many snags with our district's firewall. So I thought I'd share the idea with y'all and hope that some enterprising psych teacher can actually get this done.

Here was my plan: ask students to poke around in psychology topics on Wikipedia until they find a page for a psych topic (term, concept, experiment, psychologist, etc.) that seems "thin" - one that needs more information, better information, better references, etc. (My choice would have been http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Kirke_Wolfe - Wolfe deserves more than that entry!). Then your students research to fill in the gaps, write up potential revisions to the page, and submit the changes to Wikipedia. Hopefully there are other "editors" out there in Wiki-space who are monitoring that page and the students will get the experience of discussing the potential changes and going through a revision process. In the end, your students may see their work represented permanently on Wikipedia and they will be much more experienced not only in their chosen topic, but in the process of "Web 2.0" knowledge "creation" and writing.

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APA Topics Page

The American Psychological Association's (APA) Topics page provides basic information on a variety of subjects. Each subject area includes articles from APA press releases, books & videos, journals, internal APA resources and the journal Monitor on Psychology. While many of the links are designed for the layperson, high school students can find a wealth of information.

Click on any of the topic areas below or go to the main listing at http://www.apa.org/topics/

Abortion
Addictions  
ADHD 
Aging 
Alzheimer's 
Anger 
Anxiety 
Autism 
Bipolar disorder 
Bullying 
Children 
Death & dying 
Depression 
Eating disorders 
Emotional health 
Ethics
Hate crimes 
Hypnosis 
Intelligence 
Kids & the media 
Law & psychology 
Learning & memory 
Marriage & divorce 
Natural disasters 
Obesity 
Parenting 
Personality 
PTSD 
Race 
Schizophrenia 
Sexual Abuse
Sexuality 
Shyness 
Sleep 
Stress 
Suicide 
Teens 
Testing issues 
Therapy 
Trauma 
Violence 
Women & men 
Workplace issues 

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Terrific Gestalt examples

Graphicdesignblog.org has a great post of corporate logos with "hidden messages" that are also perfect examples to use when discussing Gestalt psychology. From closure to figure-ground to continuity (and more!) here are 25 examples that would be great for students to dissect.

I used the FedEx logo in class earlier this year -- I found it on a page of Gestalt examples and had no idea what principle it represented! When I finally saw the arrow I knew I had to use that example in class.

Do you have other similar stories or favorite Gestalt examples? Share them in the comments!

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E-Psych

Funded through grants from the NSF, ePsych is a web site designed to teach students at all levels, the concepts of a traditional introductory psychology course using learning modules, guidebooks and interactive activities. Students can perform Java based experiments, use video clips and animated diagrams.

Still in the development state, ePsych has a large number of activities for units taught earlier in the year/semester (biological influences, sensation, and perception), though a version of a Skinner Box is included.

ePsych can be accessed at http://epsych.msstate.edu/ Please leave a comment with your impressions if you have used ePsych in your classroom.

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The Speed of Information and Our Place in the World

While this does not relate directly to the teaching of psychology, it does relate to our growth as learners and implications on both teaching and learning. It is a video called, "Did You Know?" and it contains a number of statistical facts about technology, the number of people in the world/regions of the world, and global competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpEnFwiqdx8

The original video on YouTube was described this way: Wonderful, concise video that helps raise awareness of the issues of globalization in our newly connected world first raised in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat. Karl Fisch remixed content from David Warlick, Thomas Friedman, Ian Jukes, Ray Kurzweil and others, added some music, and came up with the following presentation.

Version 3.0 is described this way: 3.0 for 2008 - Newly Revised Edition Created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod; Globalization & The Information Age. It was even adapted by Sony BMG at an executive meeting they held in Rome this year. Credits are also given to Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman

Within a psychology class, one could use it as an exercise in critical thinking. What do you think the authors' intentions were with the video? How would the average American view this video--any emotional reactions? If so, why? Were the positive or negative emotions-explain. Are the statistics accurate? If they are, how are they being used in crafting a message about the future of the world and our role as Americans within the world? What messages are being sent? How does the video use images? Does it over or underwhelm? Explain. How is text used to create a message? One could even go into personality theories and how each might react to this (e.g. Adler and inferiority complex, Rogers and unconditional positive regard, etc.)

I leave it to our readers to add their own questions to the comments section.

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2009 Illusion of the Year

The 2009 Illusion of the year has been announced! And its a good one - a powerful motion illusion. It works well for me on my screen and I bet it would work well for an entire class if it was projected. My challenge with these perceptual illusions is always relating them to the perception principles in the text (they are often VERY complex) but the description provided for this illusion is pretty clear. The web site also allows viewers to change the parameters of the illusion, etc.

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Advanced Placement Summer Institutes (APSI)

As our thoughts of preparing for the AP Psychology Exam turn to the end of the school year, many teachers start thinking about AP Summer Institutes (APSI). These week long adventures designed for both the beginning and seasoned AP teacher, provide valuable insights into the teaching of any AP Psychology course. I've heard many a teacher say the APSI is probably the one best thing that has helped their teaching of AP Psychology with the possible exception of being a reader.

AP Psychology Advanced Placement Summer Institutes (APSI)are offered at over 50 locations throughout the country, and designed for new, experienced or both new and experienced AP teachers. Most last four or five days and are run by endorsed consultants of the College Board.

To learn more about a specific institute, go to the Institutes and Workshop section of AP Central at http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/Pageflows/InstitutesAndWorkshops/InstitutesAndWorkshopsController.jpf The site includes a search engine where you can find a APSI in your part of the country. You can search by topic, date, and/or location.

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