UPDATE: Clips for Class is now operational

A few months back I prematurely announced the debut of Clips for Class, a collection of video clips for intro psych classes all combined in one site. Today I got an e-mail that the site is ready and -- yes, I checked it out this time! -- it is fully operational. There are multiple videos in each tab and many of the ones I checked out were new to me. A great resource! If you find some that are especially helpful, please share them in the comments.

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Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs and Pregnancy

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists publishes a pamphlet on the effects of tobacco, alcohol and drugs on a pregnancy. The pamphlet can be read online or converted into a "printer friendly" format for mass production. Even though the article is written to a pregnant women, students can come away with a wealth of material. The pamphlet is located at http://www.acog.org/publications/patient_education/bp170.cfm

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Louis Wain and the Cat Paintings from Psychosis

I've been fascinated by the Louis Wain pictures of cats that he allegedly drew while increasingly being affected by psychosis. In fact, the four-picture progression is in both my regular and AP textbooks. Wain, to my surprise, was a long-time artist who drew cats with human expression for some years. One set of pictures is here. According to Mindhacks, the progression is false and they make their case with a history of Wain and his psychosis with more detail than I ever knew existed about the artist. Fascinating. This publisher site has more detail about Wain's life and more drawings of his cats. Mindhacks also has this link to more Wain work. Enjoy.

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American Psychological Foundation Pre-College Psychology Grant Program

PRE-COLLEGE PSYCHOLOGY GRANT PROGRAM

American Psychological Foundation (APF) Mission and Funding

The APF provides financial support for innovative research and programs that enhance the power of psychology to elevate the human condition and advance human potential both now and in generations to come. It executes this mission through a broad range of scholarships and grants. For all of these, it encourages applications from individuals who represent diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, and sexual orientation.

The Pre-college program awards grants to individuals or institutions to advance psychological science in high schools. Its description, application requirements, and procedures appear below.

Description

This program provides financial support for efforts aimed at improving the quality of education in psychological science and its application in the secondary schools. Proposals must focus on supplying education for talented high school students.

Program Goals

- Improve the quality of high-school education in psychology

- Encourage talented high school students to pursue careers in psychology

Funding Specifics

- Up to $20,000 annually

Eligibility Requirements

- Educational institution, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, or individual affiliated with qualifying institution

Evaluation Criteria

- Conformance with stated program goals

- Nature and magnitude of incremental contribution

- Capability for accomplishing the proposed work

- Likelihood of producing generalizable outcomes

Proposal Requirements

- Description of proposed project to include goal and its relation to the institution’s mission and target population, qualifications for execution, other participants and respective roles, intended outcomes and plan for achieving them, extent to which outcomes may generalize

Format: not to exceed 7 pages (1 inch margins, no smaller than 11 point font)

- Timeline for execution

- Full budget and justification (indirect costs not permitted)

- Current CV for project leader

Submission Process and Deadline

Submit a completed application online at http://forms.apa.org/apf/grants/ by May 1, 2010.

Questions about this program should be directed to Kim Palmer Rowsome, Program Officer, at krowsome@apa.org.

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Video on SIDS Prevention

The U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health through their Medline Plus program has a short and to the point (1:41) video clip on the prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The video provides a short description of SIDS and ways for parents to prevent their child being the victim of crib death.

The clip can be found at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/videos/news/sids_102009.html For more information on SIDS go to http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/suddeninfantdeathsyndrome.html

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Mindstorm and Schizophrenia

The following link is to a page by Janssen.com, a pharmaceutical subsidiary, describing the virtual reality tour to illustrate using all the senses how life might feel to one who is schizophrenic. The video has several disclaimers and warnings as well as a first-person video account of a day in the life of one person. I used it recently in class to highlight what it might be like for one who suffers from multiple symptoms. My students had a variety of reactions from "weird" to "that's scary" and "that's intense." Along with much contextualizing that I did, the students got a sense of mostly auditory hallucinations.

http://www.janssen.com/janssen/news_mindstorm.html

The site describes it this way:
A Virtual Hallucination: MINDSTORM is an invaluable teaching aid for medical students, physicians, the healthcare community, and law enforcement personnel. The simulation has the potential to create empathy for a frightening condition that most people can barely imagine.

It is worth a preview for a possible inclusion for your unit on disorders

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The Visible Embryo

The Visible Embryo takes a visual tour through prenatal development from fertilization to birth. For each of the various periods of the pregnancy, basic information is provided about fetal size, weight and development. The site also includes a chart detailing prescription drugs on fetal development. The Visible Embryo can be found at http://www.visembryo.com/baby/index.html

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Sand Painting and Perception

I recently showed a video from YouTube that had a long clip from an Eastern European nation (I suspect Ukraine or Russia, but am not sure. The video was from a talent show for that nation that involved a woman using a light board, creating images with a camera mounted above and projected to the audience. The scenes evoked images from World War II and the images along with the music brought tears to the eyes of the judges and audience members. We discussed how non-total images can create conclusions of perception due to perceptual sets and learning. Other aspects of perception include edge detection, pattern recognition, emotions and memory, music and emotions, figure-ground, gestalt, and more. We also spoke about the "eye" of an artist and how artists often see the world in a different way than the rest of us--oh, yeah--schemas. The possibilities are quite wonderful. Even better, my students were moved by the creative force illustrated here. It was a good day.

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LIVE -- H.M.'s brain being dissected!

I know, I know -- It's actually the slicing of the brain into ultra-thin sections by the use of a microtome but still -- they're AT THIS MOMENT at UCSD dissecting the brain of one of the most famous patients in the history of psychology, H.M. Check out http://thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hm_live.php to see the live slicing or the project blog for more information.

For more on the life of Henry Gustav Molaison (who died last December) check out these links courtesy of Wikipedia -- and please add more in the comments if you have them!

H.M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82 (NYT)
H.M.'s Brain and the History of Memory (NPR)
SCIENCE OF MEMORY: Researchers To Study Pieces Of Unique Brain (Hartford Courant)


EDIT: Kudos to Virginia Welle who had a faster (and better) post about this before I did! Sorry, Virginia, if I had seen yours first I would have just pointed everyone to your site. Regardless, here's her post: http://pumaattack.blogspot.com/2009/12/project-hm-watch-dissection.html

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The History of the Advanced Placement Program

While not directly related to our Midnight Postings current topic of intelligence, I think many students and teachers may find any of the following links interesting, especially those involved in an AP Psychology program.

All three articles are published by the College Board, but each has a different "flavor" to it depending on which audience the author is writing to.

The History of the AP Program
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/program/history/8019.html

A brief history of the Advanced Placement Program
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/ap/ap_history_english.pdf

The History of the AP Program
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/21502.html

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