Mr. Cantor's AP Psychology Blog

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Unit 2 - History of Psychology Chapter 1

If you're ready to have your big brain explode, our friend Hank Green does a great job of laying out the basics of the history of psych too... be ready for some rapid-fire knowledge with this one.

You can watch it directly on Youtube too.

Some timelines of the history of psychology:

http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/history/history_nonflash.html

http://allpsych.com/timeline/#.VgioYGRViko

http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/psychistory.htm

And... a sample from a comic called Action Philosophers
http://www.actionphilosophers.com/eviltwin_actionphilosophers_preview.pdf

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Unit 1 - Chapter 7: Memory - How we remember, why we forget.

Unit 1 Chapter 7 Memory

Key ideas from Memory Unit:

Encoding, episodic vs. semantic and procedural memory, explicit vs. implicit memory, maintenance and rehearsal strategies to improve memory, various models of how memory works such as PDP and Info Processing, understand the difference between sensory, short term, and long term memory, compare recency and primacy effects, understand what affects memory retrieval, understand the limits of eye-witness testimony, Herman Ebbinghauss , compare retroactive and proactive interference, compare retrograde and anterograde amnesia,

*****Use mnemonics and distributed practice to learn all this stuff and know why you are remembering and forgetting.

Good overview of basic memory concepts.

http://allpsych.com/psychology101/memory.html

A whole site dedicated to human memory... very helpful. It has this very complete concept map.
http://www.human-memory.net/types.html

Crash Course Psychology with our friend Hank!
How we make memories...

Remembering and Forgetting

Some fun memory games you can do online

http://www.exploratorium.edu/memory/dont_forget/index.html

Elizabeth Loftus's Ted Talk - The Fiction of Memory... the rape conviction of an innocent man...

NOVA: How Memory Works

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/how-memory-works.html

Article - What Science Says about Ferguson: Hacked memory. We may all be working from different sets of "facts" about the same event.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/fayeflam/2014/12/01/what-science-says-about-the-ferguson-case-memory-can-be-hacked/

This is not specifically about memory, but about implicit associations we make about people.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ You can take some of the Implicit Association Tests to see what some of your implicit associations about people and groups are. I’m putting it with this unit as an example of implicit vs. explicit thought processes.

Story from National Public Radio (NPR) about H.M., the man who had the bilateral removal of his hippocampus (What is the plural of hippocampus?) and ended up with the nearly complete inability to form new memories. Find out why he had his hippocampus removed and learn about this amazing case study of anterograde amnesia.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7584970

And an article from Psychology Today about H.M.

This video clip was made based on 2000 slices that were made of H.M.'s brain after he died in 2008.

The movie Memento was the first feature film by star director Christopher Nolan who went on to direct The Dark Night and Inception. It is a fictional film about a character who, like H.M., loses the ability to create any new memories, but still tries to solve a horrible crime.

It is rated R due to some very violent content and adult language. If that sort of film is acceptable to you and your parents, you can stream it on Netflix or rent it. It's definitely not appropriate for younger siblings.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/

Friday, September 4, 2015

Summer Assignment Parts 3 and 4 - Due on Tuesday 9/8

Part 3 Due the FIRST day of class Complete all the study-guide questions for “Phineas Gage” by John Fleischman in your AP Psych Notebook.

Part 4. Due the First day of class: Read AND take Cornell Notes and make Flash-Cards for chapter 7, MEMORY, in the Bernstein psychology textbook. You will keep these notes and flashcards all year and use them as you study for the AP Exam, so have a good notebook or binder that will last all year. The main thing to do when you take notes is ORGANIZE the information in such a way that it makes sense to you. Write questions and your own thoughts about the material as well as headings and subheadings in the left column of your notes. The more you can connect this material to information you already know or experiences you’ve had, the better you will learn and understand the material.

We’re reading Ch7 first because many students have said that it helped them learn to memorize new terms and concepts. This knowledge will help you all year and beyond. Review the Key Ideas listed below to be sure they’re in your notes, flashcards and brain.

Key ideas from Memory Unit / Chapter 7:

*****Use mnemonics and distributed practice to learn all this stuff and know why you are remembering and forgetting.

It’s also a great idea to skim through the textbook to familiarize yourself with the topics we’ll be learning all year. Jot down questions you have on sticky-notes and put them in your book so you remember to ask them when we get to the unit.

On the first day of class be prepared to discuss the Phineas Gage book as well as Chapter 7 of the Bernstein text.

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Summer Assignment Part 2: Review of Phineas Gage Book Due Aug 24th.

After you have read Phineas Gage and worked on the Phineas Gage Reading Guide Questions you should post your review of the book in the COMMENTS to THIS blog post. Please read all the instructions below before writing your Book Review. (use the "comment" link below this post)

Your comment should be a review of the book. A book review is a critical assessment of the book in which you share your opinions (claims) about the book and back up those opinions with examples from the book (evidence). Be sure to describe the story AND the style of the book.

Some questions you might want to think about as you write: What did you think of the book? What did you find most interesting? What are some new or surprising things you learned from the book? Why do you think Phineas was "lucky" or "unlucky?" Are there other texts (books, movies, etc.) that relate to the story of Phineas? Why or why would you not recommend it to a friend?

As with the last blog assignment, I will not show the comments until the deadline so everyone has a chance to work on the assignment without being too influenced by other peoples' work. Do not re-send your post multiple times.

Please note: As always you can e-mail me with questions. If you're having trouble with the blog, just e-mail me your comment so you have evidence you completed it before the deadline.

Here are a couple of links about writing a good book review:

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/teenagers/writing-tips/tips-for-writing-book-reviews/

http://www.ttms.org/say_about_a_book/whats_a_book_review.htm

Here is a review of the book, The Hunger Games you can use as an example of a book review. Of course it's about a fictional novel, not a non-fiction book like Phineas Gage.

http://childrensbooks.about.com/od/productreviews/fr/The-Hunger-Games-review.htm

And just for fun....

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

BLOG POST 1- PART 1 OF THE SUMMER ASSIGNMENT - DUE JULY 20

Welcome to AP Psychology at North-Grand!

Be sure to sign up for our Remind 101 text alerts using the code on your syllabus.

Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments!

Read all these instructions carefully before beginning!

Go to this link about the Ten Most Revealing Psychology Experiments and read through the summaries of all ten of them.

***** If the above link is broken (or even if it's not) you can use the following link as an alternative set of experiments to get you started : 10 Famous Psychology Experiments that Could Never Happen Today This link is really about the ethics of doing these experiments on humans and animals, but you can use it as a starting point, then use Google to find other sources about the experiments themselves.

Select one of the experiments that you think is interesting. Click on the link in the summary to start your research about that experiment. Read through the information and seek out other information online. There may be good YouTube videos or other sources you should investigate. You can also look up some of the experiments or the experimenters in your textbook.

In your comment to THIS BLOG POST please do the following to complete the assignment:

1. Summarize the experiment. Include who did it, when they did it,where they did it, and what they did.

2. Explain the importance of the experiment to our understanding of human behavior. Make a claim about why you think the experiment is considered to have provided a valuable insight into the way people think and/or act?

3. Give one example of how the experiment can be applied to everyday life. You can use yourself or someone you know in the example, or make up an example that you think the experiment might apply to in normal life.

4. At the end of your post include all sources (full URLs, please) and sign the post with your first name and just the initial letter of your last name (for example: Phillip D.)

5. To send your comment please click the "Name/URL" option and put your first name and last initial in the "Name" box. Don't fill in the URL box.

I strongly suggest that you write your comment in Word or other program first so you can check your spelling etc. and then just paste it into the comments at the end of this post.This will also allow you to save your work in case the blog does something strange.

Your post should be 3 to 5 paragraphs long and should demonstrate some original thinking on your part. Do not cut-and-paste or copy any text directly.

Your comment will not show up on the blog until close to the due-date, as I want everyone to approach the project without being biased by seeing the posted work of others in the class. If you aren't sure if your comment went through you may e-mail me and I'll let you know. Please don't keep re-sending it over and over. If your comment is too long, it may not let you post it and show an error message. If this happens, try breaking your comment up into 2 or 3 parts and label them appropriately.

If you have any questions please e-mail me. I usually reply to e-mails within a day or two. Before sending me an e-mail, please read my "How to email a teacher" post from my biology blog ... really. http://cantorsbiologyblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-send-e-mail-to-teacher-really.html

If you're having trouble figuring out how to comment, you can watch this handy video.

Keep working on the rest of your summer assignment from the Bernstein Textbook and the Phineas Gage book.