History of Psychology Presentations Sept. 19(a) Sept. 21(b)

Work on your "History of Psych" presentations. Be sure to save your work often and e-mail me your powerpoint when you are done. Be sure to PRACTICE what you plan to say so you don't read off your slides and bore everyone to distraction.

(Image from http://havefunwithpsychology.com/)

Unit 1 Reading assignment due Sept. 14 (a) and 15 (b)

We will be checking the notes and study guide assignment for Unit 1 - Introducing Psychology on Monday Sept. 14, and Tuesday Sept. 15. Be sure to follow the instructions on the reading assignment sheet which can be found with our other documents on Our AP Psych site. Bring your flashcards to class so I can check those too.

If you are a new member of the class and you don't have a textbook, please let me know as soon as possible. I have already notified the school and we are trying to fix the problem. In the mean time, if you have a study guide, use that as much as you can and find a "study buddy" who has a book you can share.

Finally, If you were given a copy of the book, "5 Steps to a 5" please bring it to school so we can return it. Those books will be used in the classroom and should not have been signed out to students.

All our documents will be online

You will find "Important Links" at the top right of this blog page. >>>>>

If you click on the link there to our AP Psych Website you will find links to all the important documents we will be using in our class. The syllabus and summer assignment are there for those who are new to the class, as well as the first reading assignment, table of contents and reading instructions.

Welcome back to School!

It's a new school year and it's going to be great. I've looked at many of the blogs you created over the summer and am impressed by some of the insightful and interesting posts you wrote.

If you didn't make the July 20th deadline for your blog post please get it done ASAP and send me an e-mail explaining why you didn't make the deadline. For example if you didn't register for the class until August 10th, I'll take that into account.

Some students have asked if I accept late work and the answer is, "YES!" I take points off if the work is late for a reason other than an excused absence, but the point of this class is to LEARN and you can't learn if you don't do the work. If you know ahead of time that you may not get an assignment in on time, talk to me BEFORE it's due so we can make an arrangement.

I'll collect the Phineas Gage study guide questions and check your notes on Chapter 1 of the Bernstein text on the first day of class, which is Sept. 8th (a-day) or Sept. 9th (b-day.)

Finally, check out this recently discovered photo of Phineas Gage (above.) The photo was probably used in an advertisement for an appearance that Mr. Gage was promoting. Did you know who it was as soon as you saw the photo?

Assignment #1 2009-2010 What is an academic blog? Due July 20th

Hello and welcome to your AP Psychology blog. This site will be a useful tool for you to keep up in AP Psych. You will also create your own blog

This assignment is due on Monday, July 20 by 4:00 PM. Read through this whole assignment before beginning to work on your new blog. Several students have had to redo some steps because they didn't read the assignment all the way through.

This entry is taken with some modifications from Ms. Knudson's "Explorations in Literature" blog. Thank you, Ms. Knudson!

Most of you are familiar with the idea of a Blog, which is short for "Weblog," essentially a web space where people can post ideas, opinions, share links, etc. Some popular blog sites with which you are probably familiar include this one, Blogger, but also ones such as MySpace, WordPress, Facebook, and others.

What made blogs revolutionary is that they provided authors with the ability to easily share their ideas and resources with audiences in a way that was never possible. Back in the early days of the Internet, in the 1990s, people who wanted to do this had to build a web site, separate pages, etc., and it was much more cumbersome to do the same sort of thing that recent technology has enabled us to do within minutes. Richardson writes that instead of being based on "static chunks of content," blogs are "comprised of reflections and conversations" that "engage readers with ideas and questions and links. They ask readers to respond. They demand interaction" (18).

While most of you are familiar with using blogs for social purposes -- to keep in touch with friends, discuss matters of daily life, etc., -- most of you are not familiar with using a blog for academic purposes, to extend conversations that begin in the classroom or with your reading. In this way, academic blogs, while they have a social aspect, are much more focused as learning tools. Richardson cites Fernette and Brock Eide's research on blogging as having an enormous positive impact on students, in that they:


*Promote critical and analytical thinking
*Are powerful promoters of creative, intuitive, and associative thinking
*Promote analogical thinking
*Are a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information, and
Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction (2005)


So how will you be using your academic blog in this class?
Good question.

The answer is that you will be using it in several ways.

Consider your audience.

First, you will be using it to learn how to blog. Remember, your audience for an academic blog is much different than your audience for a social blog. When you are writing for a social blog, your audience usually consists of your immediate social group -- your friends. However, when you are writing an academic blog, your audience is much different, consisting of teachers, professors, scholars, or others throughout the world who may have in interest in your academic topic, so how you express yourself becomes an important focus. For example, you would not write for a teacher or a professor the same way you would text message a friend. The language you use will be much different as will the form and content.

You will also be using your blog to complete class writing assignments. Writing assignments will be consist of the following types (not necessarily in this order):

expository
creative
peer commentary
project-based
reflective

An added bonus is that this medium is paper free, so we're engaging in academic work that is both online and environmentally green.

ASSIGNMENT #1 -- 10 points

Creating Your Academic Blog

Even though many of you have social blogs, when you create your academic blog it will have a distinctly different look. You will have to create a free gmail account if you don't already have one. Go to Blogger.com to create your site, please be sure to go to the Settings portion and select "NO" when it asks you if you want your site to be profiled in search engines, etc.

Once you have created your site and your first assignment, please email the full URL address of your blog to me at mr.cantor@gmail.com so I am able be create a link to it on my master site. For example, the full URL address of my blog is http://cantorsappsychologyblog.blogspot.com .

Any time you e-mail me or any teacher, please put a relevant subject in the subject line of your e-mail and sign your full name in the body of your e-mail. For example, the subject of the e-mail you send me about this assignment could be something like, "AP Psych Blog URL & Assignemtn #1."

Requirements:


Your site should be appropriate for an academic setting, following code of conduct guidelines
Do not put any personal identifying information on your site (no last name, age, place of residence, etc.)
Your site should have a title - Make it unique, relevant and creative.
Your site should have a links section (this will be for academic links that you find that are connected to your research)
Make sure fonts are easy to read and the page is not too busy -- this is an academic blog, remember. Don't use colors or complex backgrounds which make it hard to read.
Always write in complete sentences and proofread your work before posting. Use the spell-checker that is part of Blogger.
Each assignment should be specifically titled with the assignment number as well as a descriptive title.

Your first blog writing assignment should be your first post.

Writing assignment #1 How do you feel about blogging?- (10 pts) 3 paragraphs

In a short essay, describe your experience creating this blog. Some aspects of this experience you should address: What is your prior blogging experience? Is this the first time you've set up a blog or are you already a seasoned pro? How did it feel to do it? How do you think it will help you to do high quality assignments in AP Psych? How do you feel about having your work up on the Internet where other students and teachers can read it... or complete strangers?


To get all the points for this assignment you must e-mail me the link to your blog by July 20 at 4:00 PM. Your site must follow the above guidelines and must include your first post with a response to assignment #1. If you have questions please e-mail me well before the deadline at mr.cantor@gmail.com.

Pavlov's Classical Conditioning by Zulma and Cynthia

Click on the video and let us know what you think.

Final AP Psych Assignment - Record on Tuesday, June 2

You will work with one or two partners to create a 3 to 5 minute video segment for use in next year’s AP psychology class.

1. Select your partner(s) – work with someone you haven’t already worked with this year.
2. Select your topic – you may choose any part of any topic that we’ve studied this year. Be specific… don’t pick “biological psych,” rather, pick “the hypothalamus.”
3. Plan out and write your video script. You may use narration, dramatic skits, images, storyboards, animation, interviews, or any other form of expression as long as it gets the concept across to your audience.
4. We will film the segments during the class set aside for our final exam (Tuesday June 2nd) If you have a digital video camera you may bring it.
5. We will do any necessary editing after that class or I will do it over the summer.

If you are absent the day of shooting you will need to find a makeup time to do the filming, or do the filming on your own.

Some samples to give you ideas:
A tour of the structure and function of the hypothalamus – show pictures of and describe what different parts of the hypothalamus do.
A skit to show classical conditioning occurring… one student plays Pavlov and one student plays one of Pavlov’s dogs.
A reenactment of the Milgram obedience experiment.
A song or rap explaining the main functions of all the lobes of the brain and the divisions of the nervous system.
Mini-documentary about a mental illness that you or someone close to you has.

Scoring of assignment:

Demonstration of understanding of the chosen concept: 20 pts
Participation in and contribution to group effort: 20 pts
Originality and creativity of ideas and presentation: 10 pts