We’re pleased to announce that we’ve added another support pack to the store. Chapter 5 – Love and Marriage is now ready to roll. Go to our store (link) and you’ll find our support packs We’ve tried to make the resource better by implementing some feedback: We’ve made them easier to edit so teachers can adapt them more easily We’ve …
When drug trials go wrong…
When testing a new drug there always has to be volunteers for the first human participants to take the drug. But what happens if the trial fails. Like, fails really badly? This is what happened in 2006 when eight male volunteers signed up to be participants in a “first in humans” study. The treatment was a proposed cancer treatment, but …
So you want to assess population validity?
If you’re reading this it might be because you’ve written something like this in your answer and tried to fob it off as critical thinking: “One of the limitations of this study was that it has a small sample size and so lacks population validity.” The thing to remember when trying to show critical thinking is that it takes …
5 reasons why evaluating every study is a bad idea.
I’ve been teaching the new IB Psychology course for two months and haven’t evaluated a single study in my class. In this post you’ll see why. If you’re evaluating all the studies you’re using in your course, I’d strongly recommend dropping this approach in favour of some alternative approaches. In this post I’ll explain why I think “evaluating as you …
5 teacher tips for evaluating studies
This post goes with my other post about why it’s a bad idea to evaluate studies “as you go.” Tip 1: Drip-feed critical thinking extensions when students are ready… I introduce evaluative points of studies when individual students are ready for it. In all of my lessons I follow the very basic CHACER structure. The E is for Extend and …
Teaching Idea: Question Counters
Question-driven lessons are by far the most effective way to cause learning and the students that ask the most questions tend to achieve the highest. But if your students are anything like mine, there’s always a few who like to hide in the shadows and never ask questions, or they struggle and toil away on their own thinking that it’s …
T.E.A.C.U.P…and why I don’t use it.
Yesterday I posted about how to evaluate psychological theories in three simple steps. I mentioned John Crane’s popular acronym T.E.A.C.U.P, which stands for: testable, evidence, applications, construct validity, unbiased and predictive validity. (It can be found on John’s website, too). This is an alternative to my “Let’s make a DEAL” framework for evaluating theories. You can see that my DEAL framework …
Let’s make a D.E.A.L – evaluating theories in three simple steps
I teach my students to look for three things when evaluating theories: Evidence Applications Limitations Let’s make a D.E.A.L Most students are capable of independently explaining these three things. When teaching essay writing on theories I teach students to use my own “Let’s make a D.E.A.L” strategy and not TEACUP. D.E.A.L Describe the theory Explain the Evidence Applications of the theory …
Lesson Idea: Hot Seat – Group Edition
I often lament that I don’t have more time in my class to allow students to develop their presentation skills. This basic consolidation activity is just one small way I can get… Students to review previous content Collaboration and co-operation A sample of student understanding from previous lessons A chance to hear students speak and verbalize their learning Students out …
It’s so easy to get a 7 in Paper One…
….or at least, it should be. Note: This is for the old syllabus, exams 2011 – 2018 Let’s crunch some numbers… 70% is the mark to get a 7 (approximately). 4% of IB Psych’ students get 7s. 46 marks are available in Paper One. 32/46 will get you 70%. So by looking at the above numbers, let’s see one possible …