If you like the CHACER lesson structure, or even if you’re just after a new recapping idea for the start of lessons, I like this activity because like all of my favourites: it takes minimal preparation has maximum student engagement it’s differentiated and relevant and it gives me some basic data on student progress The basic premise is that in …
Lesson idea: Consolidate learning with a quick game of “Key Term Tennis”
Credit for the “Key Term Tennis” activity (originally called “Verbal Tennis” goes to the late, great Paul Ginnis. I highly recommend his book, “The Teacher’s Toolkit” (Find it on amazon here). It’s filled with excellent activity ideas. At ThemEd we’re all about the practicalities of teaching, as the last thing education needs is more theory. I’ve always been a fan …
Lesson Idea: Key Terms Traffic Lights
One of the biggest challenges for many IB Psychology students is the massive amount of new vocabulary. At ThemED we’ve tried to help with this by having a full, 10 page-400+ key term glossary in our student guide textbook. But this alone won’t be enough, so one basic idea I like is to use what I call a “key terms …
Lesson Idea: The language of generalizations
This activity works well with lesson (b) (Studying Individuals) in the first topic in the introduction in IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide. It will be part of the second lesson in my course. Aim One of the aims of this lesson is to introduce students to the idea of how psychological studies need to make generalizations across groups of people, …
Lesson Idea: Introducing Researcher Bias
Overview This lesson works well in the introductory unit after students have been introduced to the idea of the scientific approach in psychology (see other lesson idea here). Aim The aim of this lesson is to introduce students to the process of thinking critically about research methodology and how researcher bias may influence “research.” Hook The following video produced by …
Lesson idea: Intro to the scientific method in psychology
The scientific method is rather intuitive, so in one of my first lessons in the course I like to pose a problem to students and get them to see how they would solve it. Here’s the problem: I’m trying to grow tomatoes in my garden and there are two types of fertilizer for sale. I want to know which one …
Twin Studies: Experimental or Correlational?
In the new course students need to be able to discuss how and why research methods are used for every topic. They might, therefore, get exam questions that look like this: Outline the use of one research method used to study the link between genes and behaviour. The most common method used in studies on genetics and behaviour in my …
What is an “approach?”
The “Levels of Analysis” are out, and so are “Perspectives”, so now we have “approaches to understanding human behaviour.” But what does this mean? In short, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a term used to separate the IB Psychology course into meaningful units. I would define the approaches as a description of behaviours, as well as a set of variables …
New Syllabus: Major Changes
The IB has published the new subject guide, teacher support material and specimen exam papers. You can find all this information on the OCC. In my mind, here are the big changes: Learning Outcomes removed (Read more…) Options time reduced to 20 hours SL and HL now do the same Internal Assessment Paper 3 includes quantitative possibility HL have extensions …
Work Smarter, Not Harder: Improve Exam Results
Work smarter, not harder: Improving exam results with a themantic approach Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to worry about exam results, and instead we could just focus on getting our students interested and engaged with what they’re learning about? Thankfully I think adopting a themantic approach to teaching the IB Psych’ course can do both. There are …