Yesterday we had Parent-Teacher (PT) conferences at school and I thought I’d share a few things that made for smooth sailing and an enjoyable day for me. We only have ten minutes per interview, so I’ll share how I managed to communicate a whole lot in that short time. New teachers will probably find this a lot more helpful than …
Lesson Idea: Review Intro to Psych w/ KAHOOT
I love Kahoot, as most teachers do. It’s a great way to review “knowledge,” especially key terms. One of the features I like about Kahoot is that it actually lets you gather some good formative data. If you make sure students use real names (or some other identification so that you know who is who), you can save the results …
Lesson Idea: What do psychologists study?
I like to take my introduction to psychology quite slowly. On the very first lesson I get students to think about the definition of psychology and what they actually study by doing the following activity. There is space for students to write notes on this activity in their workbooks. Step One: Students begin working with a partner and write as …
Student Workbook (First Draft): Introduction to Psychology Unit
I began for the first time last year trialing and creating student workbooks for each of my units. The feedback from students was positive, so I’m in the process of making workbooks that accompany all my units available for teachers. What I like about hard copy workbooks for students is that all their notes and key information is in the …
Lesson Idea: Consolidate learning with three levels of recap questions
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 …