{"id":2656,"date":"2017-03-21T12:36:26","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T12:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ibpsych.themantic-education.com\/?p=2656"},"modified":"2017-03-21T12:36:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T12:36:26","slug":"tip-for-cutting-content-2-hl-extension-cognitive-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themantic-education.com\/ibpsych\/2017\/03\/21\/tip-for-cutting-content-2-hl-extension-cognitive-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"Tip for Cutting Content #2: HL Extension – Cognitive Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many people are worried about the amount of “content” in the IB Psychology course, but if you identify core concepts<\/strong> within the guide you can easily find overlaps, reduce content and enhance conceptual understanding in your students.<\/p>\n

Remember that all assessments will ask students about a core concept (i.e. a relationship between behaviour, variables, research or ethics).<\/p>\n

Let’s look at the Cognitive Approaches Higher Level Extension as an example of how we can identify core concepts that can be assessed (and thus drive our teaching) and we can reduce content.<\/p>\n

There are three bullet points in the HL extension that students need to be understand in relation to the three “topics” in the cognitive core. Without much thought, this seems like nine learning outcomes (3 x 3). But if we do some analysis and use common sense, we’ll see that’s not the case. The three HL extension concepts are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The influence of digital technology on cognitive processes and human interaction.<\/li>\n
  2. The positive and negative effects of modern technology on cognitive processes.<\/li>\n
  3. Methods used to study the interaction between digital technology and cognitive processes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But #1 and #2 above are the same; technology can’t have an effect that’s not positive or negative, so cross that one out and we’re down to two already. Essentially the core concept is: digital\/modern technology (same thing) can have positive and negative effects\/influences on cognition.<\/p>\n

    The three “topics” for the cognitive approach are:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. cognitive processes<\/li>\n
    2. reliability of cognitive processes<\/li>\n
    3. emotion and cognition<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Now, cognitive processes is a very broad term and if it was used in an exam, one could talk about reliability of cognitive processes or emotion and cognition, so you can cross that one out as well, if you want.<\/p>\n

      So now we’re down to three core\u00a0concepts from the original nine, shaving 66% of our content already, but we’re not done:<\/p>\n