Author: MARTHA DAVIS

I felt that the week after the first exam went really well. The average was pretty high, and we were all discussing the reasons why. For some students, it probably was the use of notes/other materials during the exam, but for others, I think that it was a combination of the review sessions,studying notes and the text, and working with others/attending the study tables. One interesting question that I was musing over was, “does the type of note taking students do effect their exam grades.” This came to me because when I sit in the front, I notice that some students are writing away furiously in their notebooks, while others are writing few things or nothing at all. It would be interesting to relate their style of notes to their exam scores, and correlate the findings.

Some interesting things I saw in class, which we also discussed (about habituation), was that the professor can keep the students’ attention more, if there is a range in his/her voice, movements, expressions, and emotions. For example, Prof. Gurung speaks louder during more important points in his lectures, uses his hands for a lot of expression, was using funny voices to mimic a “mother” and “grandpa,” and also walks around for most of the class period. This way, students do not become easily habituated to the lecture, and daze off or get bored. If the brain is continuously stimulated to “adjust” to changes of the professor, the student is more likely to be alert and interested.

The only thing I questioned about was Jared “sleeping” in the back. I’m not sure if he was paying attention and keeping his head rested on the wall, but he was also asking questions during class, so he had to be paying attention at one point or another.

I really think that the “survey” Prof. Gurung distributed to his students was a good idea. This way we will be able to see if the students thought that the test covered the material  well enough. One of the things in the Teaching Tips book about making tests/exams was that the Prof. should really aim to cover the material he wants the students to learn in the exam, not just to test and see if they memorized all of the material. I believe that Prof. Gurung did a great job at putting the learned material on the exam, but only the students really know what they learned, so their grades may give a good idea of what was learned.

This coming week is my study table, which I plan on having Fri, from 10am to 11am in the coffee house.

The review session I had to conduct Thursday actually went really well. Most of the people in my POD were there by ten-to-eleven. At eleven, I passed a sheet around for attendence. Then I explained what I was going to be doing with the class time. I went through the slides, where I read the question, and then a student answered. I really didn’t have to read off the choices because the students knew the answers well (which is a really good sign!). I had “challenge questions,” which were highlighted in green. When these came up, the student who answered the question first got some chocolate candy. At first, people whould just shout out answers, so I wouldn’t know who answered first. I had to nicely ask them a few times to raise their hands so everyone had an equal chance to answer. I attached the student engagement exercise 3 to the PowerPoint,  that we didn’t have time to go through on Tuesday. This seemed useful for the students, because quit a few of them seemed a bit confused about which part of the brain was linked to certain behaviors/actions/thoughts.  After that, I talked a little bit about the neurons, giving candy to those who answered questions that I posed. I helped clairify some of the students’ questions about neurons. I wanted time at the end of class for questions, but there were only two people who asked them. One of the questions, about the fuctions of the rectilinier formation, I was not 100% sure about. I did admit this to the POD, because I did not want to give them false information. While students were talking, I looked up all of the fuctions of the RF, and answered the student’s question. I remember form our Teaching Tips book, there was a section that talked about how even though you are the instructor, and the students trust every word you say and believe you are a genius on the subject being taught, you need to admit that you do not know everything. I have a few professors that admit that they enjoy challenges and encourage us to ask questions. I left about 15 minutes before classs ended for students to ask questions. No one actually asked questions during that period of time, which I’m not sure if it’s good (they understand most of the material) or bad (very confused but don’t want to admit it among others). I mentioned to them that they can e-mail me and meet me thurs afternoon or during fri if they want to discuss any material. I also told them I will send an e-mail on Monday reminding them that they have until tues 10 am to finish the exam. I felt kind of emberressed after class when one of the students came up to me and told me that I had the wrong answer for one of the questions on the slide. I had actually read it wrong off of the slide (no one corrected me!) and had given the wrong answer. I think it was the slide asking for the two systems that are part of the nervous system, and I said the autonomic system. I admitted that I was right and thanked him for his honesty. I am not sure if I should e-mail all of the students, telling them about this???????????

From this class period, I learned some things about engaging with students. First off, some students are going to be more willing to participate than others. One of the students in my POD used to go to my high school, and she was answering most of the questions. Other students didn’t say a word the whole class period. Greatfully, I did not find anyone sleeping and nobody left in the middle of class. Another thing that I learned was what Professor Gurung had talked about, to go with the flow of things, especially things that happen spontaneously. For example, I had pushed the wrong button, and a couple of the slides were skipped. The class had all laughed and gone “waoh slow down.” Insead of getting all nervous and appologizing like crazy, I laughed too, and don’t remember exacly what I said, but I remember it was something like, “sorry about that. This computer is really touchy. Let me know if I’m going too fast through these slides.” After that, one girl actually did ask politely if I could slow down a bit.

From Tuesday’s class, I noticed that Jared was sitting in the back row! I also noticed that almost all of the people in the back row in front of me (on the right side) were on their cell phones throughout class, and had them out in the open until Prof. Gurung walked by. Should I go up to these students next time after class and talk to them, because if I do, I’ll be trying to catch ten or so kids after classes! One other thing that I found interesting was that Prof. Gurung moved from bigger to smaller in his material. He talked first about brain strucutre, then fuction, and then neurons. Very good  idea!

I’ll have to see how my POD did on their exams, and then hopefully we can ask students in Tuesday’s class if the sessions helped. One of my friends in my POD said I did a good job, but idk if she was just trying to be a good friend haha. I hope next week goes well!!!

I can not believe the third week is already done! This week combined a variety of teaching methods, including lectures, active group learning, and active learning/discussions. For Tuesday’s class, Prof. Gurung went more in deph for the correlation and experimantal reserach design methods. He also did an in-class assignment (in groups of 5), where each group had to choose whether the example on the PowerPoint was an experiment or a correlation. Not everyone got the answer right (correlation), but from this assignment, the students will be able to tell if they need to study or ask questions about the material we covered. We also went over the answers in class, so the students would not be anxious about their grades. The results for the end of Supersize Me was also presented, and we discussed what kind of study he conducted, and the strengths and weaknesses of it.

Thursday’s class consisted of mostly lecture, going into the “biology” section of psychology and how the two are related. I think that Prof. Gurung’s opening for the class was a really good idea. The whole relation to the biology of love and attraction eased students into the class, instead of jumping into in-deph material right off the bat. He was quick to recognize how he might have offended someone when he was talking about genetics and said something like, “well look at your parents!” He was quick to prove his point that weight factors may be hereditary for some.  In his lecturing, I also noticed two other things. First, Prof. Gurung would often tell the students what something is, and then give an example of what it is not. This is a very smart thing to do, because this isolates the point that he is trying to prove. The second thing was that in his speech, he uses the words “you” and “we,” instead of “people,” “others,” or “some.” When we use this kind of speech, we give others a way to compare the material to their own lives. I’m not sure if Prof. Gurung pays attention to this, but I think it makes a difference. It definitely makes a difference when someone says, “People’s emotions can affect their health,” and “Our emotions can affect our health.”

The only problem I noticed was that in the back, some of the students will have their notebooks out, but not take notes for the majority of the class. I don’t know how we can change this,but it was something I noticed when I was sitting in the front (because nobody’s hands were moving in the back).

Some things from the Teaching Tips book that I think related to this week was the bit on how students are more likely to talk in small, rather than large groups (p. 219). Maybe things that they do not want to admit to a whole class they don’t know, they will be willing to discuss among a small group from the class. Another good idea was that when you present a question to the class, give them time to think about it, and then don’t give the answer, but facilitate discussion (p. 225). Listen, question, clarify, challenge, and ask for the students to provide evidence if they have contradicting answers. The last thing that I think relates to Prof. Gurung’s class is structure. For students who are not highly-intelligent, structure can enhance learning (p. 226)!  This can be recognized in the way that Prof. Gurung goes over before each class what is going to be done, directs students to what material they need to look at, and also provides them with help in a structured way (e.g., Prof. open office hours, study groups, TA’s, etc.).

Third week was fun. Fourth should be interesting with the individual study sessions!

Thursday went very smooth with the movie and questions. We really didn’t need any of the lights on, because the light from the back doors gave off enough for people to see.  Most of the students found the movie funny, interesting, and somewhat disgusting. I thought that it was a really good idea for a movie, but a larger sample size would have probably shown more variance in the physiological/psychological effects from the diet. We stopped the movie at ten after twelve and let the students talk to each other, fill out their cards, hand them in, and leave.

The same guy (I think his name is Jared) was sitting in the back, and he could see the screen, so we were not annoyed. But then he was on his laptop now and then. Also, a student came up to me at the end of class and asked if we will be finishing the movie on Tues. The Syllabus plan says that for Feb 9th, we are studying psychology science.

The Friday Study table had a turnout of two….their names were Martha Davis and Rebecca Mccabe! We both discussed why this happened, and we think that it is probably too early for the students to be worried about the first exam or maybe it was too early on a Fri (plus some students probably don’t have Fri classes so they want to sleep in). I’m sure we can talk about this more on Monday!

Into week two already and I feel like the Psych class is already getting into the swing of things. The class consisted mostly of lecture, but I was able to write down some notes on Gurung’s teaching style that I found interesting.

First off, I noticed that he often pauses after important info is discussed, to let it sink in. I find it hard to keep up with some teachers who spit out their lectures so quickly that I only fully understand the beginning/ending part of the lecture. I also noticed that he would be talking about information on the slides, and then relate it back to the book. He even stopped in the lecture to have students refer back to some pages of the book to better understand the material. Another way he went in the material deeper was  by asking for/proving examples of how the material relates to real life. Also, to keep attention, he speaks in different tones, often emphasizing words or sentences, that contain the main points of info. To keep interest, he not only speaks in different tones/annunciations, but also uses humor. This is probably one of the few classes that actually has people laughing daily, which makes long days of multiple classes a bit easier to take on.

A few little glitches occurred in class, but nothing to really worry about. I was sent to get a wireless microphone, but ended up at the technology center in IS, which is where I got a long story of how it was going to take half of the class or more to set up a system. Prof. Gurung ended up alternating between mic. and using nothing, which wasn’t bad (either way). One girl seated in front of me was constantly switching from doodling to taking notes. A cell phone went off in class, playing “Barbie Girl,” which wasn’t too distracting, but I still wonder if it was a girl or guy’s ring tone. Finally, a guy would not move from behind the top left behind the seats. He really just spaced off most of class, then unexpectedly answered a few questions in class. I guess we’ll have to wait until next class to see what he does…

The new announcements for today were the creating of a Facebook page for the class, Study Tables (first one this Fri I’ll be at), POD groups, and a little assignment at the end of class, to find out what the difference between a correlational study and an experiment is. This relates to an idea in the Teaching Tips book, that says that you should get students to relate the textbook material to short questions that they should bring to the next class. This way, they will not be scared to be called on, because they have answers they can back up with the book. The book also says that during discussions, students pay more attention and think more actively (p. 36). I think this is true because sometimes you need to hear something differently or opposing from someone else to make a point clearer. This also makes students feel that they are among “friends” or people that they can trust, and they will not feel as scared during class to answer a question, and maybe be wrong (p. 46).

The one thing in class that I found interesting and very truthful was Prof. Gurung’s statement, “The more study methods you use, the better off you are.” I really do agree with this, and think that if students start to apply this to their own studying, they will push themselves to get involved more in readings, POD groups, study tables, notes, LEARNSMART, and much more!!