Planning an IB Psychology course can be stressful, even for the most experienced teachers. It’s not surprise then that it can also be incredibly daunting for new teachers. One of your sources of stress may be thinking about which approach to take: do I teach linear or thematic? In this post I’ll outline five reasons why I think the linear …
Thematic? Holistic? Integrated? What do they all mean?
If you’ve been following the conversations on the OCC and facebook forums, you’ve probably read, seen and heard people discussing approaches to teaching IB Psychology using terms like holistic, thematic and integrated. You might have even heard these terms on a workshop. For new teachers, this might be quite confusing, so in this post I’ll just quickly clarify what these …
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 …
Key Study: Testosterone and aggression in rats (Albert et al. 1986)
The material here was originally published in IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide. Males are more aggressive than females in almost every species. Why is this? One possible reason could be in the influence of the male sex hormone, testosterone. Testosterone is produced in the testes of males, which could be why males are more aggressive than females. While it is also …
Key Study: Serotonin, tryptophan and the brain (Passamonti et al., 2012)
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that has been correlated with numerous behaviours, including impulsive aggression, antisocial behaviour and violence. One reason for this correlation could be the effect that depleted serotonin levels could have on important parts of the brain when we perceive emotional stimuli. To test the effects of serotonin depletion on the brain, Passamonti et al. (2012) asked one …
There’s no difference between “evaluate” and “discuss.”
Before I explain why an evaluation and a discussion in a student’s IB Psychology exam answer would look exactly the same, I should first mention that Christos Halkiopoulos was aware of this long before I was and has been saying this for quite some time. It was only recently when I gave this some more thought that I realized I …
Lesson Idea: Understanding IVs and DVs
This lesson accompanies section 1.2(a) in IB Psychology: A Student’s Guide. Hook As a class, watch this clip from the BC documentary “Human Instincts” to show the replication of the MHC gene study. After this, I like to use the introduction slideshow to explain the definitions of an IV and a DV and how they were shown in this particular study …
What is a pheromone?
A pheromone is a chemical messenger that is passed from one individual to another which has an effect on the receiving individual. One technical definition offered for pheromones is that they are “…substances which are secreted to the outside by an individual and received by a second individual of the same species, in which they release a specific reaction, for example, …
What is “inattentional blindess?”
This is the first in a series of short posts that I’ll write that aim to quickly outline key concepts in psychology. Inattentional blindness is the name given to the phenomenon of not being able to see or perceive a visual stimulus, even when it’s right in front of our visual field because our attention is diverted elsewhere. This was famously …
Travis’ IB Psychology Course Outline – Old Syllabus
You can see more outlines on these two posts: IB Psychology HL in <180 Hours IB Psychology SL in <125 Hours Download my course outline here. You can also find other teachers’ outlines that have been posted on our facebook group for teachers. Feel free to post any questions about this outline or my course. Travis’ IB Psychology Course Outline …
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: Brain dumping on psychology
Aim: There are a few purposes for this activity, which are outlined below. I do this activity in Unit 1: Topic 1: Introduction to Psychology. Activity: On the very first day of IB Psychology, I always give students a blank A3 piece of paper that just has the word “psychology” in the very middle (here’s the document: Brain Dump Psychology). Before …
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 …
Teaching Tip: Research Methods
When I first started teaching IB Psychology I followed the syllabus pretty much as it was laid out in the guide, beginning with the biological level of analysis. I even taught the LOs as they appear as well. But after a couple of years I realized that teaching the ethics, principles and research methods first in a unit (as they …
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 …
Why every lesson should have a guiding question.
The answer to this will probably seem pretty obvious, but there’s a little more to an effective guiding question than meets the eye. I like to keep my planning simple and a good guiding question is just one way I try to do less, but do it better. What is a guiding question? In the themantic model of curriculum design, …
5 reasons to be wary of choosing the development option
This post was originally called: “5 reasons why I wouldn’t choose the development option,” but I’ve changed it so it’s less scary for those teachers who are keen on the option. If you’re contemplating which options to go for in the new course, I personally wouldn’t be rushing into choosing development as one of them. I’ve only recently come to see just …
5 reasons why I think “depth” is better than “breadth” in IB Psychology.
When planning to teach (or study) individual topics in the new IB Psychology course, you might find yourself faced with the question: do I go for depth or breadth? For example, should you teach (or learn) three effects of hormones on behaviour, or just one? The new course has supposedly been designed to allow the choice of either approach. However, in …
What does “breadth or depth” mean?
This post accompanies my other post about why I think it’s better to aim for depth over breadth in IB Psychology. What is depth? Depth refers to studying a topic by looking at only one or two examples. Examples Studying “Biases in thinking and decision making” by focusing only one on example, e.g., confirmation bias. Studying the effects of one …
Example Essay: Technological Techniques
I’ve been playing around a bit with scaffolding for essay writing, and from what I’ve found, a general guideline for essay structure is as follows: Introduction Core argument Supporting evidence (min. 2 x studies). Counter argument Conclusion Of course, this is just a template and sometimes the structure varies. For example, you might have one study supporting the core argument …
“How many studies do I need?”
By far the two most common questions IB Psychology teachers (and students) ask are: Is this a good EE question? and… How many studies do I need? You can read my answer to the first question about EEs here. In this post I want to address the second question in two ways. First the short answer, that I know many people …
What is “enculturation?”
One of the changes in the new IB Psychology course is the addition of two new concepts in the socio-cultural approach to understanding human behaviour: Enculturation And… Acculturation In this short post I’ll briefly outline the concept of enculturation and provide some general guidance as to how it can be taught in the course. What is enculturation? To quote the …
Teaching Tip: How to cut content and increase understanding
When it’s time to teach the new course, if you’re a bit savvy in your curriculum design you can exploit overlaps, cut content, and best of all – enhance student understanding of psychology. How do we do all this? In this post I’ll walk you through some helpful hints and show you the value of constructing relationship chains. Keeping it Simple …