My best advice for new IB Psychology teachers

Travis DixonTeaching Ideas

The following was originally posted to Facebook. It received a positive response so I thought it would be worthwhile to add as a blog post.  Visit www.store.themantic-education.com for all your lesson plans, powerpoints, worksheets and pretty much everything you need to teach IB Psychology. For all the new IB Psychology teachers who are getting into a bit of a panic …

Exam Answer: Localization Short Answer Question
An example SAQ following a simple 7-step format

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Biological Psychology, Revision and Exam Preparation

Recently I wrote a post about how to write better short answer responses (SAQs) in 7 simple steps for IB Psych’ Paper 1 and this video explains the same. But the only reason I am able to explain these frameworks with confidence is because I’ve written 100s of examples. Here’s one I’ll share with you. The example SAQ below is …

Understanding IB Psychology with 3 Easy Questions

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Curriculum, Teaching Ideas, Themantics

The IB Psychology course can be a confusing beast and while the official IB Guide is there to tell us what we need to teach (as teachers) and study (as students), it’s not always clear. So I came up with a way of breaking down the IB Psychology course into three simple questions. Thinking about IB Psychology in the following …

Critical Thinking Summarized in ONE WORD!

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Teaching Ideas, Themantics

Understanding the requirements of critical thinking can be a tricky task for students and teachers. While everyone has their own ideas about what “critical thinking” is and what it looks like in IB Psych’ exam answers, this post provides a simple and straightforward answer.  I like to define critical thinking as “a critical reflection of the value and validity of one’s knowledge …

How to answer an SAQ
7 Simple Steps

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Revision and Exam Preparation

The following 7 steps can be taken in order to create excellent short answer responses (SARs)* for Paper 1, Section A. Scroll down for a video explaining the same concept. For teachers, this also makes giving feedback much easier. You could write an excellent short answer response by following the following 7 simple steps. 1. Restate the question This is a great …

Gottman’s Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Travis DixonHuman Relationships, Love and Marriage

This is a summary of Gottman’s 7 principles from his book (Available here).    Enhance Your Love Maps Basically, the more you know about each other the stronger your relationship will be. So a “love map” is basically your schema for the knowledge that you possess of your partner, include a range of details involving their hopes, dreams, fears, beliefs, …

Studying Marriage: Gottman’s Love Lab and the Four Horsemen of Divorce

Travis DixonHuman Relationships, Love and Marriage

John Gottman’s decades of research has uncovered four “poisonous” factors in a marriage: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, Stonewalling. Based on this same research, Gottman has devised 7 principles that can help maintain or restore a healthy marriage.  Background  Why do so many marriages end in divorce? In the United States, the % of marriages that end is around 50%, and the rate …

Exam Question Bank: Paper 2 Human Relationships

Travis DixonAssessment (IB), Human Relationships, Revision and Exam Preparation

Disclaimer: These questions are not IB “official” questions and are written with our best guess as to what the probable exam questions may look like. Not every possible question is covered but rather a wide sample of questions has been asked so you can get an idea of the types of questions that may appear. Read More Abnormal Psychology exam bank …