Advanced Placement Psychology



[pic]Advanced Placement Psychology

Course Summary

2008-2009

Ms. Cosentino

ccosentino@

Course Description: This Advanced Placement Psychology Course is designed to give students college-level class experience each day. This means that students are expected to be engaged in class each day and work independently to complete short- and long-term assignments in a high quality manner. The course will involve nightly reading assignments as well as an APA (American Psychological Association) style paper and student organized presentations. You should expect weekly quizzes over reading assignments in addition to unit(chapter)exams. Your full cooperation on group projects and in class discussion is expected. A variety of methods will be implemented in order to convey information. The demonstrations, examples, and activities should make concepts clear and show their relevance to you.

The course will cover those topics generally presented in an introduction to psychology course in college. The topics include: history and research methods, social psychology, personality, the brain, sensation and perception, learning, memory, cognition, developmental psychology, and psychological disorders and treatment. The course schedule includes the full list of topics.

Course Objectives: Upon the completion of this course, a student should have accomplished the following.

1. Understand the scientific methodology used in psychology.

2. Show increased knowledge of physiological psychology.

3. Show increased understanding of relationship between biology and behavior.

4. Demonstrate understanding of the various states of consciousness.

5. Develop understanding of the complexity of psychological development through the study of the physical, intellectual, emotional, moral, and social growth over the human life span.

6. Understand and explain the major core concepts and theories of psychology.

7. Increase knowledge regarding the classification system for psychological disorders.

8. Increase knowledge about the variety of treatment theories.

9. Understand good test design and reliable research processes, including the measurement of intelligence.

10. Learn the basic skills of psychological research: what to look for and what to use in initiating a full-scale research project.

11. Apply psychological concepts to their own lives and recognize psychological principles when they are in evidence in daily life.

12. Develop critical thinking skills as they read and evaluate material presented in class presentations and independent reading and research.

Required Text:

Psychology, 8th edt. (2007). David Myers. Worth Publishers.

Supplemental articles for each unit will be provided. These will need to be kept with unit materials in a notebook.

Topics

The Story of Psychology - history of the discipline

- different perspectives in psychology

- areas of specialization

Thinking Critically - Experimental design

- Statistical Reasoning

Neuroscience and Behavior - how neurons communicate

- the brain – what’s in there, what’s done by which part

- how we watch the brain

Perception and Sensation - basic principles

- hearing & vision

- interpreting perceptions

Nature, Nurture, and Human Diversity

- behavior genetics

- evolutionary psychology

- what influences development

- ongoing debates

Consciousness - defining it

- consciousness and information processing

- sleep and dreams: why, what, disorders

Learning - defining it

- how does it happen

- how do we even think about it

Memory - defining it

- processing information

- forgetting

- eyewitness recall

Intelligence - defining it

- how do we measure it & what can we trust about those measures

- what complicates measurement of it

- genetic and environmental influences

Social Pscyhology - social thinking/ situational or personal attribution

- social influence

- Social relations

Emotion and Motivation - theories of emotion

- perspectives on motivation

Developmental Psychology - prenatal and newborn development

- infancy and childhood

- adolescence

- adulthood

Personality - major theories

- how theories shape understanding of personality

Psychological Disorders - defining them and the controversies around that

- anxiety disorders

- mood disorders

- schizophrenia

- personality disorders

- the DSM IV TR

Therapy - types of therapeutic approaches, perspectives

- what is psychological health?

Over the summer

1. Read the Prologue handout and complete the study guide, including 1 practice test, vocabulary quiz, and the application test. Be secure in the vocabulary listed at the end of the chapter. You can highlight it in the study guide for reinforcement. Bring it, completed, on our first full day of school.

2. You have a list of the 15 most influential psychologists of the twentieth century. Your brain will be very grateful to you for completing the assignment explained with that list. These should not be difficult to find; just be sure to provide yourself with a strong, clear explanation of their contribution.

3. You are also receiving a reading, “The Lost Mariner.” It is a case study from the work of Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, so this is a true story. ( The film Awakenings is based on one of his accounts.) After reading it, I’d like you to send me an email with a paragraph of your reflections on it. The paragraph - or more, if you have more to say – should be a chance to process what new understandings and insights you had as you read this. There might be questions that come to mind as you think about it. In a separate paragraph, please relate some of your hopes for this course, your strengths as a student, what you feel you need to shore up in your academic skills, and why you decided to take this course.

Be sure to spell my name correctly when you email your response. I’d prefer to have this last item by the end of June. Get ‘er done!

Remember, the point is to get oriented to this field of study. So relax with it and learn.

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