V.S. Ramachandran Coming to UWEC!!!!!!!!

I learned just on Friday that Vilayanur S. Ramachandran will be speaking at the Schofield Auditorium on the UW-Eau Claire Campus as part of the University's Forum Series THIS WEDNESDAY (February 29th) at 7:30 PM!!!!

Why all the exclamation points?

Mr. Ramachandran is a world-reknowned neuroscientist who has studied some of the most interesting and puzzling brain-related phenomena AND he is a fantastic speaker. For those reasons, he has been featured on the popular TED talks series, and I'm embedding one of those below for your viewing. Even more awesome? Tickets are only $8 for the general public and $4 for students!!!

His talk, entitled The Tell-Tale Brain: a Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human (also the title of his newly released book), will feature discussion of attempts by neuroscientists to understand the brain's relation to topics like self-awareness, free-will, and consciousness.

Here's the promotional blurb included on the flyer from UWEC:

Vilayanur S. Ramachandron is a mesmerizing speaker, able to concretely and simply describe the most complicated inner workings of the brain. His investigations into phantom limb pain, synesthesia and other brain disorders have allowed him to explore--and begin to answer--the most basic philosophical questions about the nature of self and human consciousness. In his new book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human (2011), Ramachandran addresses the mystery of human uniqueness, in an attempt to shed light on such complex areas as self-awareness, free will and consciousness. Ramachandran is director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego, and an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute. TIME magazine named him one of 2011's 100 Most Influential People in the World.

But let's pretend like that's not reason enough for you disrupt the tranquility of your midwinter break and travel through the cold to UWEC to go to this AMAZING, ONCE IN A LIFETIME opportunity to see a famous neuroscientist in person.

Because of the expense, time commitment, and travel required, Mrs. Welle is willing to offer a whopping 10 POINTS EXTRA CREDIT to anyone who attends. To prove your attendance, you'll have to save your ticket stub and program to bring to school later OR find Mrs. Welle and say hello while at the event (this second part may be hard to do because of the size of the crowd).

If you would like to go, some things to keep in mind:

• Student pricing (for UW-Students and those 17 & under) is half of general admission price only until the day of the show. If you buy your tickets at the door, you'll pay $8.
• If it is REALLY important for you to get in, buy tickets ahead, either by stopping by the UWEC Service Center in Davies to pay in cash, or by calling the Service Center (715-836-3727) and paying with a credit/debit card. When I called this morning (Saturday) to reserve mine, they said only about 100 tickets are left!
• If you are calling to purchase tickets, keep in mind that seating is assigned. That means, if you want to sit with a group of friends, you should purchase them all at once. You can either have a parent call with a credit card or email Mrs. Welle for help (I would be willing to place the order for you & a group with the expectation that you pay me back in cash).
• The event is in Schofield Hall (NOT Zorn Arena, if you've been there for basketball games or Bon Iver concerts). Check campus maps to get to the right place & plan for parking time.

I apologize for not hyping this in class prior to break. I only found out about it on Friday during 7th Hour, thanks to Mr. Gagnon, who sent me the flyers for the event. :) Otherwise, I would have provided you with much more lead time and some handouts with campus maps.

My goal for the night: get an autographed copy of his book. And maybe get my picture taken with him. Don't know if that's possible, but I'm going to try. :)

Motivation and Emotion Unit Flashcards

Our test on Motivation & Emotion will come up soon after break (Tuesday, March 6th). To that end, be sure to make plans to attend our study session the night before (Monday, March 5th) from 5-7 PM. In the meantime, in addition to the study guide you received in class, you might find it helpful to brush up on the terms for this unit.
Motivation (Ch. 12)

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards

Emotion (Ch. 13 & some portions of Ch. 14)

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study psychology flash cards

PsychSim 5: Hunger & the Fat Rat

Don't forget to complete that PsychSim, Hunger and the Fat Rat! You'll be exploring the role of the hypothalamus in regulating the eating habits and body weight of your virtual "rats.

AP Courses Are Pathway to Success for UW-Madison Students

A recent article from the College Board Connection highlighted the role AP course credits play in admission and future college success for students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Among other findings reported in the article, which featured reports on the 2011 class of AP test takers as well as a 2009 study regarding AP students at the UW, were the following:

• 75% of all incoming UW-Madison freshman earned credit via AP courses and exams, a record high.

Students who received AP credit were able to graduate sooner than other students. They were also able to start advanced classes sooner, freeing up space in a crowded system.

Students who earned a 3, 4, or 5 on an AP Exam were doing just as well or better than those who took courses at the UW, lending confidence to departments that grant AP credit that students taking and passing AP exams are adequately prepared.

Turns out, your AP teacher might be in the best position to teach you how to Bucky...

Math Invades Psychology Class




Frequency Histogram for Composite Scores on Final Exam

 Students tend to have strong feelings about mathematics...so when the topic comes up in AP Psych I usually get a "love it" or "hate it" reaction from students. Regardless of one's emotional response to math, however, it is helpful to know some basic statistical concepts if you're trying to make sense of some things in psychology, particularly test score interpretation (e.g. in intelligence and personality testing).

So, in addition to the practice on basic descriptive statistics students are completing for tomorrow (to access the accompanying PsychSim Module for this WS, click here), we've been using some meaningful examples of score distributions to become more comfortable with the topic. Particularly, we've been examining performance data from our 1st Semester final (which, as the frequency histogram above illustrates, distribute rather normally).

However, if you're still feeling confused about z-scores, the normal curve, percentile ranks, and standard deviation, there are a number of great websites out there to give you some guidance (unfortunately, our text does not go into a great amount of detail about these statistical concepts). Consider consulting any of these for review:

• A Beginner's Guide to Descriptive Statistics (includes examples and procedure for calculating standard deviation).
• Online calculator for descriptive stats (can copy & paste data and it will give you the standard deviation, among other measures)
• Handy, printable guide to the Normal Curve & Z-scores
• Statistics Tutorial: Standard Normal Distribution (& z-scores)

If you come across any other sites that you feel would be helpful to a beginning psych student, please include them in the comments section. I'd love to add them to my list.

MacGyver & Functional Fixedness

Today we tackle functional fixedness as a problem-solving obstacle. For inspiration, some video clips of TV icons known for successfully (and not-so-successfully) overcoming this common problem. From the 1980s TV Show, MacGyver:



And the later SNL parody, MacGruber:

The Marshmallow Challenge

A 3rd Hour team completes the tallest tower of the day: 31''!

Today in class we kicked off our unit on cognition by tackling a now-fairly-famous team problem-solving task: The Marshmallow Challenge. Our teams' performances very closely mimicked the findings of Tom Wujec, which he summarizes in the brief talk I've embedded below.

The task is an excellent illustration of the complexities inherent in problem-solving (e.g. mental set interferes with effective design, incentives don't always work the way you would think, communication problems and social jockeying can be an issue, etc.).



Winning team from 7th Hour

 Throughout the day we had 16 of 24 teams successfully construct towers that held the marshmallow, very close to the success rate found by Wujec (60%). The tallest tower measured 31 inches and was completed by Nick, Rachel, Sam, and Kayla in my 3rd hour class!

If you've got some spaghetti, marshmallows, and some string and tape, maybe you would want to try this out with your own family tonight. :-)



Note to my fellow psych teachers who follow this blog: this was the first year I attempted this task with students, and I'd highly recommend it. Not only does it serve as a great jumping-off point for conversations about problem-solving, but it is engaging and the supplies are cheap. To do this with 100 students today I only had to spend $14! (A bargain compared to some of my other demos/activities for the same amount of people.)

More complete instructions are available here.

Probably the cutest marshmallow of the day: Smiley!