Tag: application problem

Resources: two lessons on jury decisions

‘The INSET’ by John Morgan (Creative Commons).

Here are two lessons on jury decision making (plans). Both assume that you have set advance study of the relevant material.

The first addresses the characteristics of the defendant. There is an analysis task (based on an Edexcel sample question) you can use to structure a group discussion on  influences on jury decisions, explanations of those influences and the evidence that relates to them. This is followed by a consideration of the weaknesses of mock-jury research and an activity on research design to help integrate RMS knowledge and understanding with the topic of criminological psychology. Invite students to design studies and summarise them on this form, then stick them on a visualiser/photograph/scan and project them for a group critique. There is a slideshow to structure the lesson.

The second lesson focuses on pretrial publicity. It is also RMS-focused and structured around a content analysis of two newspaper articles about the Joanna Yeates case, one from the Daily Mail and one from The Guardian. The slideshow gives a structure for the lesson.

Improving assessment with a single-point rubric

Source: www.cultofpedagogy.com

I’ve started using single-point rubrics for assessing and feeding back on essays since coming across them on www.cultofpedagogy.com  This post has a nice summary of the benefits which I won’t repeat here.

Here are a couple of essay questions and single point rubrics designed to develop and assess critical thinking and writing skills in line with Edexcel’s Psychology specification. They are both ‘context’ questions requiring a combination of analysis/application, critical thinking and knowledge and understanding. I’ve tried to construct them to facilitate the sort of structure that works with Edexcel (but which is also consistent good academic writing). There is one on different types of brain scanning/imaging and another on eyewitness testimony (weapons effect, postevent information). These are RTFs, so you can hack them about to make your own. If you do, please share in the comments.  

Resources: two lessons on interviewing witnesses and suspects

Photo: Krystian Olszansky (Creative Commons licence)

Here are two lessons on interviewing witnesses (cognitive interview) and suspects (ethical interview). Each lesson assumes you have set advance reading from whichever textbook or other source you are using.  Lesson one starts with students making comparisons between standard police interviews and cognitive interviews using this visible thinking routine for comparing. The main application activity is to write a letter to a chief constable persuading her to adopt cognitive interviewing in her force.  I’ve found that some students get all up tight about writing an essay because it smells like assessment and they do a better job if they write a letter instead, even though the same skills are required. The slideshow gives a structure for the lesson.

Lesson two starts with the use of the same VTR. This is followed by an analysis task using this recording of a police suspect interview.  Finally, students work up an evaluation using a handout of evidence. A slideshow structures the lesson.

Resources: three lessons on brain scanning/imaging and developing academic skills

Kim J, Matthews NL, Park S. Wikimedia Commons.
Studies show that blog posts accompanied by brain scan images are 70% more convincing.

Here are three lessons on brain scanning/imaging. They’re from early on in my course so they’re also planned to help developing important skills and ways of thinking. There is a set of brief lesson plans for each session (these plans are read from top to bottom; no timings are given).

Lesson one introduces CT, PET and fMRI (slideshow) using a text on brain imaging and a reciprocal teaching activity. This is followed by an introduction to making comparisons, with a brain scans comparison table (copy this on A3). I ask students to complete the table outside class. There is some supplemental information to help them do this.

Lesson two (slideshow) starts with a Socrative quiz on brain scanning. This is followed by an application task in which students need to choose and justify the appropriate imaging technique for each scenario. There is then an opportunity for students to develop their academic writing.

Lesson three (slideshow) involves students planning and writing a short essay requiring application to a problem and critical comparisons between scanning/imaging techniques.

Resources: ethics in forensic psychology practice (HCPC Standards)

Here is a brief slideshow on ethics in forensic psychology along with an application exercise using malpractice cases from the HCPC website. The case outcomes are here.  You can find press releases summarising cases like these on the HCPC website.

Resources: Freud’s theory of aggression

Here are a couple of things for teaching Freud’s theory of aggression. There is an application task using Freudian concepts and an evidence interpretation activity using studies of aggression. I usually give this as a preparation task outside class and use it as the basis for a discussion/essay planning exercise.

Resources: eyewitness testimony (post-event information)

Here are some resources for teaching the effect of post-event information on eyewitness testimony.  There is an application problem for EWT (with guidance for the analysis on page 2) and a brief slideshow to accompany it.  The essay writing advice is pitched towards Edexcel exams, so YMMV.

Resources: the multi-store model of memory

Here are some resources for teaching the multi-store model of memory. There is an application problem using the multi-store model and a writing task to support well formed evaluation of the multistore model based on the SOLO taxonomy.

Resources: brain scanning

Here are some resources for teaching brain scanning.  There is a text on CT, PET and fMRI (.pdf), some application problems (.pdf), a comparison table (.rtf) and a short slideshow (.pptx) with key ideas and images.

psychlotron.org.uk has re-entered the building.

The original psychlotron.org.uk psychology resource website started in 2005 and was regularly updated until 2013.  At that point, fatigue, exam specification changes, cancer (my partner’s) and then open heart surgery (mine) collectively intervened to bring further updates to a halt.

As I now have material I’d like to share and a bit more time and motivation I’ve decided to pick up where I left off in 2013.  If you used the site before you’ll notice I’ve ditched the lovingly hand-crafted html of yore and will now be building psychlotron using WordPress.  I’m hoping that this will make managing the content a bit more straightforward and the addition of things like tags and a search box will make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for links to resources posted on the old website, try the archive link on the right hand side.  I’ve combined all the old resource links on one big fat web page; you’ll have to scroll down until you find what you’re after.

New resources will be posted in the new ‘blog’ format and tagged to make them searchable.  Here’s an experimental one to see if the process works as intended: an application problem for teaching the multi-store model of memory.