Advanced Placement Psychology:  Course Syllabus

Mrs. Carolyn Ebright

Carolyn. Ebright@k12.sd.us

 

Purpose of the Course:

 

The purpose of the Advanced Placement course in psychology is to introduce students to the systematic and scientific study of behavior and mental processes of human beings and animals.  Students are exposed to the psychological facts, principles, and phenomena associated with the major subfields within psychology.  They also learn about the ethics and methods psychologists use in their science and practice.  (Taken from the Advanced Placement Course Description in Psychology by College Board)

 

Course Objectives:

 

  1. Students will prepare for the Advanced Placement Examination.
  2. Students will study the major core components and theories as related to the 14 areas on the Advanced Placement Examination.
  3. Students will participate and learn about the foundations of conducting scientific research.
  4. Students will learn to apply psychological principles to events or situations that happen in their own life.
  5. Students will develop and strengthen their reading, writing and discussion skills.
  6. Students will participate in several classroom demonstrations to accentuate knowledge of psychology.

 

Course Resources:

 

1.      Text:  Myers’ Psychology For AP*--Author David G. Myers—Worth Publishers—First Printing 2010

2.      Supplemental Readings:  Forty Studies that Changed Psychology,   Roger R. Hock, (New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 2002)

3.      The 2004 and 2007 AP Released Exam in Psychology

4.      PBS Video on “The Secret Life of the Brain”

5.      Activities based on David G. Myers Psychology Instructor’s Resources

6.      AP Central Website with lesson plans and test preparation materials

 

Course Assessments:

 

1.      Twelve to fourteen chapter quizzes that are taken before instruction begins.  Each quiz is worth 20 points and 1 quiz score will be dropped each quarter.  This assessment is geared to practice independent reading and comprehension before instruction.

2.      Fourteen chapter daily assessments worth 20 points apiece.  These assessments include typed essays, posters, data collection, and written reflections.

3.      Four cumulative EXAMS worth 100 points/exam. 

4.      Baby Book Project worth 100 points.

5.      6 Free Response Essay Writings worth 20 points apiece.

 

 

Course Timeframe:

 

AP Psychology in Brandon Valley High School is a semester long course.  It meets everyday for 50 minutes.  The class meets approximately 84 class periods before the AP Exam which is May, 2014.

 

Course Content:

 

As stated in #2 of the course objectives, this course will cover the 14 core areas as related to the Advanced Placement Examination.  The lettered bullets involve what the reading study guides focus on.  These reading sections are from Myers Psychology for AP.  Students are expected to complete the reading guides independently.  The starred bullets address main instructional inputs used during class time.

 

  1. History and Approaches (2-4%):  Chapter 1—Pg. 1-15
    1. How is the field of psychology defined?
    2. Why do psychologists do the things they do?
    3. How can psychological research be applied to your day-to-day life?
    4. What issues and scholars gave rise to modern psychology?
    5. What ideas differentiate the seven contemporary perspectives?
    6. Why is the field of psychology divided into so many specialties?
    7. Who participates in psychological research and practice?

 

**Lecture on Approaches to studying psychology

**Self Collage to illustrate different approaches to studying psychology

 

  1. Research Methods (6-8%):  Chapter 2—Pg. 18-46
    1. How do psychologists develop the ideas they test?
    2. How can researchers prevent beliefs from biasing observations?
    3. How can experiments be designed to yield a unique causal explanation for a phenomenon?
    4. What type of research methods do psychologists use?
    5. Why do researchers use correlational designs?
    6. How can experimental methods be used to address real-life claims?
    7. Why must measures be reliable and valid?
    8. Under what circumstances do participants provide information directly to researchers?
    9. What types of information do psychologists obtain by observing behavior?
    10. What are the ethical considerations researchers need to address?
    11. How do researchers provide summaries and draw conclusions from data?

 

**Classroom participation involving experiment on solving Sudoku puzzles.  Students were asked to identify variables, hypothesis, research method, and correlation if any on classical music and time of solving puzzles.

** Lecture regarding Scientific Research

 

  1. Biological Bases of Behavior (8-10%):  Chapter 3—Pg. 51-111
    1. What forces shaped the diversity of life?
    2. How can genetics explain individual differences?
    3. What techniques do researchers use to understand the relationship between the brain and behavior?
    4. What are the major divisions of the nervous system?
    5. What functions do major structures of the brain perform?
    6. What is the influence of the endocrine system?
    7. What are the properties of neurons and how are signals passed?
    8. How does the process of synaptic transmission occur?
    9. What substances serve as neurotransmitters?

 

**Watched “The Secret Life of the Brain”—PBS Video Series

**Created the human neuron and conducted “surgery” on an orange to represent the structures of the brain.

**Lecture on neural transmission and brain structures

**Read pg. 1-32 from Forty Studies book—Gazzaniga, Rosenzweig, Bouchard, and Gibson studies are emphasized

 

  1. Sensation and Perception (7-9%):  Chapter 4 —Pg. 115-169
    1. What is the relationship between physical stimulation and sensory experience?
    2. What general pattern guides sensory processing?
    3. What mechanisms allow you to experience visual sensation?
    4. How does the psychological experience of sound emerge from physical properties?
    5. How do you detect and respond to odors?
    6. What are the basic taste qualities?
    7. What information do you obtain through your skin?
    8. How do psychological forces help determine pain?
    9. How do you determine what is in the world from the information available to your sensory receptors?
    10. What features define perceptual theories?
    11. How do you select among all the information available in the world?
    12. What are the organizational processes in perception?

 

**Classroom demonstrations on sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch to illustrate sensations

**Read pg. 33-40 in Forty Studies book—Turnbull


 

 

  1. States of Consciousness (2-4%):  Chapter 5—Pg. 174-211
    1. What are the different levels of awareness?
    2. What types of information do you have conscious access?
    3. What techniques allow researchers to examine the contents of consciousness?
    4. What are the functions of consciousness?
    5. What patterns exist during the sleep/wake cycle?
    6. What are the origins and implications of dreams?
    7. What problems affect people’s sleep?
    8. What are the effects of hypnosis and meditation?
    9. How do mind altering drugs affect the brain?

 

**Lecture regarding differences in the effects of drugs on brain chemistry

**Lecture on sleep/wake cycle

**Read pg. 40-62 in Forty Studies book—Aserinsky, Hobson, Spanos

 

  1. Learning (7-9%):  Chapter 6—Pg. 214-251
    1. How is learning defined?
    2. What are the significant contributions of Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner in relation to learning?
    3. What are the basic features of conditioned response?
    4. Under which circumstances will classical conditioning take place?
    5. What role do operants play in the science of behavior?
    6. How are behaviors changed by their consequences?
    7. What happens when behaviors are not reinforced on every occasion?
    8. How can you learn by watching others?

 

**Classroom demonstrations on classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning theory

**Read pg. 63-91 in Forty Studies book—Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Bandura

 

  1. Cognition (8-10%):  Chapter 7—Pg. 254-325
    1. What varieties of experience are preserved by memory?
    2. What information is saved by using sensory memory?
    3. How much information can a person store in short term/working memory?
    4. How does context affect your ability to retrieve memories?
    5. How is knowledge organized?
    6. What cognitive capacities are required for humanlike language use?
    7. How do you unite different types of information?
    8. What general strategies can guide problem solving?
    9. What factors affect judgments and decision making?

 

**Lecture on stages of memory and memory processing

**Classroom demonstrations regarding encoding processes and stages of memory

**Read pg. 92-122 in Forty Studies book—Rosenthal, Asch, Tolman, Loftus

 

  1. Motivation and Emotion (7-9%):  Chapter 8—Pg. 326-407
    1. What internal and external forces motivate behavior?
    2. What is the physiology and psychology of eating?
    3. How can motivation be fit inot a unifying perspective, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
    4. What is the relationship between the physiology and psychology of emotions?
    5. What roles do emotions play in your day-to-day experience?
    6. How does your body respond to stress?
    7. How do you respond to different categories of stressors?
    8. What combinations of factors influence health?
    9. What lessons from psychology can help promote good health?

 

**Classroom poster of identifying Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

**Read pg. 154-186 from Forty Studies book—Masters, Ekman, Holmes, Festinger

**Lab activity on the impact of the adrenal gland during competitive video game tournament—How is emotion, stress response impacted?

 

  1. Developmental Psychology (7-9%):  Chapter 9—Pg. 410-475
    1. What types of physical changes occur from conception through adolescence?
    2. What processes and stages did Piaget use to explain cognitive development?
    3. What genetic and environmental forces shape language acquistion?
    4. What crisis do you face in each phase of your life according to Erik Erikson?
    5. What social experiences affect your growth in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood?
    6. How and when do children acquire gender roles?
    7. How does moral reasoning change over the life span according to Kohlberg?

 

**Field Trip to Brandon Elementary to test the theories of Jean Piaget

**Lecture regarding Developmental Psychology

**Read pg. 123-153 from Forty Studies book—Harlow, Piaget, Zajonc, Langer

 

  1. Personality (6-8%):  Chapter 10 –Pg. 478-519
    1. What dimensions underlie Allport’s trait approach to studying personality?
    2. What did Freud use to help understand personality and how it guides behavior?
    3. What is the significance of self-actualization in personality theory?
    4. How do you define your self?
    5. What is the MMPI objective test of personality?
    6. Distinguish the difference between psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, and trait theories.

 

**Group newsletter to analyze personality psychologists

**Re-assess the self-collage students created in Chapter 1 related to personality theory

**Read pg. 187-220 in the Forty Studies book—Rotter, Kohlberg, Friedman, Triandis

 

  1. Testing and Individual Differences (5-7%):  Chapter 11—Pg. 522-557
    1. What are the basic features of formal assessment?
    2. What are the origins to intelligence testing?
    3. Distinguish the impact of Binet and Weschler regarding intelligence tests?
    4. What is involved in Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence?
    5. Compare and contrast Howard Gardners theory of intelligence.
    6. In what ways is intelligence defined?

 

**Lecture regarding theories on intelligence

**MENSA organization intelligence test—Computer lab instruction and participation

 

  1. Abnormal Psychology (7-9%):  Chapter 12—Pg. 560-601
    1. Why is classification useful in abnormal behavior and what are the standards for diagnosis?
    2. In what ways are people affected by severe anxiety?
    3. In what different ways do people experience disturbances in mood?
    4. What personality traits are maladaptive?
    5. What happens when people lose control of their identity?
    6. In what different ways do people experience losses of reality that results in schizophrenia?
    7. What are the consequences of mental illness?

 

  1. Treatment of Psychological Disorders (5-7%):  Chapter 13—Pg. 604-638
    1. What are the goals of the major categories of therapies?
    2. How did contemporary treatment of mental illness evolve?
    3. Discuss the impact of Freudian psychodynamic therapies.
    4. In what ways do behavior therapies change maladaptive behaviors?
    5. How is the brain affected by psychoactive drugs?
    6. How does cognitive, humanistic, and group therapy work?

 

**Student generated PowerPoint presentation regarding an abnormal behavior and appropriate therapy psychologists use to help the patient.

**Read pg. 221-279 in the Forty Studies book—Rosenhan, Freud, Seligman, Calhoun, Smith, Wolpe, Rorschach, Murray


 

 

  1. Social Psychology (7-9%):  Chapter 14—Pg. 642-694
    1. How do social norms influence behavior?
    2. How do groups bring about conformity?
    3. Under what circumstances do your own behaviors lead you to modify your attitudes?
    4. What are the aspects of attribution theory?
    5. What is the impact of self-fulfilling prophecies?
    6. In what ways do we develop social relationships?
    7. What is involved in the attribution theory?

 

**Read pg. 280-309 in Forty Studies book—LaPiere, Asch, Milgram,

 

 

TEST DATES

 

TBA:  Chapters 1-4

 

TBA:  Chapters 5-8

 

TBA:  Chapters 9-11

 

TBA:  2004/2007 AP Practice Exam

 

TBA:  2014 AP EXAM 

 

AP EXAM REVIEW

 

Students are expected to take the 2014 AP Exam.  Our review sessions will then focus on commonly missed portions of the test.  We will also practice and review the free response questions from 2002-2013.  This will serve as a discussion point and I expect the students to critique his or her own responses to the essays.  I am using the information provided from the AP Central website to guide my instruction.