My area is biopsychology and I am dying to hear your analogy of a cat vomiting and spatial/temporal summation. Please tell.
I have also found it helpful to discuss aspects of dysfunction that people may be familiar with but don't understand such as MS or Alzheimers. I have had students approach me after class wanting to learn more because their mother or grandmother has been diagnosed with a particular disorder. Also, if you have the funds, get some sheep brains and let the students dissect them. I also use the Kalat book. CHeri ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ferguson, Sherry" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 11:55 AM Subject: RE: Advice on biopsych > > > I've been teaching biopsych at our local university for the last 8 years or > so. Here are a couple of thoughts off the top of my head (it's near the end > of our semester so some of this is fresh in my mind). > > The biopsych class here is small - it's not required for psych majors but is > one of 3 upper level classes they can choose from for a major (the others > being cognitive psychology and I believe, learning). I usually have no more > than 20 students/class. > > 1. If students interested in biology are aware of the class, you may have > biology majors in the class as well. Unfortunately, this sometimes puts the > psych students at a disadvantage as some of the initial material is already > familiar to biology students (descriptions of neurons and glial cells; > in-depth lecturec on the action potential; the idea of receptors and > neurotransmitter release; receptors; steroid hormones, etc). In addition, > the biology students typically have the type of study skills necessary for > doing well, at least in my class. I try to inform students that this class > involves a lot of new terminology and while there are theories and/or > hypotheses to learn, there are a lot of hard facts involving new, sometime s > frighteningly long, terms. > > 2. I try to reassure the psych students that there is a foundation of > information that they must learn at the beginning of the class before we can > more on to material that is likely to be much more interesting to them. > They must understand the idea of agonists/antagonists before they can > understand how the drugs for schizophrenia work. They must understand the > idea of neurotransmitter release before they can understand drug abuse. > They must understand basic information about steroid hormones before they > can understand sexual differentiation and so forth. > > 3. I try to use a lot of visual aids since the class is lecture only. I > even use corny things like a small bottle filled with water to indicate how > much cerebrospinal fluid humans have (I put in a drop of red food coloring > and joke about how difficult it was to draw this out of someone). I use my > own analogy of a cat vomiting to illustrate the differences between spatial > and temporal summation (if you're really interested, I'll describe this!). > I use a styrofoam wig head with big red lips drawn on to indicate > directional terms (ventral, dorsal, etc.). I ask questions in class in the > middle of lectures, typically fact questions and then just wait for answers > (Do sodium ions move into or out of the neuron at the beginning of an action > potential? ) - I do this a lot at the beginning of the semester and then > students become accustomed to it and it becomes a review. > > I'm definitely interested in hearing others' responses. By the way, I use > Kalat's text, Biological Psychology. I'm familiar with Pinel's and I > believe both of these are about the same difficulty level. > > Oh yeah, one other thing - I try to work up special lectures on topics > students are interested in (I ask for notecards with this information at the > beginning of the semester). This semester, after the sole male student in > the class withdrew, I spent an much longer than usual time on sexual > differentiation and gave new lectures on premenstrual syndrome and hormone > replacement therapy after menopause - all because the students really were > interested in these topics. > > Sherry Ferguson, Ph.D > Research Psychologist > National Center for Toxicological Research/FDA > 3900 NCTR Road > Jefferson, AR 72079 > > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
