RE: "seductive details" in lecture

[Peterson, Douglas \(USD\)]

Don beat me to the point but I already has this typed up and I haven’t posted anything to the list in quite awhile so here were my thoughts.   I think there are two questions that should also be considered:   1)       Does the “seductive” material keep them coming back to class or reading the book?  If yes then I’ll sacrifice a little bit of retained knowledge on the content for the day arguing that the net benefit for the class as a whole is greater if they attend and are interested in the material.  I haven’t read the article (and my copy of ToP is at home right now) but I think the issue is more complex that simple content retention for one lecture.   2)       The second question is whether transference of basic facts is what education is all about.  Personally, I don’t think so.  I’m happy to sacrifice content in an effort to ignite a student’s interest self-motivated exploration (assuming that I’m also helping them develop skills in research, critical analysis and reasoning).     Doug   Doug Peterson, Ph.D. Director of the Honors Program Associate Professor of Psychology 414 E. Clark The University of South Dakota Vermillion SD  57069   e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Honors Program: (605) 677-5223 Dept. of Psychology: (605) 677-5295   From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 13, 2005 9:00 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Subject: "seductive details" in lecture   According to a research article in the lastest issue of Teaching of Psychology (Harp & Maslich, p. 100ff.), including "seductive details" in lectures to "spice them up" or make the "more relevant" actually degrades students' recall of the important facts that were to be learned. The article uses the example of a lecture about the physical basis of lightning, and includes, in the experimental condition, additional "seductive" details such as that lightning kills about 150 Americans per year. This is admittedly some distance from my own specialty, history of psychology, but I couldn't help but wonder about all those "instersting asides" we often include in history of psychology courses in order to "fill out" the characters we describe, or "real world" examples we attempt to generate, thinking that they increase our students' interest in the topic (and therefore, presumably, their performance on papers, tests, etc.). Of course, the line between an "interesting aside" and legitimate historical material -- though not "intellectual" in nature -- is not all that clear. For instance, do we talk (and how much) about the scandals that drove Baldwin and Watson from the academy because they are important to the history of the discipline, or because they are likely to generate "student interest"? I suppose one way to "operationalize" (if I, of all people, may use that term) this question is to ask ourselves whether it is a matter about which we would be likely to examine students. If so, then it is part of the "core" matrerial of the course. If not, then we may be using it merely as a "seductive detail," and it may be interefering with the information we primarily wish to convey. Anyway, interesting and difficult questions to consider. Regards, -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 416-736-5115 ext. 66164 fax: 416-736-5814 http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ============================ . --- 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: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]