About a month ago I asked for information regarding activities for a history
and systems course. Some of the replies were sent only to me (the down side
of the change to the reply function) so I have collected all the responses
and included them below
Thanks again to all of you who responded
Gary
>From Jim Dougan
I did this *once* a few years back - and plan to repeat it again sometime,
but it is the type of assignment which cannot be repeated too often.
I had each student in the class choose a living psychologist, and then
trace that person's academic lineage back as far as possible.
I encouraged them to choose a psychologist in the department, but
otherwise gave them no real "leads" in where to go. They got pretty
creative, though. I had people calling the graduate library at Harvard
trying to find out who signed off on Skinner's dissertation, etc....
Before the start, I told them that virtually anyone they chose could be
traced to either Wundt or James within a very few generations. They
didn't believe me - but I was right!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald McBurney had a similar project
Group Project
Intellectual History and Family Tree
of a Member of the Psychology Department
Your assignment is to present a brief (10 minute) intellectual history and
family tree of a member of the Psychology Department at Pitt. You may
choose any regular faculty member in the department. (Be sure to check with
me before deciding on a person to interview.)
Your goal is to place the professor of your choice in the intellectual
context of modern psychology. You will need to interview the person, and do
some library research.
The Interview Be sure to ask the professor's permission to interview him or
her. Make an appointment in advance of the interview. Two members of the
group should take part in the interview. Although you may use a tape
recorder (not recommended) with the professor's permission, be sure to take
notes on the interview. Have your questions written down in advance in
order to structure the interview and to make sure you don't forget anything.
Suggested Questions
1) Please tell us about your undergraduate work.
Where did you do go to college?
Were you a Psych Major in college?
If not, what was your major?
What did you start out studying in college?
Why did you decide to go into psychology?
2) Please tell us about your graduate work?
Where did you go to graduate school?
When did you get your PhD?
How did you pick the school you attended?
Who was your graduate adviser?
Who else had a major influence on you in graduate school?
What was the major theoretical orientation of your graduate program?
3) Please tell us about your present area of interest.
Is it directly related to your graduate dissertation?
What would you consider your theoretical orientation at the present time?
4) How has psychology changed in your time in the field?
5) What are the most exciting recent developments in your area of
psychology?
6) What gives you the most satisfaction about being a psychologist?
7) If you had it to do over again, and you didn't go into psychology, what
would you choose?
8) Can you help us trace your intellectual family tree?
You will make a 10-minute presentation to the class and write up a paper, no
more than 5 double-spaced pages. Part of the paper will consist of tracing
the family tree of the professor back as far as you can go.
Gary Peterson
I have developed a large bank of trivia questions that I
use in the class. You could use some of the info from a variety of
sources to compile your own. Some of the questions are trivial and some
are pertinent to class lectures. I do this two ways: I divide the class
up for a "quiz bowl" contest and award bonus points for the winning side
in answering toss-up questions; or I divide class into small groups and
they play a board game using the trivia questions. The board game I use
is from an old Allyn and Bacon supplement, but you could devise your own
on cardboard or sheets by creating some squares, a goal, a die, and some
game pieces. Anyway, I find these help break the monotony of lecture and
are good for review.
David E. Johnson
You may want to take a look at some of the following articles that were
all published in "Teaching of Psychology" (hence, I didn't type in the
journal name for each article).
Terry, W. S. (1980). Tracing psychologists "roots": A project for
history and systems course. 7, 176-177.
Henderson, B. B. (1995). Critical-thinking exercises for the
history of psychology course. 22, 60-63.
Benjamin, L. T., Jr. (1990). Involving students and faculty in
preparing a departmental history. 17, 97-100.
Landrum, R. E. (1992). Ideas for teaching history and systems. 19,
179-180.
Caudle, F. M. (1979). Using "demonstrations, class experiments and
the projection lantern" in the history of psychology course. 6, 7-11.
Berrenberg, J. L., & Prosser, A. (1991). The create-a-game exam: A
method to facilitate student interest and learning. 18, 167-169.
Davis, S. F., Janzen, W. C., & Davis, R. L. (1982). Teaching and
learning the history of psychology need not be boring. 9, 183-184.
Wight, R. D. (1993). Expanding coverage in the history course by
toasting significant but often overlooked contributors. 20, 112.
Schilling, K. L. (1983). Teaching psychological issues in context:
A library exercise. 10, 57. (D/A)
Waller, J. E. (1994). Philosophies of psychology: A discovery
process for undergraduates. 21, 33-35. (D/A)
Goodwin, C. J. (1994). Toward eloquentia perfecta in the history and
systems course. 21, 91-93.
Grigg, A. E. (1974). Research projects for a history of psychology. 1,
84-85.
Rhoads, S. E., & Wight, R. D. (1997). Of theater, pedagogy, and the
history of psychology: An exploration. 24, 36-38. (D/A)
Brooks, C. I. (1985). A role-playing exercise for the history of
psychology course. 12, 84-85.
Cox, B. D. (1997). Students' basic philosophical assumptions in
history of psychology: A measure and teaching tool. 24, 39-41. (D/A)
Diekhoff, G. M. (1982). Cognitive maps as a way of presenting the
dimensions of comparison within the history of psychology. 9, 115-116.
Raphelson, A. C. (1987). The use of slides in class: A demonstration of
incidental learning. 14, 103-105.
Simonton, D. K. (1994). Scientific eminence, the history of psychology,
and term paper topics: A metascience approach. 21, 169-171.
* John W. Kulig
*
Do a history of your own psych. deptartment - when it was founded, who first
taught in it, etcetera. Or, trace the mentor lineage of every person in your
psych. department. It only takes a few generations before you get back to
Wundt.
When I lecture I try to keep away from generalities and present actual
psychological "stuff" that famous people did. Sometimes I have describe in
moderate detail Magendie's work on spinal reflexes .. or Helmholtz'
apparatus
to measure the speed of the neural impluse .. today I will describe the "eye
and ear" method of astronomy (Maskelyne and Kinnebrooke) and its
implications.
You can't do alot of these, for time reasons, but a few now and then are fun
and educational.
Even though I believe in the zeitgeist, it's also fun (and educational) to
get into some of the details of the famous people's lives .. if only to
remind
everyone these people were human, and were affected by events around them.
Besides, what is the zeitgeist but the sum total of individual people and
their activities?
At the end of the semester we read a few works by Freud and Skinner. I've
cut
the list down to only a few, but hover the past few years I have chosen
Civilization and Its Discontents, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Anna O.,
Freedom and the Control of Men, Case History in Scientific Method, A Lecture
on Having a Poem. This semester we are also doing Skinner's What's Wrong
With
Daily Life in the Western World? Students do presentations on these in
groups.
Linda Wolf
1. Our students are often naive when it comes to the history of the world.
As so
much of the work, theory, ideas, etc. of psychology developed in response to
the
Zeitgeist, I have found that putting it into its historical/political
context helps
stimulate interest. In addition, it has helped with retention as now the
"reason"
for some of the theories/ideas becomes apparent.
2. Students in my one class examining lives of women in the history of the
behavioral
and social sciences developed a web page
http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/women.html
). This project generated a great deal of enthusiasm for the course and
material as
well as ownership of their own work.
Charles M. Huffman
I divide students into groups of 3 and assign them a time period, for
example 1880-1900. The assignment is to explore the social, political,
and economic conditions of Europe and the United States for that time
period. Each student explores one of the areas and then collectively
they generate a paper and present it to the class. The presentations
can be staggered so they correspond with the material you are covering
at that time. One student came to class wearing a Victorian era dress
(the student was a female) and I believe it was very effective for their
understanding of the zeitgeist. I also assign them a traditional paper
and they choose between a school of thought or a great person. The
papers can be educational for me as well as for the students. In the
fall I am going to include Ludy Benjamin's "A History of Psychology in
Letters" (McGraw-Hill) but haven't worked on the details of how I will
include it as yet. Hope this helps.
Stephen Truhon
Last semester I had my students do their presentation of a famous person in
the
history of psychology as a poster session. Very interesting and a lot of
fun.
Jerry Henkel-Johnson
When I was an undergraduate, we also did a presentation of a famous
psychologist in history, but we acted as if we were that psychologist,
including being in "full dress" of that time in history.
Gary J. Klatsky
Department of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oswego State University (SUNY) http://www.oswego.edu/~klatsky
Oswego, NY 13126 Voice: (315) 341 3474
