Phase 3 Essay

Phase III                        Janelle Rocktashel & Kelsey Biffel
Creating Your Learning Strategy        Period 2

Janelle Rocktashel

    In order to collect accurate data, we used a survey technique. By using a survey, we were able to collect data from all of the people in our class as well others. The questions on the survey were simple questions that would not confuse people in order to have answers true to the way people learn. From the data, we found that there are many different types of learning. People can learn using multiple strategies, even at the same time. For example, some people were unsure which answer to choose on the survey because they utilize more than one learning technique. These people then just chose the technique they felt to be the most helpful and which they used the most frequently. Many people like to have some sort of visual to look at in the beginning of a lesson in order to grasp an idea of the topic. This is then followed with note taking and worksheets to dig deeper into the material. Finally, discussing things in a group helps people fully understand concepts by talking them out with other people at the end of a lesson. Because our data varied in some aspects, it became apparent that we had to accommodate everyone’s learning type in order to be totally successful. It taught us that a lesson should have multiple aspects to it so the information could be learned through many different experiences rather than simply memorizing key facts. By analyzing the results more closely, we were able to see which strategy should be emphasized most. The survey really helped us see which learning strategy would benefit our class most, since we got the results directly from them. It gave us an honest look into their opinions and ways of thinking. We focused on the technique which the majority of the people surveyed found most helpful, and expanded our lesson from there. One piece of the data that stood out the most is the fact that most people had chosen the visual technique as their best way to learn. Because of this, we knew that we had to have most of our strategies utilize a visual of some kind. Pictures, maps, colors, videos, and diagrams all came to mind to make the lesson appealing to the many visual learners in the class. A second piece of information is that while most students learned through visuals, a large number also used auditory learning strategies. Putting the two most chosen techniques together, we found videos to be the most helpful. Memorization was not something that was brought up on the survey, because students admitted that is does not make them learn anything. Although memorization is used by a lot of students throughout school, we realized that after a short time, the information is forgotten. Based on the reactions we witnessed in during the survey, we noticed many people thought they learned in more than one way. This told us that we needed to make sure that each lesson utilized more than on technique in order to have the students learn as much as possible. We also found that the students had trouble answering the question because they simply did not know which way they learned best. This could be due to the fact that most times in school, students only do what they are told to do by their teacher rather than having the ability to utilize their own strategy. This could affect our results because some people could have picked any technique just to have an answer.
    Based off of what we learned through our collection of data from the survey in Phase II, we were able to come up with four different learning techniques in order to accommodate everyone in our class. One learning technique we used based on audio and visual stimuli. The majority of the class reported that visuals helped them learn things. Visual learning techniques have been studied since the 1800s and early 1900s. Research on visual learning developed greatly in 1965. Mnemonics were the first type of visual learning to be studied. In our strategy, we found many different videos on YouTube about the neuroscience topic. The videos showed many pictures and animations of key elements of neuroscience. This allows the students to actually see what is happening in one’s brain, rather than only read about it and try to imagine it occurring. This is effective because it gives people a clear image of the material and does not allow for misunderstandings of what something actually looks like. It is also effective in terms of using audio to learn. Many people also chose audio on their survey as their best way to learn. Having a video with audio allows them to listen to something as many times as they need to in order for it to be completely understood. This is best for neuroscience in that it does not allow much confusion. Sometimes in discussion, things can be heard wrong or not completely understood the first time it is said, but you cannot go back to the exact thing again as you can do with a video. Neuroscience involves a lot of information that is new to most people, and getting it mixed up by creating your own mental image of how something should look can make everything more confusing. A second learning technique throughout our lesson is note taking. Worksheets to go along with the video series provide an outline of all of the key parts. There has been written language for many thousands of years, which means note taking has also been used. Although in the past it would have been used for many different reasons, it is doing the same thing. Notes help visual learners see information on paper and remember it in that way. It is also effective because it puts terms and functions in an order of how they work together so that the students can have a better understanding of their relationships. This is a good way to learn neuroscience because it provides a summary of everything covered that is easy to refer back to if something is misunderstood. Notes can be done in a personal way in order for each student to remember and apply the information best, such as outlines or concept maps. A third strategy we utilized is hands-on learning. Hands-on learning has been around for many years and allows people to physically deal with the subject of choice. In our lesson, the brain model is hand-on learning. It allows the students to see the parts of the brain and put them where they belong on the diagram. This helps the students get a better understanding of where the parts are located, how big or small they are, and their physical relationship to other parts which they are involved with. This is an effective way of learning because it gives the students a clear picture to work from with motor skills to remember when thinking back to the brain model. Hand-on learners learn by moving their bodies with the lesson to enhance critical thinking. This is very effective when learning neuroscience because it involves many things that students are not familiar with. By providing them with hand-on activities, they can get somewhat of a real feel of what they are like. For these types of learners, doing things directly relating to the subjects makes them learn much more efficiently. Since we obviously could not study a real live brain, this model allows the students to have a closer look into what it might be like. Finally, discussing the subject in a small group is a strategy we applied to neuroscience. Speaking has been a way for people to learn and communicate problems for thousands of years. In school today, talking with peers is a great way to learn. This gives insight into other’s opinions and allows misunderstandings to be discussed and figured out. This is a type of learning for both interactive and audio learners. It gives them something to hear, while physically interacting with others on the same topic. This is effective for neuroscience because it gives the students a chance to talk through their own problems amongst each other and think critically to come to a final conclusion. Neuroscience has a lot of new terminology and concepts that are hard to understand at first. Instead of simply memorizing them and moving on, group discussions provide a higher level of thinking to figure things out. There are many different types of learning that need to be involved with a neuroscience lesson to provide skills for each kind of learner.

Kelsey Biffel

    While doing a run through of our strategies, we found them to all be effective.  We watched the YouTube videos to get a clear understanding of what they were about and what the major concepts were.  After watching the videos, we answered our own questions that we made up to follow the videos.  We realized that we had to sometimes go back to re-watch parts of the videos to develop the correct answer.  We checked ourselves to make sure all the answers were fully answered and correct, then made an answer key for other students who want to use our learning strategy.  Next, we created our own model of the brain as an example for others.  We made a brain by creating “puzzle pieces” of the brain parts to fit onto the brain.  We identified each brain part and its function that we learned about.  Lastly, for a small group discussion, Janelle and I talked about what we learned, what we needed to change and questions we had about some things we didn’t entirely understand.  For some ideas that we didn’t recognize, we did extra online research to come up with the answers. 
    All of our strategies did work because we realized while we were creating our model and having our discussion that we really did learn a lot and we remembered what we saw and heard from the videos.  The questions were also very effective in enhancing our learning and thoughts about neuroscience and the parts of the brain.  The questions are the main strategy that helped us remember what we learned from the videos.  During our discussion, we were surprised to notice how much information we learned from our strategies, we also talked about new concepts, and asked each other questions which also helped us learn more.
One thing we found that can be modified is we should change some of our questions from the worksheets to higher thinking questions.  Some of the questions are a little too easy and some are simply identifying so we will instead make them more in depth which will require higher level thinking and relations to the real world.  The new questions will help explain how neuroscience is a part of psychology.   
    Learning was definitely effectively applied from the use of creating the brain model.  The model helped to develop our understanding of the brain parts, and encouraged us to think about what we have already learned.  Along with learning, thinking and memory were also effectively applied.  The revised questions on the worksheets will entail higher level thinking to require students to think more deeply about the way neuroscience and psychology relate.  Memory was applied because we had to remember what information was taught in the videos in order to answer the questions, complete the brain model, and have the small group discussion.  Also, the use of language in our strategies was applied from the use of communication; communication in small group discussion and in communication of how to put the model of the brain together.  We communicated complex ideas and thoughts from one person to the other during the discussion, and also in asking each other questions which helps to transmit knowledge from one person to another.
    Many concepts in this unit are crucial to our understanding of neuroscience.  Remembering ideas from the videos to answer the questions and make the model uses memory.  The thinking comes into play when the students must answer the thinking questions that follow the video.  They require the students to think deeply and truly understand the meanings.  Thinking also refers to all mental activities associated with processing, understanding, remembering and communicating which are all covered in our learning strategy.    Similarly, information is obviously learned because students retain and retrieve the information; demonstrating that they are learning, and gaining new knowledge about psychology.  Language is also crucial, not just for this project but also because it is present in everything we do.  Language is the way we use our spoken and written language to communicate, and communication is a huge part of how we live today.  Language, thinking, memory and learning are crucial to understanding neuroscience because they each involve the brain making decisions and the way our mind processes and communicates information.
    Understanding these ideas allow us to learn how our brains work and function on a daily basis, since we do learn something new every day.  As something is learned, a normal brain stores the information which can be retrieved and communicated as needed.  We think, feel, and act with our bodies and our brains working together.  Our thinking and emotions influence our brains and our health, so it’s important to know about neuroscience to stay healthy.  When we think, we think with our brain, which sends millions of neurotransmitter molecules for communication.  It’s a lot easier to understand why we do the things we do, like why our brain tells us to do certain things if we understand neuroscience and its main concepts.      
    This knowledge helps us to learn other aspects of psychology such as the way we learn as students and the reasons why teachers teach us the way they do.  It’s clear that memorization is not the best learning strategy, although memory is still implied through many tasks we perform in a school day.  It’s evident that visual aids and interactive hands on learning are other learning strategies that are the most effective.  They are easily understood when a student can actually complete the concept, or look at the situation with a visual.  This also makes it a lot easier to relate to.  Psychology is a lot of relating concepts to real world examples that happen to us every day.  With interaction between peers and visuals it becomes a lot easier to do that.     
    To find out our class and other student’s favorite learning strategy we conducted a survey on many students and found that the majority of the student’s favorite way to learn is by the use of visual aids.  We figured we had to do something with visual aids and ways to enhance visual aids, so we chose to watch YouTube videos, and make a model of the brain as two of our main projects.  It is definitely an effective learning strategy because Janelle and I learned a lot while creating our project and while doing the run through of projects.  We realized that memory was applied to our learning without even trying to remember key concepts.   We were kind of surprised to find we actually did remember a lot from the videos when answering the questions and creating the model of the brain.  Since this learning strategy helped Janelle and I a lot, it should definitely help others in the classroom.  We hope that many of our classmates choose our strategies to study and gain more knowledge about neuroscience.     

Phase 2 Concepts

Phase II: Psychology (Kelsey Biffel)
PART ONE:
JANELLE
Learning: a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience.
Associative Learning: learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (classical conditioning) or response & consequence (operant conditioning)
Conditioning (classical): a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neural stimulus that signals an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begins to produce a response that anticipates & prepares for the unconditioned stimulus. Also called Pavlovian Conditioning.
Operant Conditioning: type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.
Behaviorism: the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not (2).
Observable Learning: learning by observing others
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
Ivan Pavlov's Experiment:  In this experiment, Pavlov fed dogs in association with the ringing of a bell. As a result, dogs were shown to salivate profusely in association with the ringing bell where the actual sight or smell of food was not also present.
Findings of Pavlov's Experiment: Pavlov regarded this salivation as being a conditioned reflex and designated the process by which the dogs had picked up this reflex classical conditioning.
Acquisition: the initial stage in classical conditioning; the phase associating a neural stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus so that they neural stimulus comes to elicit a conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.
Classical Conditioning Example: When someone flushes the toilet while you are in the shower, the water temperature becomes very hot. Over time, one will jump at the sound of the toilet flushing even before the temperature changes.
Extinction: the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus; occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.
Spontaneous Recovery: the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response.
Generalization: the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.
Discrimination: in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
Importance of Cognitive Processes in Cognitive Conditioning: Early behaviorists believed that learned behaviors of various animals could be reduced to mindless mechanisms.However, later behaviorists suggested thatanimals learn predictability of a stimulus, thus learn expectancy or awareness of a stimulus.Importance of Biology in Classical Conditioning: Although Pavlov and Watson first believed the laws of learning were similar for all organisms, therefore allowing pigeons to be conditioned in the same way humans are, many years later it was proven that biology restricts the conditioning of organisms.
Taste Aversion: Conditioned taste aversion occurs when a subject associates the taste of a certain food with symptoms caused by a toxic, spoiled, or poisonous substance. Generally, taste aversion is caused after ingestion of the food causes nausea, sickness, or vomiting. This is said to be an adaptive trait or mechanism used to prevent someone from consuming the same food.
Taste Aversion Example: if you ate a taco for lunch and then became ill, you might avoid eating tacos in the future, even if the food you ate had no relationship to your illness. OPERANT CONDITIONING
Respondent Behavior: behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus; Skinner's term for behavior learned through classical conditioning.
Operant Behavior: behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.
Law of Effect: Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.
Skinner Box (operant chamber): a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer, with attached devices to record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking. Used in operant conditioning research.
Shaping: and operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of a desired goal.
Successive Apporximations: A method for estimating the value of an unknown quantity by repeated comparison to a sequence of known quantities.
Discriminative Stimulus: A stimulus, associated with reinforcement, that exerts control over a particular form of behavior; the subject discriminates between closely related stimuli and responds positively only in the presence of that stimulus.
Reinforcement: in behavioral science, the presentation of a stimulus following a response that increases the frequency of subsequent responses, whether positive to desirable events, or negative to undesirable events which are reinforced in their removal.

KELSEY
Positive Reinforcement: Adds a desirable stimulus.  Ex. You may tell your child "good job" after he or she cleans their room
Negative Reinforcement: Removes an aversive stimulus.  It is a particular behavior that is strengthened by the consequence of the stopping or avoiding of a negative condition.
Ex.  Driving in heavy traffic is a negative condition for most of us. You leave home earlier than usual one morning, and don't run into heavy traffic. You leave home earlier again the next morning and again you avoid heavy traffic. Your behavior of leaving home earlier is strengthened by the consequence of the avoidance of heavy traffic.
Primary Reinforcers:  Innately reforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.
Conditioned Reinforcers:  Stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforce; also known as a secondary reinforcer
Immediate Reinforcers:   Occurs instantly after desired or undesired behavior occurs. This type of reinforcement has the strongest and quickest effect in controlling behavior.
Delayed Reinforcers:   The action occurring is postponed after desired or undesired behavior occurs. The longer the delay, the less likely the learning.
Reinforcement Schedules:
•    Continuous reinforcement:  reinforces the desired response every time it occurs
•    Partial reinforcement:  responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not
•    Fixed-ratio:  reinforces behavior after a set number of responses
•    Variable-ratio:  provide reinforcers after an unpredictable number of responses
•    Fixed-Interval:  reinforces the first response after a fixed time period
•    Variable-interval:  reinforces the first response after varying time intervals
Punishment: An event that decreases the behavior that it follows.  It weakens a behavior because a negative condition is introduced or experienced as a consequence of the behavior.
Cognitive Map:  A mental representation of the layout of one’s environment.  Ex.  After exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.
Latent Learning:  Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
Intrinsic Motivation vs. Extrinsic Motivation:
Intrinsic is a desire to perform a behavior for its own sake and to be affective.  Extrinsic is a desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment. 
How does Cognition impact Operant conditioning?
Cognitive processes; thoughts, perceptions, and expectations have a necessary place in the science of psychology and in the understanding of conditioning.  Thoughts and emotions as behaviors may actually follow the same laws as other behaviors, although several other examples have shown that cognitive processes might be at work in operant learning.  This greatly impacts operant conditioning because it associates behaviors with consequences, changing the consequence easily.
How does biology play a role in operant conditioning?
There are certain kinds of operant behavior usually skilled motor behavior that are affected by the consequences that follow.  A study of identifying neurons that responded in ways to encode conditioned stimuli shows the most biological response.
Research after Skinner:  Skinner’s research was later applied to work, home, and school students.  Many people used his ideas, and his research spread far.  People in home and work environments carries out new research through the ideas of skinner, making big differences in people’s work. 
Modeling: the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior
Mirror neurons: frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another do so.  The brains mirroring of another’s action may enable imitation, language learning, and empathy.
Albert Bandura:
Albert Bandura did a study on kindergarteners, to see if they would imitate hitting of a bobo doll that they previously saw in a movie clip.  Many variations allowed Bandura to establish that there were certain steps involved in the modeling process:
1.  Attention.  If you are going to learn anything, you have to be paying attention.  Likewise, anything that puts a damper on attention is going to decrease learning, including observational learning.   Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model.  If the model is colorful and dramatic, for example, we pay more attention.  If the model is attractive, or prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention.  And if the model seems more like yourself, you pay more attention.  These variables directed Bandura towards an assessment of television and its effects on kids. 2.  Retention.  One  must be able to retain what they have paid attention to.  This is where imagery and language come in:  we store what we have seen the model doing in the form of mental images or verbal descriptions.  When so stored, you can later “bring up” the image or description, so that you can reproduce it with your own behavior.   3.  Reproduction.  You have to translate the images or descriptions into actual behavior.  So you have to have the ability to reproduce the behavior in the first place.  Another important piece about reproduction is that our ability to imitate improves with practice at the behaviors involved.  And one more part:  Our abilities improve even when we just imagine ourselves performing.  4.  Motivation.  And yet, with all this, you’re still not going to do anything unless you are motivated to imitate, i.e. until you have some reason for doing it.  Bandura says that punishment in whatever form does not work as well as reinforcement and, in fact, has a tendency to “backfire” on us.  Self-regulation, controlling our own behavior is the other “workhorse” of human personality.  Bandura suggests three steps:
1.  Self-observation.  We look at ourselves, our behavior, and keep tabs on it.   2.  Judgment.  We compare what we see with a standard.  For example, we can compare our performance with traditional standards, such as “rules of etiquette.”  Or we can create arbitrary ones, like “I’ll read a book a week.”  Or we can compete with others, or with ourselves.   3.  Self-response.  If you did well in comparison with your standard, you give yourself rewarding self-responses.  If you did poorly, you give yourself punishing self-responses.  These self-responses can range from the obvious (treating yourself to a sundae or working late) to the more covert (feelings of pride or shame).   A very important concept in psychology that can be understood well with self-regulation is self-concept (better known as self-esteem).  If, over the years, you find yourself meeting your standards and life loaded with self-praise and self-reward, you will have a pleasant self-concept (high self-esteem).  If, on the other hand, you find yourself forever failing to meet your standards and punishing yourself, you will have a poor self-concept (low self-esteem).
Prosocial models:  positive, constructive, helpful behaviors.
The impact of television:
The justification process is a psychological phenomenon that explains why people who are aggressive like to watch violent television. A child’s own aggressive behaviors normally should elicit guilt in the child because of the responses of others. However, for the child who watches a lot of television violence, this guilt is reduced by the recognition that “everyone is doing it.” The child who has behaved aggressively and watches violent television programs feels justified and does not try to stop behaving aggressively.  This can affect the way the child behaves at school, with friends, or in inappropriate ways.  On the other hand, it is also simply very easy for a child to quickly become lazy and not be the least active.  This is a very bad habit to start young because it can eventually cause obesity later in a life. 

The good news about TV:
Television educates people of all ages and helps in studies.  It is the best way to inform people and to get useful information on the topics they want to hear about such as current events.  It’s like reading a newspaper, but instead just watching it, which may be more effective for some.  Television is one of the best ways to relax after the hard day. It doesn't demand any efforts from the viewer.  It can also give a positive influence on children and can educate them in such shows such as Sesame Street, Blue's Clues, and Dora the Explorer.  Advertising through television can help a company sell products and can also help someone find a product they are looking for.  Shared viewing on the television can also give family members of all ages an opportunity to spend time together.
Desensitizing of youth:  I think the youth are desensitized by TV, some may hear of a death on the news and all you think it may be scary, yet not reality because it doesn’t happen to them.  Because it's on TV, it's not being pronounced to them personally.  They may it around watching TV for awhile quickly becoming lazy when they actually should be outside running around, playing and engaging in their childhood.  Also, kids may play violent video games that are not appropriate for their age group, and could encourage them that this behavior is okay because it is in their games.  Children may also hear bad words, or mean sayings that are on non-educational shows that can also stick in their minds. 
One example of observational learning from your lifetime:
    Listening to a comedy and just repeating funny things that he said and learning by hearing and watching, and later imitating.  I would imitate it because it was funny, and the audience laughed at it, meaning it was a positive consequence.
PART TWO:
1.    In your normal day here at school, explain a time where you have seen the use of positive reinforcement and one of negative reinforcement. For each one, analyze the impact that it had on you or the class you were in.

Positive:  A teacher telling one of their students, “good job” or “good answer” or simply giving them a positive response that they did something well and appreciated.  Hearing teachers say this to students in my class, It makes me want to work harder so that they will also say that to me.  It also raises the thought of doing well by hearing praise, questioning the possibility in school that your grade will also raise.  With this in mind, I work harder to try to get that praise from the teacher and hopefully a better grade.
Negative:   When a teacher tells a student to do something, but the student does not listen and shows misconduct, they may receive a detention.


2.    How do punishments impact your learning here in school? Consider what you know about punishment systems from the learning chapter to help guide your response.

Punishment encourages students to work harder because they do not want to get the same punishment.  The punishment is a consequence to some type of misconduct at school which causes students to get in trouble, and therefore punished.  Punishment decreases behavior, the opposite of reinforcement which increases behavior.  From punishment, students learn and adjust themselves and their behaviors so they no longer have this punishment.  It teaches them to stop doing what they were doing before that caused them this consequence.  Punishments impact our learning at school because when a student is punished, they learn how to be a better student, and a lot of times receive better grades or at least get the help they need to understand how they learn better.  

3.    We talked about the impact of grades during Unit 2. Do you think they fall into this unit at all? Why or why not?

I think grades do fall into this unit because positive and negative reinforcers affect the way our grades turn out.  With more positive reinforcement, students grades will raise as stated above with praise from a teacher.  With negative praise, our grades may be affected because we could be told we are not good in a negative tone which gets us down on ourselves and ruins our determination and confidence to get good grades in school.


4.    Your textbook has a very positive bias when explaining the implications of Skinner’s research on operant conditioning. Do you agree or disagree with this bias? Explain by providing at least two examples that illustrate your point.

I agree with Skinner’s research even though it is a very bias explanation.  It explains that Skinner viewed thoughts and emotions as behaviors that follow the same laws as other behaviors.  I agree with this theory because thoughts and emotions do affect behaviors so they must be within the same laws.  Also, I agree because our minds think of consequences of behaviors as we may be doing the behavior but we sometimes do not agree with our minds, and do it anyway.  These thoughts encourage us, like our conscience to do the right thing in certain situations.  Our emotions affect us during bad behaviors that bring negative reinforcement, and good behaviors which bring positive reinforcements.   


5.     Let’s not forget learning by observation: Think of something that you do that might be influenced by what you have observed and explain it and how it applies to both the psychological aspect of our study and also the biological.

For me, I would like to be an elementary teacher, so I think that the way I talk to and interact with younger children has been influenced by observing elementary school teachers in some of my child developmental classes.  The psychological aspect of these observations is that in different environments of teaching, I would learn and observe differently.  It’s easier to observe from a teacher in a calm, friendly environment where are the children are engaged and having fun.  Biologically, the human nervous system and brain are what make me think the way I do while I observe teachers.  I may feel like one teacher is better than another with speaking to children because my brain recognizes that. 

PART THREE:

Design a way to collect data from your peers about how they learn:
•    How will you collect the most accurate data?
o    By creating a survey of learning strategies, and have people chose their favorite type of strategy.
•    How will you be sure to get an honest response from your classmates?
o    We will tell them they have to honestly answer it, and we will trust our classmates to answer them honestly.  Also, it’s not really something our classmates would lie about.
•    How can you get a wider variety of data- moving beyond just your class period?
o    We will ask a variety of grades, like some students from all the grades from the high school.
•    How will you use the data to your advantage?
o    We will use it to decide which learning strategy is the best to use for the majority of high school students.
•    What will you do with the data once it is collected?
o    Figure out which is the best strategy from students point of view.
•    Will this data be useful to you when creating your learning strategy? If it is, how will you use it?
o    Yes, because we will use the learning strategy that most students chose that they like the best.
Create a way to present your data:
•    How will you summarize your data in your presentation in December?
o    We will summarize it by using a bar graph so it’s easy to see, and we will write a small paragraph explaining our data.
•    How will you make it easier to understand?
o    We will color code the different options on the bar graph so it’s clear to see which strategy has the most votes.
•    Will people find your data relevant and useful?
o    I think so because that way they can also see how students like to study, and how many different options there are, and how everyone studies differently.
Reflect on your data collection:
•    Was the tool you designed useful and accurate in collecting data? Why?
o    We created a survey, and it was very useful because it helped us figure out which strategy will be best used to teach our own classmates. 
•    How did it help you start to build your learning strategy?
o    It helped by showing us how we should begin building our learning strategy and which strategies to use and which not to use. 
•    Is there anything you can do to supplement the data that you collected this time around?
o    I don’t really think we can supplement our data because we already have a large variety of answers from different grades, and ages of high school students.  We also already used a bunch of different options for the students to choose from, so it wouldn’t really be necessary to add more because I think we covered most of them.
Real World Application:
•    What makes your data applicable not only to this project but to the real world? Who might find it useful and how would they use it?
o    It’s applicable to high school teachers who could see which learning strategy is best for them to use.  They could change their lesson plans to fit what students would like to do, making them more interested.
•    Are you going to share this data with any one of the people or groups of people listed above? Why or why not?
o    I think it would definitely be a good idea to share this data with other teachers.  New teachers would be greatly appreciative for it.  I think any teacher would be interested in seeing this data to try and get their own students and classes more interested in what they are teaching, and hopefully therefore increase grades by using different learning strategies.

 JANELLE

A.The first two units we discussed in class fit into our midterm project in a few different ways. One example is that the theories and perspectives that we discovered in the beginning of the history of psychology have lead to what we now know about the way people can learn. Also, the science of psychology has lead us to know the biological importance behind classical conditioning. Finally, the early theories have been altered and added on to in order to create new theories and knowledge about the way the mind functions.

B. The knowledge of the history and science behind psychology can be useful in creating a learning strategy because it gives guidelines and theories about the way the mind works and how it comprehends information. We can look into the earlier theories created and add on to them in order to find the most efficient way of learning or use what we know about the biological effects of psychology on learning in order to find the way to remember the most about of information our brains will allow.

C. Some of the types of learners in our class include visual learners, audio learners, hands-on learners, learners through note-taking, and learners through lectures. These could all be incorporated by an interactive class simulation led by a teacher including videos and diagrams wish guided note to go along.

D. We can utilize psychology to help create learning strategies for all our learners by looking into the different ways the mind interprets things and the biological perspectives of psychology in order to create the most efficient way of learning for each person.

E. Biology plays a role in the way we develop learning strategies by understanding that certain biological conditions affect the way and the amount of information someone can learn. For example, someone with a learning disorder who has trouble learning the amount and the way students without learning disorders learn could be given different strategies in order to keep up with the students as much as possible.

PART FOUR:
JANELLE
Recall: a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test. Ex. reciting a poem
Serial Positioning Effect: our tendency to recall best the last and first items on a list. Ex. recalling a list of words, but only remembering the beginning and end
Recognition: a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test. Ex. Vocab quiz
Priming: the activation, often unconsciously, of particular associations in memory. Ex. word-stem completion
Mere-exposure: The more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more we will tend to like it. Ex. liking a song after hearing it a few times.
Deja Vu: that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." cues from the current situation may subconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience. Ex. having a conversation for the first time, but something triggers you to think you talked about it previously
Mood Congruent Memory: the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood. Ex. if you like shopping, and you are in a good mood, you will want to go shopping.
Proactive vs. Retroactive Interference: the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information vs. the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old learning.
 Repression: in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness. Ex.an abused child will lose their memory of being beaten.
Misinformation Effect: incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event. Ex. stories are changed over time and soon become what is thought to have actually happened just from hearing it incorrectly so many times
Source Amnesia: attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. Can be the heart of many false memories, along with the misinformation effect. Ex. someone could know where someone went, without knowing who told them that is where they are.
Binocular Cues: depth cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence, that depend on the use of two eyes. Ex. viewing a scene from a distance and being able to see something angular, such as a car.
Monocular Cues:distance cues, such as linear perspective and overlap, available to either eye alone. Ex. using shadows to determine the shape of an object.
KELSEY
Memory:  The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information.  Ex. Reading a book for English class, and remembering characters, setting, and plot.
Memory Loss:  when a person is unable to recall certain information.  Ex.  When you have already met someone before in the past, and cannot remember where or when you have met them.
Memory Feats:  the ability to remember/memorize large or small amounts of information such as voice, sounds, tastes, songs, places, and faces.  It can also be memory techniques for memorization, they demonstrate the amazing power of memory training techniques.  Ex.  Someone finds a credit card, and memorizes the credit card number and the important data on it. 
Memory like a computer?  The brain stores memories so (we encode information), retain information (storage), and get it back out (retrieves information). Ex.  Remembering a childhood memory from a long time ago, and talking about it like it was just yesterday.     
How neuroscience fits into memory:  Storage units in the brain are used to store memories.  Ex. Kicking a soccer ball enough times to memorize how to kick it without even trying.
Sensory memory:  The immediate, initial recording of sensory information in the memory system.  Iconic memory- a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photogenic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.  Ex. A picture you see that is quickly taken away from you, and you only remember the picture shortly after it is taken away and then it’s forgotten.  Echoic memory- a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds with words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.  Ex.  Hearing a sound that you like or that sounds pleasing, the sound will be remembered. 
Long-term memory:  The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system.  Its capacity for storing memories is essentially limitless.  Ex.  Remember a younger birthday party in the past because of something you got.         
Short term memory:  Activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the digits of a phone number while dialing, before the information is stored or forgotten.  Short term memory is limited not only in duration but also in capacity. Ex. Cramming for a test the period before
The role of emotion in memory:  If it has a strong emotional connection, the memory stands out more.  Ex. Always remember the funeral of a loved one.
The steps of encoding:  Automatic processing- occurs with little or no effort (unconscious).  Effortful processing- requires attention and conscious effort.  Ex.  Knowing all the characters in a book, but not the plot of it.   
Ebbinghaus’ retention curve:  Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on day 1, the fewer repetitions he required to relearn it on day 2.  He declared that the more time we spend earning novel information, the more we retain.  Ex.  If I study a book over and over again, I will remember the information about the book and do better on the test.   
Spacing effect:  The tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice.  Ex.  Practicing learning Spanish over a number of years at different times is easier to remember. 
What we encode:  When processing verbal information for storage, we usually encode its meaning.  We tend to not remember things exactly as they were, but rather we remember what we encoded.  Ex. If we hear the word face we may encode it as the word phase and think that’s what is was when we remember it. 
Kinds of encoding:  Visual encoding- the encoding of picture images.  Ex.  By looking at a picture that is jumbled, you can still make it out and it is easier to remember then.  Acoustic encoding- the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words.  Ex.  When we memorize a song.  Semantic encoding- the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words.  Ex.  Studying definitions for an English vocab test. 
Levels of processing:  We process information in three ways; by encoding its meaning, by visualizing it, and by mentally organizing it.  Ex.  By doing a crossword puzzle, you have to figure out the meaning, look at it, and organize it by putting it into a puzzle.  
Imagery and memory:  It’s harder to memorize formulas, definitions, and dates, and easier to remember things that involve visual imagery, or mental pictures.  Because of the durability of our most vivid images, we can recall our images with mental snapshots of their best or worst moments.  Imagery is the main source of many memory aids, like mnemonics.  Ex.  When studying for a math test, It’s easier to remember a graph or chart with pictures than to memorize the formulas that explain the data.       
Mnemonics:  memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices.  Ex. Creating songs or rhymes to remember something on a test.
Ways to organize info for encoding:  Chunking- organizing items into familiar, manageable units: often occurs automatically.  Ex.  Making a phrase of my vocab words so they are easier to remember.  Hierarchies-   It’s composed of a few broads concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts.  Ex. Making a chart or web diagram to remember my history terms. 
Memory trace:  Neuroscientists explore our memory of how and where we physically store information in our brains.  One conclusion is that memories do not reside in single, specific spots.  Ex.  Memories occur from experience we have, so that’s when they come about.
Iconic memory:  a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photogenic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second.  Ex. Above example under sensory memory.
Echoic memory:  a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds with words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds.  Ex. Above example under sensory memory.
Long-term potentiation (LTP): an increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.  Ex.    If I go one way home from school, and it has a lot of traffic, and I go another way the next day, and there is no traffic, my brain learns to go the way there is no traffic from then on. 
Amnesia: A loss of memory.  Ex. Someone who got in a car accident, and got a brain injury may have forgot the memory of being in the car, or where they were going.  
Implicit memory vs. explicit memory:  Implicit memory is retention independent of conscious recollection, and explicit memory is memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and “declare.”  Ex. Of explicit. Playing a musical instrument.  Ex. Of implicit. Reading something backwards.
Hippocampus:  a neural center located in the limbic system that helps process explicit memories for storage.  Ex. Playing a musical instrument is affected by the hippocampus.
PART FIVE:
JANELLE
Cognition: all the mental activities associated with processing, understanding, remembering, and communicating. Ex.learning a skill by repeatedly watching someone perform the skill.
Concepts: mental groupings of similar objects, events, and people. Ex. numbers are grouped together as math as a concept
Protoypes: mental image or best example that incorporates all the features we associate with a category. Ex. a tent made to test the durability of a possible tent style.
Algorithm: a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution. Ex. instructions to assemble a child's toy.
Heuristics: a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; using speedier but also more error prone than algorithm. Ex. an educated guess
Insight: a sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions. Ex. Monkey trying to get the banana
Confirmation Bias: a tendency to search for information that confirms one's preconceptions. Ex. someone who is against something will read information written by people who agree with them.
Fixation: the inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective: an impediment to problem solving. Ex.  finding a flaw in something and not being able to see past it afterwards.
Mental Set: a tendency to repeat solutions that have worked in the past (type of fixation). Ex. pushing a door instead of pulling it because you think that is how it should be.
Functional Fixedness: our tendency to perceive the functions of objects as fixed and unchanging. Ex. if you need something, such as a paper weight, and you have something that could do the same job, it will not be used because it is not thought of as a paper weight.
Representativeness Heuristic: judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead one to ignore other relevant info. Ex. using one's appearance and personality to assume where they are from.
Availability Heuristic: estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of vividness), we presume such events are common. Ex. when someone reads a lot about successful businesses, they may think the odds of running a successful business are greater.
Overconfidence: a tendency to overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge and judgments (more confident than correct.). Ex. playing the lottery and expecting to win a lot of money.
Framing: the way an issue is posed; how an issue is framed can significantly affect decisions and judgments. Ex.  
The first problem given to participants offered two alternative solutions for 600 people affected by a hypothetical deadly disease:

• option A saves 200 people's lives
• option B has a 33% chance of saving all 600 people and a 66% possibility of saving no one

These decisions have the same expected value of 200 lives saved, but option B is risky. 72% of participants chose option A, whereas only 28% of participants chose option B.
KELSEY
Terms and concepts to Remember: Page 417 (Second half of concepts)
Belief bias: The tendency for one’s preexisting beliefs to distort logical reasoning, sometimes by making invalid conclusions seem valid, or valid conclusions seem invalid.  Ex. A magazine or book that says one thing that is false, and you believe it.
Belief perseverance: Tendency to cling to one’s initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.  Ex. If students agree that young teachers are better teachers, it’s hard to change that opinion when they get older teachers. 
Artificial Intelligence: The science of designing and programming computer systems to do intelligent things and to stimulate human thought processes, such as intuitive reasoning, learning, and understanding language.  Ex. The new iphones, and mac computers are scientific systems that have very advanced learning techniques, that can give us any information at any time.
Computer neural networks:  computer system designed to mimic the brains interconnected neural units.  Ex.  A robot that can recognize smells from certain areas and people.
Language: Our spoken, written, or signaled words to communicate with others.  Ex. Simply speaking in a language like English, or Spanish. 
Phoneme:  In a spoken language, the smallest distinctive sound unit. Ex.  In English, one could be the sound of the letter “d”.
Morpheme: In a language, they smallest unit that carries meaning: may be a word or a part of a word.  Ex.  In English, one morpheme is “-ing”.
Grammar: In a language, a system of rules that enable us to communicate with and understand others. Ex. Making sentence agreement, as in subject, verb agreement so that communications sounds correct.
Semantics: The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences in a given language.   Ex.  The word "awful" originally meant "full of awe" instead of "frightful" or "very bad", so it would have very different meanings depending on the context.
Syntax:  The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language.  Ex.  "To your house we are going" would be an example of awkward syntax. You understand it, but it sounds odd.
Babbling stage:  beginning at 3 to 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.  Ex. A baby just rambling on random “words” that are not real words.
One-word stage: The stage in speech development, from ages 1-2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words.  Ex. The toddler may point to a ball and say “ball” or point to its mom and say “momma”.
Two- word stage:  Beginning about age two, the stage in speech development during which a child speaks mostly two-word statements. Ex.  A toddler might say “momma ball” meaning for the mom to see he/she has a ball or sees a ball.
Telegraphic Speech:  Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram using mostly nouns and verbs and omitting “auxiliary” words.  Ex.  A toddler saying “Sky Plane” meaning he/she sees a plane in the sky.
Linguistic Determinism: Hypothesis by Whorf that language determines the way we think. Ex.   The Spanish language has a masculine or feminine part of each noun, so if the hypothesis is true, it’s saying that those masculine and feminine parts determine our thinking patterns. 
Analysis, Application and Evaluation Questions:
JANELLE
1. In chapters 8,9 and 10 everything is cognitive psychology. This is proven because one, chapter 8 deals with learning. Learning deals with, thinking and problem solving. Two, chapter 9 deals with memory, which is how we remember things we have learned or experienced. Finally, chapter 10 covers thinking and language, both of which deal with speak and think. All of these are parts of cognitive psychology.


2.  I don't understand the category hierarchy. please help! :)


3. Functional fixedness can make it harder to problem solve when the answer is not exactly as it seems it should be. For example, when you need to be resourceful and use something in place of something else, functional fixedness makes it harder for someone to see the other use.


KELSEY

4.  How can you use what you know about thinking and language to improve your learning strategy? Provide two examples.
I know that positive reinforcement causes the way people learn to improve, and be more efficient.  I also know that people remember things a lot better if information is shown through pictures and visual aids instead of just verbally being taught the information.  We will use both of these in our presentation in teaching our classmates. 
5. How can you use your knowledge of language acquisition and the way that we read, speak and think to help create your learning strategy?
We can create our learning strategy by using information that we have learned about the way people read, speak, and think.  The way people speak comes from culture, and their language that they are known easiest to them.  They speak in ways they learn, meaning that if they learn from memorization, they speak from memorization.  We will use our survey to determine these types of thinking and learning.

6.  Summarize how you will use thinking and language in your learning strategy, below.  Make sure to include at least 6 different ways you are going to utilize this knowledge. 

•     First by creating a survey to determine our classmates and other students favorite learning strategies.
•     Second, we will analyze the results from our survey to find which strategy the majority of students will engage in.
•     Thirdly, we will use correct grammar for language use
•     We will use a variety of pictures, and graphs for photogenic minds
•     We will have notes for note taking, and memorization minds
•     Lastly, we will try to get our classmates to pull away from the belief perseverance, and try to get them to come up with their own newly developed ideas

PART 6:
Building our Strategy:

Learning Strategies

• lectures
• real life scenarios
• hands on activities
• visuals using pictures and diagrams
• audio
• discussions
• note taking

Essential Question
  Neuroscience can be learned without memorization through different activities that can simulate different parts of the brain. This could be done in a number of ways based off of how different students in the class can learn.

Key Questions
  How do you learn best?
  How comfortable are you with the way your teachers teach?
  After class do you feel that you truly learned the material?
  How can the information be related to your life in order to understand it better and use it in real life problems?

•    Critical thinking/problem solving activities
o    Critical thinking and problem serving can be best learned by using visuals to enhance the way a problem looks.  An example would be something like a color coded bar graph, for easy access that is clear to see. 
•    Relevance to the Real World
o    It’s relevant to the real world because our information that we find can help students learning methods, and can help teachers change the way they teach to benefit their students in ways their students would like to learn. 
•    Student-self management of learning
o    Students are accountable for the way they learn because they can create study strategies that benefit them the best.  They can study by making flash cards, memorization, or by taking notes.  It’s up to the student, not necessarily the teacher to create a study method that works for them and allows them to receive good grades.

Definitions/Concepts (Kelsey and Janelle)

Neural Communication: The axon terminal of one neuron is separated from the receiving neuron by a tiny gap. Nerve cells are functionally made to each other at a junction known as a synapse. Information is transmitted across the gap by chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. This causes activation in the post-synaptic cell and all cells possess the ability to respond to stimuli. The messages carried by the nervous system are electrical signals called impulses.

The Impact of neurotransmitters: It unlocks tiny openings at the receiving site for ions to enter the receiving neuron. They are responsible for the signaling that underlies thoughts, emotions, planning, and other types of behavior. Regulation of neurotransmitter signaling can therefore alter these processes. This idea is used in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease, and psychiatric disorders such as depression.

Impact of Drugs/chemicals on Neural Communication: Some drugs excite by mimicking particular neurotransmitters or blocking their reuptake. Other drugs inhibit by blocking neurotransmitters.

Nervous system: the body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems. It is used to take in information from the world, make decisions, and give orders for the body's tissues.

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.There are two parts: somatic, controls skeletal movements; autonomic, controls the glands and muscles of our internal organs. Two parts of the autonomic nervous system include: sympathetic and parasympathetic. Sympathetic arouses us for defensive actions while the parasympathetic conserves energy and calms the body.

Central Nervous System (CNS): the brain and the spinal cord. Neurons use it as a "highway" and cause reflexes, or automatic responses to stimuli.

Endocrine System: the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glads that secrete hormones into the bloodstream.

Limbic System: a doughnut shaped system of neural structures at the border of the brain and the brain stem of cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions such as fear and aggression and drives such as those for food and sex.

Methods of Researching the Brain: the oldest method of research is clinical research, or observing the effects of damage that has been done. Today, scientists can do tests on the brain without damage done. They can stimulate the brain by using things such as an electroencephalogram (EEG), an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measure by electrodes placed on the scalp. Another test is a computed tomography (CT) scan, a series of x-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body. A third test us the positron emission tomography(PET) scan, a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radio active form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task. Finally, the brain can be tested through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images that distinguish among different types of soft tissue; allow us to see structures within the brain.

Parts of the Brain: Brain Stem - The brain stem plays a vital role in basic attention, arousal, and consciousness. All information to and from our body passes through the brain stem on the way to or from the brain. Thalamus - processes and relays movement and sensory information. It receives info. From all the senses except smell and routes them to the higher brain regions that deal with seeing, hearing, tasting, and touching. Cerebellum - The cerebellum is involved in the coordination of voluntary motor movement, balance and equilibrium and muscle tone. Limbic System - The limbic system is comprised of four main structures: the amygdala, the hippocampus, regions of the limbic cortex and the septal area. These structures form connections between the limbic system and the hypothalamus, thalamus, and cerebral cortex. The hippocampus is important in memory and learning, while the limbic system itself is central in the control of emotional responses. Cerebral Cortex - Determines Intelligence, personality, interpretation of sensory impulses, motor function, and planning and organization.
Plasticity: the brain's capacity for modification,as evident in brain reorganization following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain development.

The Divided Brain: the left side of the brain is considered the dominant side or verbal hemisphere. It has been found to affect reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic reasoning, and understanding when damaged. The right side of the brain is the subordinate hemisphere is does not show dramatic effects when damaged. Only about one in ten people actual have speech development in this side of their brain.

Nature vs Nurture: the things you are born knowing vs the thing you learn through experiences.

Genes/DNA: Genes - the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; a segment of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein. DNA - a complex molecule containing genetic information that makes up the chromosomes double-helix with a pair of nucleotides.

Evolutionary Psychology: the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection. Natural selection has favored genes that designed both behavioral tendencies and info-processing systems that solved adaptive problems faced by out ancestors, thus contributing to the survival and spread of genes.

Natural Selection: the principle, that among the range of inherited trait variations, those that lead to increased reproduction and survival will most likelt be passed to succeeding generations.

Sexuality/gender: in psychology, the characteristics, whether biologically or socially influenced, by which people define male or female.

Behavior Genetics: the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

Twins: the studies of twins allows researches to determine genetic effects on behavior. It also let's them see the similarities and differences in fraternal and identical twins. Separating twins at birth and performing tests can also help show to the effects of nature vs nurture.

Adoption Studies: adoption studies show that many siblings that grow up in the same house do no share similar personalities. Adopted children are actually more apt to share characteristics with their biological family rather than the people who raise them. In this case, nurture does play much of a role in a child's personality.

Temperament/heritability: temperament - a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity. heritability - the proportion of variation among individuals tat can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.

Genes and Environment: The interaction between our genes and out environment make us who we are. Genes affect how people react to and influence us, therefore making biological appearances having social consequences. Our genes and our environment are both equally as important to us.

Molecular Genetics: the sub field of biology that studies the molecular structure and  function of genes.

Parental Influence/interference: Parents are given too much credit and take too much blame for the actions of their. Although environment and nurture do play roles in the development of the child, it is not all because of parenting. Test have shown siblings to act in completely different ways even though they were raised in the same family, proving this to be true.

Peer Influence: many children will follow groups and find friends who act in ways similar to the way they do. This can begin when a child will eat food when other children are eating it.

Culture: the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from on generation to the next.

Variations Over Time: variations can occur at very different rates over time. For example, language is something that has been slowly evolving over hundreds of years, while the crime rates, divorce rates, and other common occurrences have sky rocketed over a much shorter period of time. These changes cannot be stopped, and it is often amazing to see how much they can change over a certain period of time.

The Nature and Nurture of Gender: the nature of males and females are similar in many ways so as body functions, but genetically they are different due to the X and Y chromosomes. The extra chromosome from the father determines the sex and the rest of the nature causing them to think in a certain way. Gender is socially constructed and accentuated in culture causing the differences found in the nurture or males and females.

Psychology Questions: Page 1 (Kelsey)

How does neuroscience help or hinder the credibility of psychology as a science?
    Neuroscience greatly helps the credibility of psychology as a science.  It advances the understanding of human thought, emotion, and behavior, which all relate to studying psychology.    Neuroscientists, like psychologists work to describe the human brain and how it functions normally.  Neuroscience is now officially considered a unified field that integrates biology, chemistry, and physics with studies of structure, physiology, and behavior.  These sciences include learning more about human emotional and cognitive functions.  Everything psychological is also biological because biology underlies our behavior and mental processes.  This means that every idea, mood, and urge is a biological happening.  There are two types of neuroscientists that deal with psychological related studies.  Cognitive neuroscientists study functions such as perception and memory in animals by using behavioral methods and other neuroscience techniques.  Behavioral neuroscientists study the processes underlying behavior in humans and in animals. 

How do the brain and body work together to explain how humans think, feel and act?
    Humans think, feel, and act with their bodies.  Without their bodies; genes, brain and body chemistry, and appearance would be nothing.  The brain enables minds to see, hear, remember, think, feel, speak, and dream.  Without these traits controlled by the body and brain, a human would be nobody.  The brain runs and controls just about everything humans do, even when they’re asleep. The brain controls and monitors all of the body systems to make sure every body system is getting what it needs. Although the brain controls all of the body's systems, it, too, is part of one of those systems: the nervous system.  Nerves send signals from the brain to wherever these signals must be sent to in the body.  A lot of information comes into the brain through the spinal cord at the base of the brain. Without these brain signals, humans wouldn’t be able to move or feel anything in their body.  Information leaves from the brain to make body parts like arms and legs do their job, such as walking.  There is also a great deal of incoming information from the body to the brain like hot, cold, and pain.  Without these body functions working together with the brain, humans would fail to think, feel and act in ways that their body could not control. 

What is the difference between cognitive psychology and neuroscience?  
     Cognitive psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes; studies are usually in regards to learning, memory and problem solving. Cognitive psychology can be considered a study of how the mind works with the environment, in regards to decisions and actions.  It is involved in perception, learning, memory, and reasoning.  On the other hand, Neuroscience is the scientific study of the brain and is more relevant to biology than to psychology.  It revolves around the mechanisms of the nervous system rather than subjective emotional experiences.   It is a field of study that deals with the structure, development, function, chemistry, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system.  Therefore the main difference is that cognitive psychology deals mostly with how the human mind works, while neuroscience deals mostly with the nervous system as a whole, and its relation to biology and other sciences. 

How do gender roles play a role in how we study human beings and how they think?
      In the study of humans, socio-political issues arise in classifying whether a sex difference results from the biology of gender.   Humans have inherited natural traits that were adaptive in a prehistoric environment, including traits that had different advantages for males versus females.   A man's brain is made to think more systematically and mechanically, while the brain of a woman is made to think with empathy and fundamentalism. This will cause some things to come easier or thought to be different between men and women, causing inequalities that cannot be changed.  Girls score higher on self-report scales of empathy which include measures of perspective taking, orientation towards another person, empathic concern, and personal distress. Masculine and feminine cultures and individuals generally differ in how they communicate with others. Generally speaking, feminine people communicate more and prioritize communication more than masculine.  The way we are, behave and think is the final product of socialization. Since the moment we are born, we are being shaped into the being society wants us to be. Through socialization we also learn what is appropriate and inappropriate for both genders.

How does culture play a role in how people behave?
     People behave differently in ways their culture has encouraged and taught them to behave.  One's lifestyle is a collection of behaviors and habits that they are responsible for. People's values and beliefs certainly affect their behaviors. Culture and lifestyle choices are the outcomes of those values.  Culture influences behavior by the individual adapting to ways of the others around them.  The culture into which you are born will influence how you see the world. We gain understanding of our personhood; our communication skills develop as to how we relate with the rest of society. It affects how we see ourselves "fitting" in the world around us.  We are influenced in a negative or positive manner by the lifestyle of our environment. We learn to cope in our personal surroundings, using the same coping mechanism we see demonstrated in our immediate environment.  One’s perception of life is greatly influenced by the culture and lifestyle of your caregiver. Your behavior will directly compare with their influence upon you. This is the core influence upon how our personality and character develop.   There is in all human beings an instinct knowledge of some level of good and bad. It may not be very distinguished, but it is present. Cultural conditioning and cultural norms do not force us to become who we are. We choose to become who we are, under the influence of cultural norms.  We behave the way we do because we choose our personality, develop our character and express it through freewill.

How do studies of twins help us to understand the genetics behind psychology?
    Studies on twins determine how genetics and environmental factors may contribute to intelligence, aggression and addictions.  Most of the twin’s studies compare identical twins, having 100% genetic similarity, with non identical twins, with about 50% genetic similarity. If the identical twins show more similarity for this trait than the non-identical twins, then the excess is assumed to be down to genetic factors.  This type of analysis would then allow the researchers to estimate the heritability of specific traits and quantify the effect of genetic factors on the individual trait. Psychologists have long known that a twin study is not a true experimental design, but it has led to some interesting insights into the influence of genes on human behavior.  These studies of twins help us in understanding genetics because it is a good way to test contributions of genes and environment comparing with nature vs. nurture.  People differ from one another because of the complex interaction between their genetic makeup and their environment. Effects of genes and environments cannot be separated for individuals, but they can be separated at the population level through twin studies. Other less common types of twin studies include the twins-reared-apart design, which focuses on twins who were adopted into separate homes when they were infants. These twins do not share their environments so genetic influences are thought to account for their similarities. Cases like these are to examine whether or not the same genetic and environmental factors influence two or more behaviors.  A psychologist suggests that a shared genetic factor primarily accounts for depression and anxiety.  Behavior geneticists study the genetic influences on individual differences in behavior. The behavior genetic paradigm begins with specifying the behavior of interest. Whether or not biological relatives are more likely to also express the behavior is explored next. If so, heritability can be estimated from adoption and twin studies. Relationships with the brain can then be identified. If brain function is related to the behavior and they share genetic influences, this suggests a specific pathway from gene function to behavior. Also, the molecular genetic evidence can be explored.  Twin studies are powerful approaches for studying development of genetics.

Explain how evolution plays a role in Psychology?
    Through the trait perspective, evolution determines the traits and personalities of humans.  Evolution has helped to develop traits such as memory, perception, and language, and has adaptations, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection.  Evolution has also affected much of the behaviors of people.  The evolution of behavior is that behaviors can have a genetic basis. Not all behaviors are genetically based but many are genetically influenced.  These behaviors can evolve by natural selection.  Natural selection is the process by which traits become more or less common in a population due to consistent effects upon the survival or reproduction of their owners. It is a key mechanism of evolution.  Humans have many evolved traits such as cognitive structures, and psychological mechanisms.

How does technology play a role in helping us understand the brain and its functions better?
    Technology uses a great amount of knowledge which greatly affects our brains functions.  The way we learn through experience of using technology causes us to learn a lot more about the way the brain works when we are dealt a difficult task of figuring out how to use technology such as computers, and advanced phones.  We notice that our aged teens know a lot more about technology than our parents.  This shows that because we were brought up during a time of technological advancements, this knowledge comes almost natural to us, whereas our parents take a longer amount of time learning about technology and how it’s used.

Psychology Questions: Page 2 (Janelle)

1. Natural selection, or the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those that leas to the increased reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations, is a plausible theory. It makes sense because if something is causing people to reproduce and live longer lives, it is also going to be helpful for generations to come.
2. Social Darwinism, or the view that the weak and unfit should be allowed to die, is not credible for psychology. It is not credible because the way something in psychology does not show how it should be. For example, something that a person is born with, such as a disease causing they the be psychologically different than most, does not mean that they should not be given equal treatment.
3. Th culture we are brought up in become what we think of as "normal". This causes us to think that other cultures are weird, when really neither is wrong or weird at all, but different. Cultural psychology assumes the mind and culture to be inseparable, resulting in the limited applicability of psychological theories when put into another culture.
4. I do not think that men and women could be perfectly equal in our society. This is because of biological differences. A man's brain is made to think more systematically and mechanically, while the brain of a woman is made to think with empathy and fundamentalism. This will cause some things to come easier or thought to be different between men and women, causing inequalities that cannot be changed.
5. I the peer pressure plays a role in many of the things that take place in Wilson High School. For example, there could be something little, such as helping someone pick up books, that will not be done when other people are around who might that that is a stupid idea. On a larger scale, people will go to parties and take part in actions they normally would not based on the actions of those around them.
6. Beginning to teach a foreign language in sixth grade is not a good idea. Brains develop very rapidly in the earlier years, making it very easy for children to catch on to something like a new language. By sixth grade, it is already very hard for many students to learn a new language and remember everything for it to become fluent. For example, by the age 2, the brain is already 80% of it's adult size. Therefore, there is not much to be developed by sixth grade. It would be a wiser idea for Wilson to begin foreign languages as early as kindergarten while the brain is still going through rapid development.