After a fun and restful holiday season with family, it’s back to work bright and early (8 a.m. class) tomorrow morning!
Not only is it a new year, but I’m also going to be using my two new textbooks for my classes (Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind with John Cacioppo and Discovering Behavioral Neuroscience: An Introduction to Biological Psychology). It should be exciting to see how the new books work for students. There is always a bit of work to do when transitioning textbooks. I have new backgrounds for my PowerPoints, I’ve updated the ever-popular Neuro ID test to match the new book illustrations, and I’ll be writing new tests. Whew!
One of the casualties of the new Behavioral Neuroscience editions is the printed Student Study Guide that accompanied the 2nd edition, and with it, the popular coloring book feature. Cengage has agreed to include the coloring book as a stand-alone in the instructors’ materials section for the textbook, but if any of you cannot access that, please send me a quick email at lfreberg “at” calpoly.edu, and I’ll send you a pdf. I use the coloring book pages as extra credit for my students, who say that the experience is “calming.” If you can reduce the anxiety of neuroscience students, that is probably a good thing!
Now that I have my two book projects off my desktop, it seems like I should have tons of time on my hands, but I don’t. I’m working on a revision of Barron’s GRE Psychology test prep book in my “spare” time, and I have quite a bit of q-sort data to analyze and write up. But it’s a new year, right? And that’s always energizing!
4 Comments
smorri07 · January 8, 2015 at 10:06 am
I’m excited to be a part of this new quarter with so many changes to the usual class scheme! I’ll definitely be doing that coloring book for extra credit (and extra study practice for the ID test), and so far those images you chose for the ID test are extremely helpful and easy to understand!
Cheers,
Sarah Morris
kmmcnult · January 9, 2015 at 10:53 am
I also agree with Sarah that the coloring book pages are extremely helpful and they are helping me get a better understanding of the material. I’m happy you are reducing our anxiety. I’m glad you have more time now that your books are done; I bet that was a lot of work. I am enjoying the new book and I am looking forward to where your class takes me this quarter.
– Krista McNulty
rspatric · January 17, 2015 at 1:00 pm
I am glad we did the neuro ID test early on in the quarter. It was a challenge to study for, but the coloring book really helped prepare for that. Also, after taking the test I’m finding the readings in the text book much more easy to understand. When parts of the brain are mentioned in the chapters, I can better comprehend what their functions are, because I know where they lie in the brain and what other parts they are connected to.
elliehirahara · January 20, 2015 at 5:38 pm
I agree with all the comments about how the coloring book pages and images you provided us helped! The color coded images were very easy to understand and was a tremendous help when studying for the neuro ID test. I also agree with the comment above; I am glad we took the test earlier in the quarter because it is easier to understand when the parts of the brain are mentioned in the readings and even during lecture. It gives me a better idea of what their function is and how it connects with other parts.
I am looking forward to the rest of the quarter and all the interesting things we get to learn about biopsych!
Ellie Hirahara