Psychology, taught by Beth Roberts, is a course designed for students in 9th – 12th grades. The class focuses on solving problems through neuroscience, emotions, and personality. This course studies

biological functions of the brain as well as the mind, by evaluating the nervous system and endocrine

system and how it communicates with the brain and the body. Students will sense the world around them by applying their vision, hearing, and other senses to the world and how it creates perception. One of the differentiating characteristics of Understanding Psychology is understanding how language, thinking, reasoning, and intelligence cannot give you motivation, but motivation can enhance language, thinking, reasoning, and intelligence due to the brain’s ability called neuroplasticity. This

class will focus on adolescence and how the physical development, moral and social development

creates a sense of self.

Activities and Homework Assignments:

• Students will learn to define psychology as a scientific study backed up by critical evaluation in

research which studies human’s behavior, mind, and personality.

• Students will understand how different parts of the brain process emotions, motivation and

action.

• Students will create a classic or operant conditioning experiment in class and show a cognitive

approach to learning is valid. This is a fun project for the students.

• Students will develop long-term and short-term memories games that dive into the memory

part of the brain.

• Students will create a hypothesis and variables to back up their hypothesis.

• Students will learn the anatomy of the brain and how each part functions.

• Students will learn their personality type and how personality can help monitor stress, improve

existing relationships, and guide them in a career that coincides with their thinking and natural

abilities.

Requirements:

• Students must have computer access, able to research and write on historical subjects.

• Students must have access to specific YouTube videos to watch concerning psychology related topics

instructed by the teacher.

• Students must have the ability to email papers to the teacher and turn in assigned homework.

• Students must have Microsoft Word/MS Word for creating documents, or some kind of word-processing

program mainly for creating documents, such as handouts and student’s homework assignments.

• Students must turn in assigned homework.

Overall, Psychology is not limited to learning emotions and personality, but is an actual science backed up by research. Psychology is an actual working system that demands all its parts to work together as a whole through the brain’s operating and body’s endocrine system. The brain and the body seek homeostasis.

Textbook:

Essentials of Understanding Psychology, 12th edition, by Robert Felman

Materials:

• Folder with pockets and brads

• 2 trifold poster boards (24x16")

• Pencils

• Pens

• Highlighters

• Colored pencils

• Colored markers

• Scissors

• Glue sticks