WORKSHOPPPING—ACTIVE LEARNING (WHICH IS LEARNING, JUST SAYING)

Contents Page

Explanation 2

Instructions 3

Plan 4

Considerations 5

Workshop activities 6

The information to present 8

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 Explanation

The basic rationale for the workshops is that “learning is doing”. The more you do
(talk out the knowledge you are learning, in as “close to the right way” as possible)
the more, you learn and the better you become: like ski-ing, playing the piano or
basketball.

The “doing” in our PSYC 200 context involves thinking and talking about the content
in varying ways, because these allow you to do:
constant practices, mistakes, mis-interpretations, false starts, hands-on
explorations, anxiety-free problem-solving, initiatives, imaginations,
imitations, fun, deep motivation and engagement, thrill, trial and error, trying
out possibilities, cut to what’s important quickly, see a broader perspective,
revising ideas, discovering new challenges and relationships, and bringing
wide-ranging elements together.

But these experiences can only occur in safe spaces. Therefore, each workshop is
going to be structured as follows:
 eight groups of 25 people (approx. depending on add/drop students);
 Up to 3 people prepare the information and present that to their group (from
the guide);
 Small group presentations last 15-20 minutes (no more);
 The 3 group leads also design workshop activities to last 15-20 minutes
(from the guide);
 Everyone in the small group comes together to summarize the key points (10
minutes);
 The 3 group leads write up and hand in the group summary.

The 3 students leading each group, hand in (email me in a word document) their
notes/slides of the content (information they present), their workshop design, and
the group summary. This collective information will be the information that is
assessed for those students.

In the first class, I will divide everyone (200 students) into their small groups of 25.
Each group then needs to organize themselves into seven groups of three and two
groups of two (nine groups for the nine workshops), and come up with a (polite and
respectful) group name.

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 Instructions

In your groups of 25, or whatever number of students end up in your group, split
into smaller groups (1-3 students) who will lead a workshop.

Every workshop has to be covered. That means, one student may have to lead a
workshop.

 Prepare the relevant information using the guide on pages 8-12.

 Deliver that information to your group on the day planned in no more than
20 minutes.

 Organize the group into smaller groups to workshop the information you
have just presented (getting everyone to talk).

 Feedback as a whole group, and record this feedback.

 Hand in to me in a word document the information you presented, the

workshop activities you chose, the summary of the feedback.

 Assessment. You are assessed as to how much you got everyone to engage, as
well as the quality of the information you presented.

PLEASE NOTE: Refer to the module outline for the dates of the workshops.
Workshop 1 is on the “biological basis of behaviour” part 1, and is on Monday 8 May
(5 days to prepare). Workshop 9 is on “consciousness” part 3 which will be on
Monday 12 June, and every other workshop falls on the corresponding dates
outlined in the module.

Make sure when you organize yourselves into small groups, you commit to
presenting to your bigger group on the day that is organized. It is your responsibility
to ensure this happens. If you let your group down you will record a 0 grade (for
25% of the course). If you know something is going to impact the date you lead a
workshop, you need to swap with another small group member.

Any small group members not contributing or letting their peers down, will record a
0.

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 Workshop plan

Workshop 1: The biological bases of behaviour pt. 1, Mon May 8

Students:

Workshop 2: The biological bases of behaviour pt. 2, Wed May 10

Students:

Workshop 3: The biological bases of behaviour pt. 3, Mon May 15

Students:

Workshop 4: Sensation and perception pt.1, Wed May 17

Students:

Workshop 5: Sensation and perception pt. 2, Mon May 29

Students:

Workshop 6: Sensation and perception pt. 3, Wed May 31

Students:

Workshop 7: Consciousness pt 1., Mon Jun 5

Students:

Workshop 8: Consciousness pt 2., Wed Jun 7

Students:

Workshop 9: Consciousness pt 3., Mon Jun 12

Students:

Please in your groups, complete the above plan, listing the students who will lead
each workshop (seven groups of 3, two groups of 2).

Copy and paste the plan in an email to me under the email subject heading: “PSYC
200: Your group name plan”

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 Considerations

In choosing how to present your learning content, consider the following:

1. Use metaphors, analogies, stories in your own experiences, from the

textbook, from other classes, other school/work experiences or those of your
friends and family.
2. Connect the learning to your own experiences, from the textbook, from other
classes, other school/work experiences or those of your friends and family.
3. Connect the learning to the content I am teaching or your class mates
presentations
4. If you use slides, limit the amount of words on the slides, use pictures, videos
or memes and get ready to explain what you mean.
5. Show that you understand the content by not simply reading all the time, I
appreciate you need to do this some of the time, just not all.
6. Decide if some pieces are more important than others, and discuss those.
7. Think of some questions that your knowledge of the content is making you
ask.
8. Sit with the audience.
9. Summarize with a key take home point(s).
10. Know that this is not an exhaustive list, if you want to add some, go for it.
11.Keep in mind you are assessed according to the degrees to which you get
your group talking.

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 Workshop activities

What you ask your group to do must come from this list. Organize your group
into smaller groups of any size. These workshop activities last no more than 20
minutes, with ten minutes left for the whole group to summarize.

1. Connecting
 What in the content, can you see connecting to another class?
 What in the content, can you see connecting to what you knew already?
 What in the content, can you see connecting to what you experienced
already?
 What in the content, can you see connecting to the real-world?
o How does it do this?
o What could happen as a result?
o Could it connect anywhere else?

2. Creating the knowledge, being critical and exploring other ways

 Where does the knowledge come from?
 How was it created?
 Why was it created in that way?
 What are the problems?
 What are the limits, restrictions, the unseen problems or the unintended
consequence?
 What are the limits when it was created or put together, what was left out?
 What are the consequences, what does it allow us to do, or what does it mean
next?
 What’s left out, what’s ignored, what that knowledge why not another? What
might another way of knowing this topic be?
 What burning question do you have?

3. What is it?
 What are the key take-aways, the bottom line, the main and most important
points?
 What 2, 3, 8, 12 takeaway points were there? List them.
 How would you summarize the main points?
 Summarize the class in one sentence, 4 sentences, 50 words, 4 words, 200
words.
 What does that bottom line allow you to do?
 If you were to use each of the main points as giant stepping stones to cross a
river, how many would you need?
 Put those points into a linear, developmental sequential way that makes
logical sense. Now reverse that way, how would it go backwards, start with
the end point and work back. Can you jumble it?

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4. Using it
 What piece of content would you like to tell someone else?
 How would you explain the ways in which the information is useful?
 How would you explain the content to your auntie?
o A kindergarten class?
o A boardroom?
o Junior high?
 Knowing that you have no job, need to feed your family and are desperate for
the work, how would you sell it to a company, why is it essential their
employees know this content, how could it improve their performances?
o How would you elevator pitch it?

5. Confirming
 What’s muddy?
 What makes no sense?
 What’s irrelevant to you?
 What’s the most horrible word?
 What’s most/least interesting?

6. Points of interest
 Pick one theme/concept/conclusion that stood out to you, led you to think
more about what was being said, or simply caught your attention. Identify
that point of interest and then explain your thoughts and reactions to it.

7. Application to your context

 Discuss how that concept applies to your current (or future) work:
o How do did this concept expand your understanding?
o In what ways does it apply to your future work?
o In what ways does it inform what you do?
o How will you think about and do your work differently?
o What words would you say to the person/people you are trying to
impact?

8. Explaining it
 Explain historically and theoretically why that practice exists
 What three structures, and supporting values filter our knowledge?
 Where do you see those values in your practice?
 What solutions are there to problems in those values?
 What other values are used?
 What differing values could you use?
 How do you see the strategic elaborations?

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 The information to be presented

Workshop 1 The biological bases of behaviour 1

 Provide context for the presentation: why is this content important, what
does it help us understand, what does it help us do.

 What are glial cells, why are they important (nine functions)?

 What are neurons, are they all the same, what properties do they share?

 The function of neurons can be determined by examining four of their main

processes.

 Resting potential: what is this, how does it work, why is it important?

 Action potential: what is this, how does it work, why is it important?

 Synaptic transmission: what is this, how does it work, why is it important?

 Graded potentials: what is this, how does it work, why is it important?

 What is the hindbrain, the midbrain and the forebrain?

 What is the thalamus and hypothalamus and what do they allow us to do?

 What is the cerebrum and what does it allow us to do?

 What is plasticity of the brain, what are the research findings that give us
those conclusions, and what can we conclude from this research and why is
the term “plastic” a problem?

Workshop 2 The biological bases of behaviour 2

 Who was Donald Hebb, why is his work important? What is long term
potentiation? Why is Rita Carter’s work as important?

 What are neurotransmitters, and what properties do they share, and what
are their main effects?

 Describe the main characteristics and relations to behaviour of the main

neurotransmitters.

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  Summarize right/left brain laterality and specialization.

 What’s the endocrine system, hormones, and the pituitary gland, and why are
they important?

 What’s oxytocin and why is it important?

 What are chromosomes and genes? Why aren’t family members more
identical, what are polygenic traits?

 Summarize family studies: what major teachings do we find from twin and
adoption studies.

Workshop 3 The biological bases of behaviour 3

 What is the nervous system, the peripheral and central nervous system?

 What is the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system?

 What is the central nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain?

 Who was Charles Darwin, what had others done and what did he do?

 What were Darwin’s four “crucial” insights?

 What did Darwin mean by the term “fitness”? How might this term be
misunderstood?

 How has evolutionary theory developed?

 How were the “main” characteristics of psychology illustrated in these “two”

presentations?

Workshop 4 Sensation and perception 1

 Provide context for the presentation: why is this content important, what
does it help us understand, what does it help us do.

 What does sensation begin with, what’s a threshold, an absolute threshold, a

JND and Weber’s law?

 What’s signal-detection theory, what does it depend on, what does subliminal
perception mean and why is it problematic, and what is sensory adaptation…
and how could you summarize, points 2 and 3?

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  Explain how light impacts vision.

 What two main purposes do eyes have and how does vision work?

 What’s the retina, what does it do, what are rods and cones and how does the
retina process information?

 How do we see, how does visual information get to the brain, what’s the
visual cortex, what are feature detectors, and what are ventral and dorsal
stream processes, and summarize why are they important?

 What two functions does vision serve and how do they relate to the dorsal
and ventral streams?

 How is color an evolutionary advantage? What is subtractive and additive

color? What is the trichonatic theory of color vision; what are
complementary colors, the opponent process theory and how are the
theories physiologically linked?

Workshop 5 Sensation and perception 2

 What’s a perceptual set? What does form perception depend on; what finding
does this result in; what is feature analysis, top down processing and
subjective contours? What of these concepts can we use to make broader
claims?

 What are gestalt principles, how do they work? What is distal and proximal
stimuli and perceptual hypothesis?

 What is the third visual dimension, binocular and monocular cues and how
do cultural differences impact these?

 What is perceptual constancy and visual illusions?

 What is sound?

 How does sound effect hearing?

 How do humans hear, what sensory processes occur?

 How do people perceive sound?

 Explain the two main theories of hearing, place frequency and bring them
together.

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Workshop 6 Sensation and perception 3

 What is the gustatory system? What are the five primary tastes, what does
our perception of taste depend on (what physiological processes occur) and
how does sensory adaptation effect taste?

 Explain how the olfactory system works.

 What are the stimuli for touch, how does the skin communicate and how is
stimulus received?

 Why is pain useful? How many people suffer with pain in Canada? How do we
interpret pain?

 Summarize “puzzles in pain perception”.

 What’s the kinesthetic system?

 What’s the vestibular system?

 How were the “main” characteristics of psychology illustrated in these “two”

presentations?

Workshop 7 Consciousness 1

 Provide context for the presentation: why is this content important, what
does it help us understand, what does it help us do.

 What is consciousness, how is it different to attention?

 What does consciousness arise from, and how do scientists “know” this
(what do they use, how do they use it)?

 Why is sleep so important to our daily activities; what are circadian rhythms
and how do they work?

 How has the scientific understanding of sleep developed over the last fifty
years?

 Describe all the states of sleep (including REM).

 How does age and culture affect sleep?

 What is the neural and evolutionary bases of sleep?

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  Summarize what happens when people do not sleep.
Workshop 8 Consciousness 2

 What are dreams, what’s in them, and how do they connect to life?

 How do different cultures conceptualize dreams?

 Briefly summarize three theoretical approaches to dreams.

 What is meditation?

 Briefly summarize the history of hypnosis.

 What is hypnosis? State four important hypnotic phenomena.

 Explain the social-cognitive theory of hypnosis.

 What is meditation?

 How have other cultures used meditation?

 What are the proposed benefits of meditation?

Workshop 9 Consciousness 3

 Very briefly introduce how drugs alter consciousness.

 What’s the scientific term for the recreational use of drugs? What are these
drugs (the definition)?

 Define and explain narcotics, sedatives, stimulants, hallucinogens, cannabis,

alcohol, MDMA.

 What are the “mechanics” of drugs?

 Conclude by discussing the issues around drugs, health and their effects.

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