RE: RE:[tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

[Rick Froman]

Actually it was Rick Froman. I was not addressing the veracity of the claim 
that Dickens did nothing positive. I just thought it ironic, if it was true, 
that Orwell, who wrote 1984 without a happy ending, would criticize another 
author of writing a fictional work criticizing society without suggesting a fix.

Rick

Dr. Rick Froman, Chair
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR  72761
rfro...@jbu.edu

From: Allen Esterson [allenester...@compuserve.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 1:29 AM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: RE:[tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

���On 8 August Rick Freeman wrote:
>I know that Orwell was an interesting and self-contradictory person who
believed
many different things over the different phases of his life (as many of
us do)
but it does strike me that the author of 1984 would have a hard time
seeing past
the hypocrisy in saying that Dickens shouldn't have written novels in
which he
provides no positive alternative to the problems described.<

Apart from the influence his widely read books would likely have had on
public opinion, Dickens also worked hard for social reform:

"While in America in 1842 he upset his hosts by condemning slavery.
Dickens also decided to invest some of his royaltie
 s in a new radical
newspaper, The Daily News. Dickens became editor and in the first
edition published on 21st January 1846, he wrote: 'The principles
advocated in The Daily News will be principles of progress and
improvement; of education, civil and religious liberty, and equal
legislation.' The Daily News was not a great commercial success and
Dickens resigned as editor. However, he was determined to create a means
where he could communicate his ideas on social reform and in 1850 he
began editing Household Words. Dickens published Household Words between
1850 and 1859 and during that time campaigned in favour of parliamentary
reform and improvements in the education of=2
 0the poor…"
http://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/community/history/CharlesDickens.asp

Sounds positive to me! But from his article Gladwell evidently doesn't
approve of this approach, since Dickens didn't argue for the "overthrow"
of the social order. But, given the relative freedoms admired by
Voltaire, there was little appetite for revolution even among working
class organisations (and of course there was no "vanguard" middle class
party to bring the benefits of a Leninist-style revolution (aka a coup)
:-) ).

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London



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[tips] Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?

[Mike Palij]

There is a curious article in the NY Times about the "digital turn"
that appears to be occurring in some grade and high schools in
in the U.S., namely the replacement of the traditional textbook
with collections of materials obtained through the internet (is
this "intellectual beachcoming"?).  See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?ref=todayspaper 

The article claims that it is only a matter of time before textbooks
in 1-12 are replaced by computers and net access and that this is
occurring because, in part I'm sure, kids today are somehow 
different from previous kids (a form of evolution that teachers
have somehow missed?).  Consider the following quote:

|"Kids are wired differently these days," said Sheryl R. Abshire, 
|chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in 
|Lake Charles, La. "They're digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose 
|and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.

I wonder if Dr. Abshire would recommend that high schoolers engage
in these activities, say, while driving because "they multitask" and
driving would just be one more task that they can switch attention to
temporarily while executing other tasks?  How will students respond
to demands that they focus their attention on a stingle task and devote
all of their cognitive resources in performing just that task?

Quoting again:
|"They don't engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote," 
|Dr. Abshire continued. 

I wonder what will happen when student come across old-fashioned
books that a "finite, liniear, and rote" that haven't made the digital
transition (I think that everything that has be printed or produced will
NOT be digitalized because only small numbers of people will be
interested in them [e.g., scholars studying a particular person or topic]
and even those that are digitized may be in wretched form because it
was done with "dumb" Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of poor
copies that do not have a high hit rate in recognizing printed words).
Knowledge may be infinitie but that doesn't mean that one is competent
in dealing with it systematicly, being able to combine relevant components
into coherent units, and understand why some things go together while
other things do not.  Even expert scholars have difficulty doing this.

|"Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, 
|those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the 
textbooks." 

Of course this assumes that teachers will have the time, energey, and
resources to locate all of these sources of information.  They also better
be tenured in a stable position.  I wonder how colleges which have started
to rely quite heavily on part-time/adjunct professors will be able to support
and maintain this type of activity especially given the problems of providing
support for "essential" services.

Quoting again:
|"In five years, I think the majority of students will be using digital 
textbooks," 
|said William M. Habermehl, superintendent of the 500,000-student Orange 
|County schools. "They can be better than traditional textbooks."

This sounds almost like a fact instead of a tentative speculation.  Is there
research on this point or is this just an expression of faith?

Continuing to quote Mr. Habermehl:
|"I don't believe that charters and vouchers are the threat to schools in 
|Orange County," he said. "What's a threat is the digital world - that 
|someone's going to put together brilliant $200 courses in French, in 
|geometry by the best teachers in the world."

I wonder.  Who exactly is going to put together these courses or is it
expected that teachers will simply surf the web and put together masterpieces
from what they find?  Also, if a teacher does put together a brilliant course
in "(insert course name here)", couldn't the teacher copyright or put some
other limited use protection on it and associated materials in order to recoup
that time and energy put into the producation of the course (i.e., profit from
their labors)?  Would such a course actually cost only $200?

Though the article focuses on 1-12 classes, there is some discussion about
"open source" and digital text used in colleges.  For example:

|The move to open-source materials is well under way in higher 
|education - and may be accelerated by President Obama's proposal 
|to invest in creating free online courses as part of his push to improve 
|community colleges. 
|
|Around the world, hundreds of universities, including M.I.T. and King Fahd 
|University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia, now use and share 
|open-source courses. Connexions, a Rice University nonprofit organization 
|devoted to open-source learning, submitted an algebra text to California. 

But pragmatism may forestall the "digital revolution" for a while:

|But given the economy, many educators and technology experts agree 
|that the K-12 digital revolution may be further off. 
|
|"There's a lot of stalled purchas

[tips] happy birthday

[Jim Matiya]

Today (August 9th) is the birthday of Jean Piaget. Would he like one big 
present or several small ones ;)

 
 
Jim Matiya 
Florida Gulf Coast University
jmat...@fgcu.edu
Contributor, for Karen Huffman's Psychology in Action, Video Guest Lecturettes 
John Wiley and Sons.
 
Using David Myers' texts for AP Psychology? Go to  
http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/cppsych/
High School Psychology and Advanced Psychology Graphic Organizers, 
Pacing Guides, and Daily Lesson Plans archived at www.Teaching-Point.net


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RE: [tips] happy birthday

[Claudia Stanny]

And if we put them behind the sofa, will he think he didn't get any?  :-)

And if we have him open them slowly over time, will he think he's received more?

Claudia 



-Original Message-
From: Jim Matiya [mailto:jmat...@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sun 8/9/2009 1:14 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] happy birthday
 


Today (August 9th) is the birthday of Jean Piaget. Would he like one big 
present or several small ones ;)

 
 
Jim Matiya 
Florida Gulf Coast University
jmat...@fgcu.edu
Contributor, for Karen Huffman's Psychology in Action, Video Guest Lecturettes 
John Wiley and Sons.
 
Using David Myers' texts for AP Psychology? Go to  
http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/cppsych/
High School Psychology and Advanced Psychology Graphic Organizers, 
Pacing Guides, and Daily Lesson Plans archived at www.Teaching-Point.net


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Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)<>

RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

[Allen Esterson]

Actually it was Rick Froman. I was not addressing the veracity
of the claim that Dickens did nothing positive. I just thought it 

ironic,

if it was true, that Orwell, who wrote 1984 without a happy ending,
would criticize another author of writing a fictional work criticizing
society without suggesting a fix.


Sorry, Rick! I believe that's called banalization -- the substituting 
of a more familiar word/name for a less familiar one. See Sebastiano 
Timpanaro's *The Freudian Slip: Psychoanalysis and Textual Criticism* 
(1976), a superb book by a philologist who shows that many slips of the 
tongue do not require psychoanalytic explanations in terms of 
unconscious motivations. It deserves to be far better known.


Rick, I wasn't intending my posting to be a direct response to yours. I 
was using yours as a kind of lead-in enabling me to make a further 
response to Gladwell! Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.


Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
http://www.esterson.org


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[tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17

[drnanjo]

Hi,

I was wondering if any fitness enthusiast or health psych tipsters might have 
had the same reaction to the new Time Magazine cover story that I did (I was 
motivated to write a letter, which is unlikely to be published but I thought 
I'd give it a go).? I was irritated by it for two reasons:

1) Scientific inaccuracy - the author mentions "converting fat into muscle". 
Isn't this just plain wrong? You can shrink your fat cells and build up your 
muscle cells but you can't "convert fat into muscle". The author (J. Cloud) 
doesn't seem to have any credentials (but he does selectively quote experts on 
weight and fitness.) This is an easy one and I wonder how he missed it.

2) A general tone of "why bother?" - Yes, the author mentions several times 
that exercise is crucial for good health BUT intersperses a lot of discouraging 
material - "if you exercise hard you'll just overeat to make it up later" OR 
"you'll just be lazier later." No, you don't have to do either of those things. 
It's like an excuse making festival...

I think the article is a great example of oversimplifying complex behaviors and 
how that can be misleading or destructive. Any credible fitness program 
includes encouragement to exercise and modify nutrition. I think this author is 
equating "exercise won't help you" with lack of discipline which of course IS a 
problem. I can see this article being used by countless people as one more 
excuse not to try to change at all.

Reactions? I am interested to see if I am off the mark here.

Nancy Melucci
Long Beach City College 
Long Beach CA

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Re: [tips] Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?

[taylor]

When so many tentative hypotheses are phrased as facts it's no wonder that 
people read this stuff and believe it.

Sigh.

Deep Sigh.

They will be in my classroom very, very, very soon.

My favorite is the first quote on children being wired differently these days. 
Really? What's the evidence? You mean their nervous system distribution is 
different than in past generations? So we have had a major Darwinian selection 
in just one generation? WOW! That's faster than finch beaks change in the 
Galapagos! Quite extraordinary and quite in need of extraordinary evidence. I 
supppose it's a good article for class

Annette




Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
tay...@sandiego.edu


 Original message 
>Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 10:20:44 -0400
>From: "Mike Palij"   
>Subject: [tips] Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?  
>To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
>Cc: "Mike Palij" 
>
>There is a curious article in the NY Times about the "digital turn"
>that appears to be occurring in some grade and high schools in
>in the U.S., namely the replacement of the traditional textbook
>with collections of materials obtained through the internet (is
>this "intellectual beachcoming"?).  See:
>http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?ref=todayspaper 
>
>The article claims that it is only a matter of time before textbooks
>in 1-12 are replaced by computers and net access and that this is
>occurring because, in part I'm sure, kids today are somehow 
>different from previous kids (a form of evolution that teachers
>have somehow missed?).  Consider the following quote:
>
>|"Kids are wired differently these days," said Sheryl R. Abshire, 
>|chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in 
>|Lake Charles, La. "They're digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose 
>|and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.
>
>I wonder if Dr. Abshire would recommend that high schoolers engage
>in these activities, say, while driving because "they multitask" and
>driving would just be one more task that they can switch attention to
>temporarily while executing other tasks?  How will students respond
>to demands that they focus their attention on a stingle task and devote
>all of their cognitive resources in performing just that task?
>
>Quoting again:
>|"They don't engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote," 
>|Dr. Abshire continued. 
>
>I wonder what will happen when student come across old-fashioned
>books that a "finite, liniear, and rote" that haven't made the digital
>transition (I think that everything that has be printed or produced will
>NOT be digitalized because only small numbers of people will be
>interested in them [e.g., scholars studying a particular person or topic]
>and even those that are digitized may be in wretched form because it
>was done with "dumb" Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of poor
>copies that do not have a high hit rate in recognizing printed words).
>Knowledge may be infinitie but that doesn't mean that one is competent
>in dealing with it systematicly, being able to combine relevant components
>into coherent units, and understand why some things go together while
>other things do not.  Even expert scholars have difficulty doing this.
>
>|"Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, 
>|those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the 
>textbooks." 
>
>Of course this assumes that teachers will have the time, energey, and
>resources to locate all of these sources of information.  They also better
>be tenured in a stable position.  I wonder how colleges which have started
>to rely quite heavily on part-time/adjunct professors will be able to support
>and maintain this type of activity especially given the problems of providing
>support for "essential" services.
>
>Quoting again:
>|"In five years, I think the majority of students will be using digital 
>textbooks," 
>|said William M. Habermehl, superintendent of the 500,000-student Orange 
>|County schools. "They can be better than traditional textbooks."
>
>This sounds almost like a fact instead of a tentative speculation.  Is there
>research on this point or is this just an expression of faith?
>
>Continuing to quote Mr. Habermehl:
>|"I don't believe that charters and vouchers are the threat to schools in 
>|Orange County," he said. "What's a threat is the digital world - that 
>|someone's going to put together brilliant $200 courses in French, in 
>|geometry by the best teachers in the world."
>
>I wonder.  Who exactly is going to put together these courses or is it
>expected that teachers will simply surf the web and put together masterpieces
>from what they find?  Also, if a teacher does put together a brilliant course
>in "(insert course name here)", couldn't the teacher copyright or put some
>other limited use pr

RE: [tips] happy birthday to Piaget

[taylor]

If we put only one candle on his cake will he feel younger?  or older?

Annette

Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
University of San Diego
5998 Alcala Park
San Diego, CA 92110
619-260-4006
tay...@sandiego.edu


 Original message 
>Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 14:34:41 -0500
>From: "Claudia Stanny"   
>Subject: RE: [tips] happy birthday  
>To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
>
>And if we put them behind the sofa, will he think he didn't get any?  :-)
>
>And if we have him open them slowly over time, will he think he's received 
>more?
>
>Claudia 
>
>
>
>-Original Message-
>From: Jim Matiya [mailto:jmat...@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Sun 8/9/2009 1:14 PM
>To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
>Subject: [tips] happy birthday
> 
>
>
>Today (August 9th) is the birthday of Jean Piaget. Would he like one big 
>present or several small ones ;)
>
> 
> 
>Jim Matiya 
>Florida Gulf Coast University
>jmat...@fgcu.edu
>Contributor, for Karen Huffman's Psychology in Action, Video Guest Lecturettes 
>John Wiley and Sons.
> 
>Using David Myers' texts for AP Psychology? Go to  
>http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/cppsych/
>High School Psychology and Advanced Psychology Graphic Organizers, 
>Pacing Guides, and Daily Lesson Plans archived at www.Teaching-Point.net
>
>
>---
>To make changes to your subscription contact:
>
>Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
>
>
>---
>To make changes to your subscription contact:
>
>Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
>
>winmail.dat (4k bytes)

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[tips] Sleep deprivation and Friends

[Frantz, Sue]

What happens when you stay awake for 84 hours watching the sitcom,
Friends?  Nausea and hallucinations.  

 

http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/08/06/Man-watches-84-straight-hours-of-
Friends/UPI-30151249602608/

 

If you need to see his pictures and a brief trip down Friends memory
lane in his log: http://friends-a-thon.com/ 

 

--
Sue Frantz 
Highline Community College
Psychology, CoordinatorDes Moines, WA
206.878.3710 x3404  sfra...@highline.edu
 

Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology, Associate Director 

Project Syllabus   

APA Division 2: Society for the Teaching of Psychology
  

 

APA's p...@cc Committee   

 

 


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[tips] NYTimes article on textbooks

[John Kulig]

Article in the NYTimes today about whether textbooks are headed for 
obsolescence. A quick read reveals alot of quotes by administrators, but 
nothing from teachers ... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper


--
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
--

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Re: [tips] NYTimes article on textbooks

[John Kulig]

p.s. sorry I was too slow to realize the article already hit TIPS ... 

--
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
--

- Original Message -
From: "John Kulig" 
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" 
Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2009 6:40:07 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [tips] NYTimes article on textbooks


Article in the NYTimes today about whether textbooks are headed for 
obsolescence. A quick read reveals alot of quotes by administrators, but 
nothing from teachers ... 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper


--
John W. Kulig
Professor of Psychology
Plymouth State University
Plymouth NH 03264
--

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Re: [tips] happy birthday

[michael sylvester]

Hope he has good sensory- motor skills as he plays "blind man's 
bluff".Btw,Piaget seemed to have had only one tooth.What was the state of 
dentistry in Switzerland
at that time?Why didn't he get a car instead of riding a unicycle? And is it 
true that he encountered Ernest Hemingway at the running of the bulls in 
Pamplona?
What do Piaget,Obama,Michael Sylvester, and the first man on the moon have in 
common?  WE ARE ALL LEOS!

Michael Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida



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RE: [tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17

[Helweg-Larsen, Marie]

Here is the link: 
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html

I thought the article was clear and well-written. I also found the claims well 
supported by the cited studies (many from psychology). One point was that 
exercise can have positive effects (better health, better cognitive 
functioning) but it is not likely to make a big difference in weight loss. 
Another point was that it is regular low level activity (walking, mowing, 
climbing stairs, etc.) is about as good (or better) than vigorous gym exercise. 
I think the article was mainly pointing out the limitations of the "you must 
exercise a lot to lose weight" and the "you must suffer a lot in the gym" 
mantras, not saying that people should not engage in physical activity.

Marie

PS. I'm guessing the author did not literally mean that the fat become muscle 
but rather than with aerobic activity fat cells shrink and you get more muscle. 
Then he cites a study that shows that this is not as advantageous as people 
might think.


Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D.
Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology
Kaufman 168, Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA 17013, office (717) 245-1562, fax (717) 245-1971
http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm


From: drna...@aol.com [mailto:drna...@aol.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 4:23 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17

Hi,

I was wondering if any fitness enthusiast or health psych tipsters might have 
had the same reaction to the new Time Magazine cover story that I did (I was 
motivated to write a letter, which is unlikely to be published but I thought 
I'd give it a go).  I was irritated by it for two reasons:

1) Scientific inaccuracy - the author mentions "converting fat into muscle". 
Isn't this just plain wrong? You can shrink your fat cells and build up your 
muscle cells but you can't "convert fat into muscle". The author (J. Cloud) 
doesn't seem to have any credentials (but he does selectively quote experts on 
weight and fitness.) This is an easy one and I wonder how he missed it.

2) A general tone of "why bother?" - Yes, the author mentions several times 
that exercise is crucial for good health BUT intersperses a lot of discouraging 
material - "if you exercise hard you'll just overeat to make it up later" OR 
"you'll just be lazier later." No, you don't have to do either of those things. 
It's like an excuse making festival...

I think the article is a great example of oversimplifying complex behaviors and 
how that can be misleading or destructive. Any credible fitness program 
includes encouragement to exercise and modify nutrition. I think this author is 
equating "exercise won't help you" with lack of discipline which of course IS a 
problem. I can see this article being used by countless people as one more 
excuse not to try to change at all.

Reactions? I am interested to see if I am off the mark here.

Nancy Melucci
Long Beach City College
Long Beach CA

---

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Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)

---
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RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

[Rick Froman]

No problem with the banalization. I just wanted to make sure that the Rick 
Froman and Rick Freeman posts didn't split the ballot for Tipster of the Week.

Rick

Dr. Rick Froman, Chair
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR  72761
rfro...@jbu.edu

From: Allen Esterson [allenester...@compuserve.com]
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 3:08 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

>Actually it was Rick Froman. I was not addressing the veracity
>of the claim that Dickens did nothing positive. I just thought it
ironic,
>if it was true, that Orwell, who wrote 1984 without a happy ending,
>would criticize another author of writing a fictional work criticizing
>society without suggesting a fix.

Sorry, Rick! I believe that's called banalization -- the substituting
of a more familiar word/name for a less familiar one. See Sebastiano
Timpanaro's *The Freudian Slip: Psychoanalysis and Textual Criticism*
(1976), a superb book by a philologist who shows that many slips of the
tongue do not require psychoanalytic explanations in terms of
unconscious motivations. It deserves to be far better known.

Rick, I wasn't intending my posting to be a direct response to yours. I
was using yours as a kind of lead-in enabling me to make a further
response to Gladwell! Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
http://www.esterson.org


---
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Re: [tips] Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?

[Michael Smith]

Frankly, I find the digital "revolution" a pain in the...

And I'm getting pretty tired of hearing how great the upcoming generation is
at multi-tasking. I'm sure the DSM VI will no longer classify ADD or ADHD as
a disorder. Instead, it will simply be someone who is very good at
multi-taksing.

Digital sources only makes it easier to find information (assuming reliable
sources etc.), they will still have to READ it at some point--a terribly
linear and finite process. (I'm assuming, of course, that all the
information can't be made into Sponge Bob videos).

As well, I would bet that the easier things get in associating information
(hyperlinks say to related stuff) the easier it will be for these students
to think they know something because they have "collected" it all in their
electronic notebooks and had a gander at it.
At least one problem will be in tracking down plagiarism, unless those tools
keep pace and are ever more affordable.

But perhaps, in the future, individual experts will no longer be required.
After all, everything will be electronic and hyperlinked and DVD'd and all
students will have been trained only in "cooperative" education where all
work is shared in group learning environments. So, when you go to see the
physician of the future, it will actually be a group of people working on
your case via satelite link while you strip in a room with various sensors
for the collection of the relevent data. Of course, while you are stripping,
they will be working on other cases at various locations around the world or
talking on their communicator to their fridge to order something special for
dinner--paradise for some no doubt, hell for others.

--Mike





On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 2:30 PM,  wrote:

> When so many tentative hypotheses are phrased as facts it's no wonder that
> people read this stuff and believe it.
>
> Sigh.
>
> Deep Sigh.
>
> They will be in my classroom very, very, very soon.
>
> My favorite is the first quote on children being wired differently these
> days. Really? What's the evidence? You mean their nervous system
> distribution is different than in past generations? So we have had a major
> Darwinian selection in just one generation? WOW! That's faster than finch
> beaks change in the Galapagos! Quite extraordinary and quite in need of
> extraordinary evidence. I supppose it's a good article for class
>
> Annette
>
>
>
>
> Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D.
> Professor of Psychology
> University of San Diego
> 5998 Alcala Park
> San Diego, CA 92110
> 619-260-4006
> tay...@sandiego.edu
>
>
>  Original message 
> >Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2009 10:20:44 -0400
> >From: "Mike Palij" 
> >Subject: [tips] Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?
> >To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <
> tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
> >Cc: "Mike Palij" 
> >
> >There is a curious article in the NY Times about the "digital turn"
> >that appears to be occurring in some grade and high schools in
> >in the U.S., namely the replacement of the traditional textbook
> >with collections of materials obtained through the internet (is
> >this "intellectual beachcoming"?).  See:
> >
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?ref=todayspaper
> >
> >The article claims that it is only a matter of time before textbooks
> >in 1-12 are replaced by computers and net access and that this is
> >occurring because, in part I'm sure, kids today are somehow
> >different from previous kids (a form of evolution that teachers
> >have somehow missed?).  Consider the following quote:
> >
> >|"Kids are wired differently these days," said Sheryl R. Abshire,
> >|chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in
> >|Lake Charles, La. "They're digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose
> >|and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.
> >
> >I wonder if Dr. Abshire would recommend that high schoolers engage
> >in these activities, say, while driving because "they multitask" and
> >driving would just be one more task that they can switch attention to
> >temporarily while executing other tasks?  How will students respond
> >to demands that they focus their attention on a stingle task and devote
> >all of their cognitive resources in performing just that task?
> >
> >Quoting again:
> >|"They don't engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote,"
> >|Dr. Abshire continued.
> >
> >I wonder what will happen when student come across old-fashioned
> >books that a "finite, liniear, and rote" that haven't made the digital
> >transition (I think that everything that has be printed or produced will
> >NOT be digitalized because only small numbers of people will be
> >interested in them [e.g., scholars studying a particular person or topic]
> >and even those that are digitized may be in wretched form because it
> >was done with "dumb" Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of poor
> >copies that do not have a high hit rate in recognizing printed words).
> >Knowled

RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

[Shearon, Tim]

RF interference? :)
Tim
___
Timothy O. Shearon, PhD
Professor and Chair Department of Psychology
The College of Idaho
Caldwell, ID 83605
email: tshea...@collegeofidaho.edu

teaching: intro to neuropsychology; psychopharmacology; general; history and 
systems

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." Dorothy Parker


From: Rick Froman [rfro...@jbu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 7:58 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

No problem with the banalization. I just wanted to make sure that the Rick 
Froman and Rick Freeman posts didn't split the ballot for Tipster of the Week.

Rick

Dr. Rick Froman, Chair
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
John Brown University
Siloam Springs, AR  72761
rfro...@jbu.edu


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To make changes to your subscription contact:

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[tips] Creativity

[Gene Walker]

I teach a course entitled Introduction to Graduate Study and would like to 
assign a general interest book or article on creativity. 
Any suggestions?

Dr. Gene Walker
College of Liberal Studies
University of Oklahoma
genewal...@iname.com
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To make changes to your subscription contact:

Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)

Re: [tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17

[drnanjo]

Errr...I believe the word he used was "convert" - that is, "convert fat into 
muscle" - I don't think this is ambiguous, to convert something is to make it 
into something else. If he had been more careful (giving him the benefit of the 
doubt) or knowledgeable (less flattering interpretation) then he might have 
said "replace". I've heard a lot of people spout off about "making fat into 
muscle" - enough to know that it is a very common misconception that I suspect 
he probably harbors too - based on the way it was presented.

Nancy Melucci
LBCC



-Original Message-
From: Helweg-Larsen, Marie 
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) 
Sent: Sun, Aug 9, 2009 5:51 pm
Subject: RE: [tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17









Here is the link: 
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-1,00.html

 

I thought the article was clear and well-written. I also found the claims well 
supported by the cited studies (many from psychology). One point was that 
exercise can have positive effects (better health, better cognitive 
functioning) but it is not likely to make a big difference in weight loss. 
Another point was that it is regular low level activity (walking, mowing, 
climbing stairs, etc.) is about as good (or better) than vigorous gym exercise. 
I think the article was mainly pointing out the limitations of the “you must 
exercise a lot to lose weight” and the “you must suffer a lot in the gym” 
mantras, not sayin
g that people should not engage in physical activity.

 

Marie

 

PS. I’m guessing the author did not literally mean that the fat become muscle 
but rather than with aerobic activity fat cells shrink and you get more muscle. 
Then he cites a study that shows that this is not as advantageous as people 
might think.

 


Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D.
Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology
Kaufman 168, Dickinson College
Carlisle, PA 17013, office (717) 245-1562, fax (717) 245-1971
http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm


 


From: drna...@aol.com [mailto:drna...@aol.com] 
Sent: Sunday, August 09, 2009 4:23 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: [tips] Time magazine cover story 8/17


 

Hi,

I was wondering if any fitness enthusiast or health psych tipsters might have 
had the same reaction to the new Time Magazine cover story that I did (I was 
motivated to write a letter, which is unlikely to be published but I thought 
I'd give it a go).  I was irritated by it for two reasons:

1) Scientific inaccuracy - the author mentions "converting fat into muscle". 
Isn't this just plain wrong? You can shrink your fat cells and build up your 
muscle cells but you can't "convert fat into muscle". The author (J. Cloud) 
doesn't seem to have any credentials (but he does selectively quote experts on 
weight and fitness.) This is an easy one and I wonder how he miss
ed it.

2) A general tone of "why bother?" - Yes, the author mentions several times 
that exercise is crucial for good health BUT intersperses a lot of discouraging 
material - "if you exercise hard you'll just overeat to make it up later" OR 
"you'll just be lazier later." No, you don't have to do either of those things. 
It's like an excuse making festival...

I think the article is a great example of oversimplifying complex behaviors and 
how that can be misleading or destructive. Any credible fitness program 
includes encouragement to exercise and modify nutrition. I think this author is 
equating "exercise won't help you" with lack of discipline which of course IS a 
problem. I can see this article being used by countless people as one more 
excuse not to try to change at all.

Reactions? I am interested to see if I am off the mark here.

Nancy Melucci
Long Beach City College 
Long Beach CA

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ill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)



---
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Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)



---
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Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)

RE:[tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued

[Allen Esterson]

���On 9 August 2009 Rick Froman wrote:
>No problem with the banalization. I just wanted to make sure that
>the Rick Froman and Rick Freeman posts didn't split the ballot for
>Tipster of the Week.

Rick, you've caught me out. It was part of a cunning plan to handicap 
one of my chief competitors for that prestigious award.

Allen E.

























Attached Message







From:


Allen Esterson 






Subject:


RE: Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued







Date:


Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:08:56 -0400













>Actually it was Rick Froman. I was not addressing the veracity
>of the claim that Dickens did nothing positive. I just thought it
ironic,
>if it was true, that Orwell, who wrote 1984 without a happy ending,
>would criticize another author of writing a fictional work criticizing
>society without suggesting a fix.

Sorry, Rick! I believe that's called banalization -- the substituting
of a more familiar word/name for a less familiar one. See Sebastiano
Timpanaro's *The Freudian Slip: Psychoanalysis and Textual Criticism*
(1976), a superb book by a philologist who shows that 20many slips of the
tongue do not require psychoanalytic explanations in terms of
unconscious motivations. It deserves to be far better known.

Rick, I wasn't intending my posting to be a direct response to yours. I
was using yours as a kind of lead-in enabling me to make a further
response to Gladwell! Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

Allen Esterson
Former lecturer, Science Department
Southwark College, London
http://www.esterson.org


























Attached Message







From:


drna...@aol.com






Subject:
 


Time magazine cover story 8/17






Date:


Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:22:33 -0400












Hi,



I was wondering if any fitness enthusiast or health psych tipsters 
might have had the same reaction to the new Time Magazine cover story 
that I did (I was motivated to write a letter, which is unlikely to be 
published but I thought I'd give it a go).  I was irritated by it for 
two reasons:



1) Scientific inaccuracy - the author mentions "converting fat into 
muscle". Isn't this just plain wrong? You can shrink your fat cells and 
build up your muscle
  cells but you can't "convert fat into muscle". The 
author (J. Cloud) doesn't seem to have any credentials (but he does 
selectively quote experts on weight and fitness.) This is an easy one 
and I wonder how he missed it.



2) A general tone of "why bother?" - Yes, the author mentions several 
times that exercise is crucial for good health BUT intersperses a lot 
of discouraging material - "if you exercise hard you'll just overeat to 
make it up later" OR "you'll just be lazier later." No, you don't have 
to do either of those things. It's like an excuse making festival...



I think the article is a great example of oversimplifying complex 
behaviors and how that=2
 0can be misleading or destructive. Any credible 
fitness program includes encouragement to exercise and modify 
nutrition. I think this author is equating "exercise won't help you" 
with lack of discipline which of course IS a problem. I can see this 
article being used by countless people as one more excuse not to try to 
change at all.



Reactions? I am interested to see if I am off the mark here.



Nancy Melucci

Long Beach City College

Long Beach CA


























Attached Message







From:


tay...@sandiego
 .edu






Subject:


Re: Will These Students Hit A Wall When They Get To College?






Date:


Sun,  9 Aug 2009 13:30:09 -0700 (PDT)













When so many tentative hypotheses are phrased as facts it's no wonder 
that
people read this stuff and believe it.

Sigh.

Deep Sigh.

They will be in my classroom very, very, very soon.

My favorite is the first quote on children being wired differently 
these days.
Really? What's the evidence? You mean their nervous system distribution 
is
different than in past generations? So w
 e have had a major Darwinian 
selection
in just one generation? WOW! That's faster than finch beaks change in 
the
Galapagos! Quite extraordinary and quite in need of extraordinary 
evidence. I
supppose it's a good article for class

Annette