PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE COURSEWORK AND DECISION POINT REQUIREMENTS

Transcription

1 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE COURSEWORK AND DECISION POINT REQUIREMENTS COURSE REQUIREMENTS The Department of Psychological Science requires students who want to complete a concentration area in Psychology to take the following courses. To complete Decision Point 2, you must complete PSYS 100 and at least one other PSYS course. To complete Decision Point 3, you must complete PSYS 100, one course from each of the three sections below (making sure that at least one of them is a 400-level course), PSYS 493 and PSYS 494 (which may be in progress during your DP 4 portfolio submission). Take each of the following: PSYS 100: General Psychology (3 credit) PSYS 493: Teaching of Psychology 1 (1 credit)** PSYS 494:Teaching of Psychology 2 (2 credit)** PSYS 367: Introduction to Biopsychology (3 credit) PSYS 468: Physiological Psychology (3 credit)* PSYS 362: Motivation & Emotion (3 credit) PSYS 364: Learning (3 credit) PSYS 416: Cognition (3 credit)* PSYS 316: Social Psychology (3 credit) PSYS 317: Personality (3 credit) PSYS 324: Psychology of Women (3 credit) PSYS 432:Abnormal Psychology (3 credit)* *Note: Students must take at least one of the 400-level psychology courses listed above, not including PSYS 493 or 494. If you take PSYS 468, 416, or 432, that will fulfill both the 400-level requirement as well as the requirement for that set of courses. **Note: PSYS 493 and 494 are to be taken after you have completed all of your other PSYS courses. They are designed to be a two-semester sequence (ie., fall-spring, springsummer, SS1-SS2, or summer-fall). Please note that they are not always offered in the summer, so your safest best is to take them in the fall and spring. Both 493 and 494 involve participating in a PSYS 100 course, so to register for either course, you ll need permission from one of the professors teaching PSYS 100. To find who is teaching PSYS 100 you can contact Dr. Ritchey (karitchey@bsu.edu) or the Dept. of Psychological Science office ( ).

2 DP 2 PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENTS At Decision Point 2, The Department of Psychological Science reviews reflective statements, rationales, and performance based artifacts that are tied to InTASC Standard #4 "The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content. Follow these steps when creating the Psychology portion of your DP2 portfolio: 1. Choose a minimum of one artifact from each of the Dept. of Psychological Science courses you have completed. Submission of additional artifacts is allowed, if you want to do so. The artifacts should meet the following criteria: a. They should reflect your knowledge and understanding of psychology. b. At least one artifact should have been completed in a Dept. of Psychological Science course taken at Ball State. c. They should include the specific course name, instructor, and date of completion, as well as any feedback you received from your professor (i.e., rubric, comments). 2. Write a Reflective Statement for InTASC Standard #4. You may retain your initial reflective statement from Decision Point 1, but build upon it. You may include a definition of Standard #4, but your main focus should be answering the following questions: a. What does this standard mean to you and why is it important? b. What experiences have you had, especially in Ball State classrooms, which have influenced your interpretation of the principle? How have these experiences shaped how you will teach psychology? We realize that your view will develop with time and as you take more psychology classes, but you need to be more specific than to simply say you want to make psychology fun for your students. Examples of your experiences shaping your view of teaching might include: 1.) The central concepts What do you think the focus of a psychology classroom should be? For example, will you emphasize nature vs. nurture, how psychology relates to other disciplines, the role of diversity in psychology, or some other theme? Will you cover a variety of topics? What classes/experiences have you had that will influence your choice? 2.) The tools of inquiry What are some of the skills you have developed in your psychology classes (e.g., reading primary source documents, participating in research studies, etc.) that will help you as a teacher? 3) The structure of the discipline Address how psychology relates to other classes and other fields and/or what makes psychology unique from other fields, and how will you convey those connections to your students. 3. Provide a separate Rationale for each artifact demonstrating competency in InTASC Standard #4. Describe the artifact & justify its inclusion in your portfolio by showing how it demonstrates your increasing grasp of psychology. Explain what the artifact demonstrates about your growing competence and what your strengths and weaknesses

3 are in relation to this standard. Think of the rationale as a "bridge" between your reflective statement in which you try to state your competence in psychology, and the artifact which is a concrete example of your competence /performance in psychology. For example, if your artifact is a research paper, and your reflective statement says you want to emphasize that psychology is a science, then your rationale should bridge the gap between these two by explaining how your paper demonstrates your knowledge of psychology as a science. 4. Notify the Dept. of Psychological Science Decision Point Contact listed below when you are ready for your portfolio to be reviewed: Dr. Kristin Ritchey, karitchey@bsu.edu. Provide a link to your digitized, online portfolio in your message. 5. Please note that individual portfolio reviews must be requested by the designated deadline for each fall and spring semester. The Dept. of Psychological Science follows the deadlines that are set by the History Dept. DP 3 PORTFOLIO REQUIREMENTS At Decision Point 3, The Department of Psychological Science reviews reflective statements, rationales, and performance based artifacts that are tied to InTASC Standard #4 "The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content." Follow these steps when creating the Psychology portion of your DP3 portfolio: 1. Choose a minimum of one artifact from each of the Dept. of Psychological Science courses you have completed. You may keep the artifacts and rationales you submitted for DP2 and add new artifacts and rationales for classes you have taken since you passed DP2. The artifacts should meet the following criteria: a. They should reflect your knowledge and understanding of psychology. b. At least one artifact should have been completed in a Dept. of Psychological Science course taken at Ball State. c. They should include the specific course name, instructor, and date of completion, as well as any feedback you received from your professor (i.e., rubric, comments). 2. Complete the Reflective Statement for InTASC Standard #4. You may retain your reflective statement from Decision Point 2, but build upon it. You may include a definition of Standard #4, but your main focus should be answering the following questions: a. What does this standard mean to you and why is it important? b. What experiences have you had, especially in Ball State classrooms, which have influenced your interpretation of the principle? How have these experiences shaped

4 your view of how you think you will teach psychology? Examples of your experiences shaping your view of teaching might include: 1.) The central concepts What do you think the focus of a psychology classroom should be? For example, will you emphasize nature vs. nurture, how psychology relates to other disciplines, the role of diversity in psychology, or some other theme? Will you cover a variety of topics? What classes/experiences have you had that will influence your choice? 2.) The tools of inquiry What are some of the skills you have developed in your psychology classes (e.g., reading primary source documents, participating in research studies, etc.) that will help you as a teacher? 3) The structure of the discipline Address how psychology relates to other classes and other fields and/or what makes psychology unique from other fields, and how will you convey those connections to your students. 3. Provide a separate Rationale for each artifact demonstrating competency in InTASC Standard #4. Describe the artifact & justify its inclusion in your portfolio by showing how it demonstrates your increasing grasp of psychology. Explain what the artifact demonstrates about your growing competence and what your strengths and weaknesses are in relation to this standard. Think of the rationale as a "bridge" between your reflective statement in which you try to state your competence in psychology, and the artifact which is a concrete example of your competence /performance in psychology. For example, if your artifact is a research paper, and your reflective statement says you want to emphasize that psychology is a science, then your rationale can bridge the gap between these two by explaining how your paper demonstrates your knowledge of psychology as a science. 4. Essay Discussing the Role of Psychology in the High School Curriculum: Write a 1500 to 2000 word essay on the role of psychology in the high school curriculum. At a minimum, address the following issues: What should a high school psychology course include and why are those elements important? How does psychology complement the rest of the high school social studies curriculum and what unique contributions might it make? How does a high school psychology course help students in their current lives and in the future? The essay should include a reference to at least one publication on the topic and/or the opinions of at least one subject matter expert (such as a current high school psychology teacher or a psychology professor) on the topic. 5. Essay Critique of a Popular Print Medium or Psychological Research: Write a word paper critiquing an article regarding a psychological topic found in a popular print medium (e.g. Time, Newsweek, Psychology Today, etc.), or write a word paper summarizing and critiquing a psychological research article. Your article could be one that you have previously read for a class. Please include a copy of the article as part of your artifact. In your critique, you should summarize the main points of the article and explain what you found interesting and/or persuasive in the article or what you found not relevant or not persuasive. 6. Notify the Dept. of Psychological Science Decision Point Contact listed below when you are ready for your portfolio to be reviewed: Dr. Kristin Ritchey, karitchey@bsu.edu. Provide a link to your digitized, online portfolio in your message.

5 7. Please note that individual portfolio reviews must be requested by the designated deadline for each fall and spring semester. The Dept. of Psychological Science follows the DP 3 deadlines established by the university.