Intro to ‘A’ Level Psychology Ms Alexander

But mostly to get to know each other – see how we work as a group and have some fun ! Welcome  Lesson Objectives for lesson 1 Understand Certain command words used to assess understanding Apply To demonstrate the skill of applying your knowledge. Analyse To practise making comparisons. Evaluate To practise explaining pros/cons, strengths/weaknesses

first… it’s time to get to know each other.. I’m going to pass the toilet roll around. Take as many sheets as you like and keep them with you. We’ll come back to this later.

The Desert Island Test… Imagine… you were stranded on this desert island. There’s no one else but you! If you could choose, what three things would you have to have with you and why? Be prepared to share

Explain your three items to at least one other person in the room. Swap! 3 Minutes Explain your three items to at least one other person in the room. Think about what the other person’s items tells us about their personality!

What did we find out about each other?

1) Definitely my toothbrush – I hate having dirty teeth 2) Iphone with Spotify need a sound track 3) Coffee –I don’t seem to be able to give it up!

Now that toilet roll… The number of sheets you took now determines how many things you have to share about yourself You have 1 minute to write down as many interesting things about yourself as you can think of. Be prepared to share!

A Levels: English, History, Economics About Me

Read the Psychology Dept hand book What am I like as Teacher? My Expectations Sixth Form Expectations: Bring pen, folder, text book, laptop/Ipad to every lesson and keep your folder in order. A note will be made of any one who doesn’t bring the correct equipment to lessons – this will be reflected in your report  Always do your best. Try to stay on task. Try to contribute to the lessons, complete independent work and stay positive. Read the Psychology Dept hand book

Mobile Phones…. We all have one… and most of us couldn’t live without one… You are going to research mobile phones to demonstrate the skills we need to use in Psychology…. You are going to research 3 different mobile phones using the worksheet below. For each one you need to: Describe the key features of the phone. What does it look like? What capabilities does it have? What can it do? What software does it have? What gadgets does it come with? How much does it cost? Explain the good points and bad points – pros and cons of each phone. What are the similarities and differences between the phones? Which are the most similar/different to each other?

4) Final task: Using your new found expertise… Sarah is 18 years old. She is looking for a new mobile phone and is considering buying one of the phones on your work sheet. She has just completed her A Levels and is about to go off to University. She has a part time job working in Costa for 18 hours per week, but is conscious that she is living off a student budget. She wants a phone which she can take photos on while she is at University. She also wants to be able to quickly and easily keep in touch with her old school friends and family members back at home. She also wants a phone which she can use to read journal articles online and conduct research for her university studies. Using your research, you need to recommend a phone for Sarah. Which would be the best one for her and why? Explain your answer in detail. Meet Sarah… Which phone would they recommend? Did all groups offer the same suggestion? Why/Why not? Could lead into discussion on subjectivity/objectivity….

How is this relevant to Psychology? So why did I ask you to do this? How is this relevant to Psychology? Well in the same way that you have described and considered the pros and cons of mobile phones…. Psychology requires you to be able to describe psychological research and psychological theories in detail and evaluate them by considering the pros and cons.

Knowledge & Understanding It is the Assessment Objectives which assess these skills… A01 Knowledge & Understanding A02 Application Task 1 was testing your ability to read, identify, remember and understand information. By describing the features of the phones you were having to process and understand your knowledge on each of them. Task 4 was testing your ability to be able to apply your new found knowledge appropriately to a context (the scenario of Sarah). By taking your research and considering it, you had to try and match it to Sarah’s situation. You can do this in an exam by describing or outlining studies or theories in detail using key terms. By doing this you are showing you know and understand! In an exam situation you might be given a scenario or stimulus to apply your psychological knowledge to. To do this you have to really interpret theories, concepts and studies and select the most appropriate ones to talk about, linking back to the scenario you are given.

Analysis and Evaluation It is the Assessment Objectives which assess these skills… A03 Analysis and Evaluation Task 2 was testing your ability to evaluate each phone by considering it’s strengths and weaknesses. Task 3 was testing your ability to analyse the phones by making comparisons between them and considering how similar/different they were. In an exam this is the critical thinking assessment objective. To achieve this you need to discuss strengths and weaknesses of Psychological theories and studies. You may also make comparisons by considering which theories/studies provide the best explanations

Introduction to Assessment Objectives: Mobile Phones 1) Describe the features of each phone Apple I phone 6S Samsung Galaxy S6 Microsoft Lumia 640 Consider: Price Appearance Size Software Operating System Capabilities Gadgets

Pros  Cons  Introduction to Assessment Objectives: Mobile Phones 2) Consider and explain the pros and cons of each phone. What’s good/bad about each of them? Apple I phone 6S Samsung Galaxy S6 Microsoft Lumia 640 Pros  Cons  3) What are the similarities and differences between them all? Similarities: Differences:

Skills, skills, skills…. Remember Understand Apply Analyse Evaluate Create These are the skills we are going to use to structure our lessons. The higher the skills you demonstrate on the ladder, the more likely you are to achieve the top grades. But how what do these mean and how do they fit in with Psychology?

What is Psychology? Brainstorm everything you know (or think!) about what Psychology is. Think about… What is it the study of? What are psychologists interested in? What are similar subjects?