Week 7 First Impression- Sleep

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

Sleep is something all college students seems to lack. During my freshmen year, my time management skills were lacking so I was always up until at least one in the morning and I would only get about five hours of sleep a night. I always felt run down and got sick a lot that year. This year, my sophomore year, I knew that I had to work on my time management skills so I could get more sleep. It does help that I do not have any 8 AMs this semester; I had 8 AMs everyday both semesters of my freshmen year. It was rough, but I got used to waking up early. Even though I do not have any 8 AMs this semester, I still get up early and go to the gym at 7:15 every morning before my 9:30 class. In order to be able to wake up this early every morning to go to the gym, I know that I have to go to bed at a decent hour. This also means that I have to do my homework earlier in the day and not procrastinate. I have been trying to go to bed at 11-11:30 every night so I get about eight hours of sleep. I think seven to eight hours of sleep a night sometimes seems like a lot for a college student, but I have learned that I personally need that amount of sleep to be a functioning human being the next day. On nights that I fall behind on homework and have to stay up later than normal, I try to take a nap sometime the next day or I go to bed earlier the next night.

Spotlight Post #1

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

I chose Option 2: Memory for this spotlight post. The first website that I evaluated was called “Study Habits for College Students” from the Huffington Post. While this article gave examples of some good studying techniques it also gave a few pieces of questionable advice as well. Actually, the first piece of advice that the article gave contradicted something that we learned in class about memory. They said that by changing your location that you are studying in, it increases the likelihood that you will remember what you have learned. In class we discussed some things that help with retrieval of memories, including context clues. This means that we remember things better in the place where we first learned them. Some other studying tips the website gave were studying in groups, making flash cards, and do not spend all your time studying for one class. This advice seems to correlate with some of the things we talked about in class. Working in groups and making flash cards are good study tips as long as they are being used appropriately. It is not beneficial to be introduced to material for the first time when you are in a study group. So, when the article says that working in groups helps you to “divide and conquer” this is not always the case, at least when it comes to studying. Everyone should be familiar with all the content. Flashcards can be helpful as long as they are being shuffled and went through randomly. If a student goes through flashcards in the same order every time, they can pick up retrieval cues from cards around it, and are not effectively learning the material. One of the last tips about not spending all your time on one subject may be helpful as well, from what we learned in class. Studying only one subject for many hours can give a student a false sense of mastery. Instead of actually knowing the material, they are just picking up retrieval cues from looking over the same information in the same order. Once a student can mix up the information and still remember the correct answer, they know that they have successfully put the information in their long-term memory. The second article I read was titled “10 High School Study Tips for Students.” This article contained many of the same study tips as the first article, with a few exceptions. The first tip was to study alone; they chose this as a tip because high school students are more likely to get off-topic when in a group setting because the whole group may not be as serious as a college student who is paying over a thousand dollars to be in a class. They also mentioned looking over things right before an exam. The only problem I see with this is the information that the student is taking in most likely is only making its way into their working memory, not their long-term memory. So the most that the student can keep in their working memory is about seven pieces of information, not a whole exam’s worth of information. The third article I read was directed towards parents and called “7 Tips for Improving Your Child’s Homework and Study Skills.” This article was looking at memory from a different perspective. Some of the suggestions in this article seemed like a no-brainer, like to keep checking in on your child’s progress to make sure they are focused and getting their homework done. Some of the pieces of advice, however, also correlated with advice given to high school and college students such as setting a timer for your child so they are not working on one subject for too long. This shows that advice given to young students, can also be helpful as they get older.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/08/study-tips-for-college-_n_709096.html?slideshow=true#gallery/10344/0

https://www.liveabout.com/high-school-study-tips-for-students-how-to-pass-the-test-3196554

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/learning-at-home/homework-study-skills/7-tips-for-improving-your-childs-homework-and-study-skills#slide-7

Week 5 First Impression Post- Memory

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

For this weeks First Impression Post, I will be discussing option 1 which is about my study habits. My study habits are something that I have been trying to improve on since the beginning of freshmen year. In high school, I never really had to study to get good grade but when I got to college I realized this was not the case. So high school did not really prepare me for the amount of studying needed to get a good grade in college. I have been experimenting with different techniques, including notecards, to rewriting my notes, to rereading chapters from the book, etc. I have tried techniques that my friends all swear by, but everyone learns differently so what has worked for them may not benefit me as much. For the first exam I looked over my notes and rewrote them hoping that it would drill the content into my brain. I think when I was doing this I was stressed out think about my first big biology exam of the semester which was the same day as the psychology exam and I was not focusing enough on what I was trying to study at the moment. I started studying like three days before the exam so in the future on weeks that I have multiple exams, I am going to start studying a week in advance so maybe I will not get as stressed out. Learning how to study properly for yourself can be something hard to master, sometimes it just takes some time to figure out what method is best for you.

First Impression Post #1

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

For my 1st First Impression Post, I chose to watch one of the Mythbusters videos then give my response to it. The video was titled “Shockwave Jam” and answers the question of “Does weaving through traffic actually get you to your destination faster?”

While watching the video I noticed several strengths of the experiment such as leaving at the same time of day so they would be driving through the same amount of traffic. Also both of the drivers were just regular people, with equal driving experience.

After watching the video I looked at their experiment set up and noticed a few weaknesses. The speed of the cars in the lane is always changing and the lane that he couldn’t change out of may have been faster or slower than the lanes the other car was weaving in and out of. The car in that couldn’t change lanes could be stuck behind a really slow driver one day and not the next. Also, it doesn’t account of other crazy drivers on the road, if weaving in and out of the lanes is worth risking your life. This could be fixed by setting limits on how fast each of the cars can drive.

Introduction

--Original published at alanaspsy105blog

Hi! My name is Alana Hicks and I am from Liverpool, Pennsylvania. This being my sophomore year, I chose to sign up for this class but it is also a requirement for my major (Biology, Allied Health). This is my first ever psychology class so I have no prior experience with the subject. However, there was a psychology course at my high school and everyone always seemed to enjoy it, but I could never fit it into my schedule. When I hear the word “psychology” the first thing that pops into my head is the brain. Like why we do the things that we do and why some people react to certain things but others don’t.

The top three most interesting topics on the syllabus for me are “The Brain: Micro-level,” “Stress,” and “Psychotic, Traumatic, & Personality Disorders.” Being a biology major anything having to do with the brain and how it works is interesting because it seems science related. I want to be a PA so learning about different disorders I think would also be helpful for me in the future. I chose stress because college gives stress so I might as well learn about it and how it affects me.

The three least interesting topics for me I think would be “Personality Theory,” “Obedience,” and “How to Choose a Therapist.” To tell you the truth I think they all look interesting, I just chose these ones because I didn’t really know what these lectures would be about. Like I have no clue what “Personality Theory” is. I guess that can be one of my questions that I want answered by the end of the semester. Haha. In all reality, I would like to know what psychology is, and how does it apply to my everyday life?