AP Review Videos

I began creating some review videos for my own students and decided to make them available for anyone.  I certainly hope they can be useful.  I've made only five so far, but am on spring break and the AP Exam is only a few short weeks away and I intend to make quite a few more.

Here are a couple.  I hope you like them are find them useful.  The first two are taking the confusing pairs sheet shared by Kate Duggan and putting the ideas onto PPT slides and explaining them.  The third is an overview of people in psych history AP students need to know and the basics about each.

My YouTube channel for AP Psych videos can be found here.



posted by Chuck Schallhorn

AP Workshop Review from San Mateo, CA 2/5/2011

I was part of a great group of attendees, both new and experience who had the opportunity to learn from the expertise of Don Leach (George Washington HS, San Francisco, CA) today at Aragon High School in San Mateo, CA for a College Board AP Day-long Training Session.  Our local host teacher was Carlo Corti who welcomed us and said some very nice words about our resources on the blog.  Thanks Carlo :-)

Of course, since the training was sponsored by the College Board and was much about preparing for the AP exam, Don took us through some unique and innovative ways to both prepare our students for the exam as well as cover the content.  I live much of my life in my head.  Don demonstrated and involved the group in a series of activities that allow us to assist the students in learning using some great mnemonics and activities that I would never have thought of or used prior to today.  Even after 24 years of teaching, there is still so much more to learn.  Although he supplied all his information on a CD, I took about 8 pages of notes.  Don's presentation was excellent and he will also be teaching three week-long summer workshops.  If you can, attend one--you will be well instructed and have a fun time.  Your students will be the better for it.

In the weeks to come, I'll be sharing a few of the very cool mnemonics and learning techniques that Don shared.  Kudos to the man who has been teaching for over 40 years and still has a big grin on his face.


posted by Chuck Schallhorn

Famous Psychologists Wiki Website

As many of you are aware, the latest revision (May 2010, May 2011) of the AP Psychology Course Description book, commonly referred to as the "Acorn Book", includes listings of famous psychologists in almost all of the unit descriptions. Throughout the course of this past school year many of us have gone to great lengths to include these psychologists in our AP Psychology units and assessments.

As we rapidly approach the day of the 2010 AP Psychology Exam, I was looking for a way for students to study/review these famous people from the history of psychology. Last year I had students in my AP Psychology classes form study groups to create Wiki outlines of the fourteen AP Psychology units (http://teachinghighschoolpsychology.blogspot.com/2009/05/wiki-pages.html). My students seemed to find the outlines very helpful. This year I would like to expand the idea to the famous psychologists and beyond my school.

I have created a Wikispace page of famous psychologists at http://famouspsychologists.wikispaces.com waiting to be completed by AP Psychology classes from throughout the United States and possibly the world. My hope is many of you AP Psychology teachers and students will join forces to create a fantastic review tool. Together I'm betting we can create the world's largest AP Psychology study group.

Please take some time out of your busy schedule to visit the Famous Psychologists Wiki page and see if you and/or your classes would like to help with the project. I could see this as a great one or two day lesson in your classes as they prepare for the AP Psychology Exam. I am sure students will be excited about having your name and school name included on the Wiki site.

Lastly, as this is the first time I am taking on this type of adventure, please be patient with all those technological problems that I know are going to happen. It is one thing to try something of this nature with my students knowing when (not if) something goes wrong they will understand I am learning right along with them. It is a completely different thing to do the same in front of my peers throughout the country. I thank you in advance for your help and patience.

AP Review with PsychFiles Audio Review

Looking for a great audio review activity?  Not all teachers have the time or inclination to put together the kind of resources that Michael Britt does.  Thanks to Michael, we have the Psychfiles podcast.  If that were not enough, he has created an audio review guide that is sure to help all of our students (see screen capture above).  This review contains visual concept maps for a variety of topics and audio explanations for the topics within these areas (see capture below).  Students can click on the topics of their choice and play them with the player at the bottom of the page.