New ToPIX Content

Aaron Richmond is the ToPIX go-to person for all things Ed Psych.  This week he’s added three very nifty resources.  Be sure to check out the rest on that page.  You can find them all here.

• “Motivation Reflection Activities” comes from a 1984 Teaching of Psychology journal article where students engaged in three classroom activities that were designed to increase student motivation while learning about motivation.
• In “How to Be a Bully” the author of a 2004 Psychology Learning and Teaching article describes using role-playing to help students understand bullying and identify appropriate responses to it.
• In “The Motivational Toolbox,” an article in the Teaching Educational Psychology journal, the authors “focused on how to motivate students to learn motivation theories.”  It sounds like an activity that would be easily adapted to other courses that cover motivation.

The “In the News” section of ToPIX has some new content this week.

• Social: “One Man Says No to Harsh Interrogation Techniques” is a 26-min Fresh Air interview with Matthew Alexander (pseudonym), the author of How to Break a Terrorist and Kill or Capture.
• Neuroscience: “V.S. Ramachandran’s Tales of the ‘Tell-Tale Brain’” is a 19-min Fresh Air interview with V.S. Ramachandran.  He discusses, among other things, phantom limbs.
• Neuroscience: “Aerobic Exercise May Improve Memory In Seniors” is a 5-min Morning Edition story on a study that found that aerobic exercise increased the volume of the hippocampus in previously sedentary seniors.
• Development: “Taking a New Approach to ‘How We Age;” is a 31-min Talk of the Nation interview with Marc Agronin, author of How We Age: A Doctor’s Journey into the Heart of Growing Old.  He argues that, culturally, we see aging as a disease and that it’s time that we change our way of thinking.
• Gender/Sexuality: “Virus Passed During Oral Sex Tops Tobacco as Throat Cancer Cause” from the NRP blog.