January 2012 Archives

Cast Away Analysis.

This movie has concepts from Chapters 1-4.

Watch the movie. Take notes.

Next, write your comment. Your comment does not need to provide an overview of the movie (we have all seen it). Your comment should be an in-depth analysis of one or more principles from your text. You should use scenes and characters to provide examples of textbook concepts. Your comment should reflect that you are in an upper division, university level Motivation and Emotion course and clearly link elements from the movie to the textbook.  This is a comprehensive assignment (linking course lectures, textbook, and the movie) and you cannot do that in just a few short paragraphs.

BE SPECIFIC. At the bottom of your comment, please put a list of the ME terms you used. 

Read Chapter 4

Summarize the chapter. What was the most interesting thing you learned in this chapter? Were their concepts or ideas you are unclear on right now? How does physiology and physiological reactions relate to motivation? What differentiates physiological mechanisms and brain mechanisms (from chapter 3)? 

Smoking In Movies

Read this article on smoking and the brain: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marina-picciotto/smoking-in-movies-think-smoking-looks_b_810561.html

Summarize the article. What are your thoughts on this piece? What is most interesting to you? Choose one aspect of the article that you want to learn more about and find out some more information about that. What did you learn? How does your understanding of concepts from chapter 3 help you understand this article? What does all this information teach you about the motivation to quit smoking?

Provide a list of proper M&E terms that you used in your blog post.

Read Chapter 3 of your textbook.

Summarize the chapter, then answer the questions. What information was most surpising to you? What information was most confusing to you? What information do you want to learn more about? How is your understanding of motivation changed now that you've learned about some of the biological/physiological bases of it?

Explore due Thursday 1/19 @ midnight

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This is your first Topical Blog. Topical blogs will allow you to learn and write about topics that interest you, be project oriented (something to do and report on), or focus on particular topic in motivation and emotion.

For your first one, I'd like you to browse the blog contents of our Motivation website. You can navigate by clicking on topics that interest you in the right hand column under 'categories.' This isn't about jumping to one topic and writing about it. Most of this assignment is about spending some time reading blog content (say at least 30 minutes).

Then, as a comment to this post, tell us about 3 or so topics you found interesting, and then report in detail about one particular post that you read.

Have fun!

Welcome to your first reading blog.

Read Ch1 and Ch 2 in your textbook. Don't worry so much about your answers being long or beautifully written (yet!); focus on reading and understanding the material and then communicating that understanding to us when answering these questions.

From your reading, which topic(s) are most interesting to you?

If you had to describe to someone not in this class what Motivation is all about, what would you tell them based on your understanding of this chapter?

What was the most surprising or memorable thing you learned about in this reading?

Using Movies in Teaching

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In time for Thursday's 1/12 class, please read the following link: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/kim_maclin/2010/01/i-learned-it-at-the-movies.html 

as well as the 3 resource links at the bottom of that article.

Review the book options at this link:

http://www.psychologicalscience.com/motivation_emotion/2010/01/books-general-readership.html

There are fiction and non-fiction options, short books, longer books. You should choose a book that you are genuinely interested in, and consider this an opportunity to read something that you enjoy (even though it is also for a class). Browse the informational links (provided by Amazon) to decide on your book.

Many of these books are available at the UNI library and our local Cedar Falls and Waterloo Public Libraries. You may also purchase them at a local book seller like Barnes and Noble in Waterloo, or online at Amazon or other online merchants. Amazon also has digital options for your IPhone, Nook, or Kindle.

You should order/get your book THIS WEEK, regardless of your chosen deadline.

As a comment to this post, tell me the title of the book you have chosen and your selected due date. Look at the course calendar and choose a Tuesday or Thursday during the semester. You may not choose a date that falls during Spring Break, the last week of class, or finals week.

Allow sufficient time to read your book and write your report. Information on how to write your report is available via the course resources tab.