Three Skills for Online Learning that no one is Teaching

Posted on in Brain and memory, EPPP Study Tips by TSM Admin1 Comment on Three Skills for Online Learning that no one is Teaching

There can be no doubt that online education is the way of the future, as I pointed out in an interview with Robin Phillips last Spring. Few would deny this, yet it is puzzling that most online programs routinely fail their students through giving them insufficient instruction on the skills required by this new learning environment.

Imagine asking a class of students to study texts in Greek without instructing them on the Greek alphabet and grammar, or requiring a class of math students to use a slide-rule without teaching them how it works. That is almost what it is like now with the advent of online learning: universities are folding entire classes, or portions of them, into online platforms without instructing their students about the skills needed for effective internet learning.

On one level this is not surprising. Most teachers, let alone students, do not even realize that special skills are needed for studying effectively online. After all, almost everyone imagines he or she is already an expert at using the internet. The idea that a unique set of skills might be required for studying online will strike many in the younger generation as odd.

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DSM-5 EPPP Content and Test Questions added to TSM Program

Posted on in DSM-5 EPPP Lecture Series, EPPP Preparation Materials by TSM Admin

The EPPP has changed.

As of August 1, the EPPP began introducing changes from the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, known as DSM-5 for short.

DSM-5 represents an opportunity to better integrate neuroscience and the wealth of findings from neuroimaging, genetics, and cognitive research that have emerged over the past several decades, all of which are vital to diagnosis and treatment. It also establishes a common language for researchers to study the criteria for potential future revisions and to aid in the development of medications and other interventions.

At the same time, however, there has been a great deal of uneasiness about DSM-5, particularly how it will impact the EPPP.

As I visit the EPPP forums and chat-groups, I find many people worried about DSM-5. What are the changes? How will I learn them? How will it affect the EPPP? Is everything I learned before about mental illnesses suspect and unreliable? Are my test-preparation materials up to date with DSM-5?


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Feedback From the EPPP-DSM-5 Webinar Series

Posted on in DSM-5 EPPP Lecture Series, EPPP Preparation Materials by TSM Admin

The EPPP has changed!

In fact, the whole field of mental health has changed with the newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Many people who are studying to pass their EPPP have been nervous about these changes, and have been wanting to know how this will effect their psychology licencing exam.

To address these and other important concerns, TSM put on a series of live webinars earlier this autumn on DSM-5 and the EPPP. These webinars are now entirely available online through the following links:

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How to Effectively Rest from your EPPP Studies

Posted on in EPPP Study Tips by TSM Admin

Since we’ve been posting recently about the problems associated with over-study, it seems appropriate to revisit an observation I made last year, namely that one of the best things you can do during your EPPP exam study is to take frequent and structured breaks.

When combined with other activities such as short walks, regular rest periods help to oxygenate brain cells and can be a powerful antidote to over-study and cognitive overload.

Here’s what I suggest: at the beginning of the day, strategically select activities that you will do during your study breaks,  and proactively decide to do those activities before the mental fatigue sets in. Set a timer if you need to, so that you stop at regular structured times to break.
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Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and Stretch Yourself

Posted on in Brain and memory, Psychology News by TSM Admin

In this video, memory and learning expert Joshua Foer explains how you can step outside your comfort zone and stretch yourself.

Foer is the author of Moonwalking With Einstein and an internationally recognized expert in memory and learning. Here Foer shares how he went from being a person with a merely average memory to holding the title for America’s foremost memory champion. His tips on memory and learning can encourage anyone preparing for the eppp examination.

 

 

 

The Myth of the Good Memory: how memory is a skill not a gift (Study Myths Part 2)

Posted on in Brain and memory by TSM Admin

You’ve all heard people say “I have a bad memory.” Perhaps you’ve even said that about yourself. This type of statement reflects how we think about memory. We talk about memory like we might talk about our hair-color: it’s something we’re stuck with.

The basic idea is that each of us is born either having a good memory or having a bad memory. Accordingly, we tend to think (often unconsciously) that the world is divided between smart guys with good memories and dumb guys with bad memories. If you’re born in the latter camp of human beings, there isn’t much you can do about it.

The problem with this way of understanding memory is not simply that it is false but that it can be self-fulfilling. Believing we have been programmed with a bad memory, we fail to take the steps necessary for improving it.

From our earliest school days many of us unconsciously imbibe the myth that our ability to remember things is hardwired into our brains. In her groundbreaking book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck showed that elementary school experiences often reinforce habits of mind antithetical to success through inadvertently training many children think of intelligence as fixed. Specifically, children come to unconsciously assume that school tasks are performance opportunities to test how smart they are instead of invitations to stretch their intelligence further.

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Rethinking Age Stereotypes and Your EPPP Study

Posted on in Brain and memory, EPPP Preparation Materials by TSM Admin

Our earlier post on psychology licensing prep for the elderly urged those of us who are elderly to begin to think positively about our age, to treat our age as an asset rather than a liability.

I thought of this again when I came across an article that Judith Graham wrote in the New York Times last year. “All of us have beliefs — many of them subconscious, dating back to childhood — about what it means to get older”, Graham observed. She continued:

Psychologists call these “age stereotypes.” And, it turns out, they can have an important effect on seniors’ health.

When stereotypes are negative — when seniors are convinced becoming old means becoming useless, helpless or devalued — they are less likely to seek preventive medical care and die earlier, and more likely to suffer memory loss and poor physical functioning, a growing body of research shows.

When stereotypes are positive — when older adults view age as a time of wisdom, self-realization and satisfaction — results point in the other direction, toward a higher level of functioning. The latest report, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that seniors with this positive bias are 44 percent more likely to fully recover from a bout of disability.

For people who care about and interact with older people, the message is clear: your attitude counts because it can activate or potentially modify these deeply held age stereotypes.

The perpetuation of stereotypes happens because of the way cultural assumptions work on the malleability of human the brain. Research shows that environmental factors, including the implicit and subtle assumptions of the society where we were brought up, wire our brains in profound and significant ways. Our brains are ‘primed’ to accept certain things as normal which seem strange to other culture groups.

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