Main Page
About the Author
Comments about 2e
PowerPoint Summary
Table of
Contents
For the Instructor
For the
Student
Our
Textbook's:
Heartfelt
Acknowledgments
|
For the Student:
To meet the needs of students, I have continued in the
Second Edition of this text to write in an accessible, readable style that helps them process
information. Having taught biological psychology to students majoring in majors spanning the sciences to
the liberal arts, I know where students stumble in this material, and those are the places where I slow
down and provide the steps students need to understand a point. By “steps” I mean sequential ideas
that build one upon the other. That is the way we learn. I learned about learning when I graduated from
high school. Before I could drive my graduation gift, a new (used) car, my Dad opened the hood and
pointed to things—that’s the carburetor, that’s the timing belt, those are the plugs, this
here’s your battery . . . Got it? Sure Dad, got it. But when the car ran out of oil and broke down, Dad blamed
himself. He realized that he had named all the parts to me but had never explained how they
worked.
After Dad’s second lesson, I took better care of my car
and later in life I always taught my children how things worked before they used them. And that is the
approach I take to teaching biological psychology. The
“how things work”
approach is supported by photos
and carefully constructed illustrations, all of which are designed to both instruct and grab
interest.
Speaking of interest, the other reason Dad’s second
lesson was more effective than the first was that breaking down in traffic on the Interstate motivated
me to learn how a car works. Although most faculty find biological psychology intrinsically fascinating, I
make an extra effort to make topics such as classical conditioning in the sea slug compelling to
the average college sophomore. Each chapter of this book is filled with catchy, real-life examples
to help keep students motivated to learn the material. As I wrote, I paused here and there to address the
questions, “Why do we (as a society) need to know this?” and “What can you (students) do with this
information?” New
Directions
boxed features connect chapter content to current events,
controversies, or other realworld issues, such as the possibility of using imaging technologies to “read”
minds and the use of virtual reality for rehabilitation following brain injury. In
Why Does
This Matter?
features, readers will find
connections to more directly interesting information, such as the hazards
of designer drugs and why little girls like pink. Occassionally in the margin, a pithy quotation
from a well-known person in history, science, or
the arts (e.g., Pain is
inevitable. Suffering is optional. –Dalai Lama)
lightens the moment.
Student-focused pedagogy is
another essential element of this text. Like architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who argued that “form follows
function,” I worked to make the form of each chapter fit its teaching function. A chapter
outline and
learning objectives
are placed clearly at the beginning of each chapter. Words that are new to a
college sophomore’s vocabulary are defined in the margins, along with
pronunciation guides
for difficult words. My
foreign readers have found this feature especially helpful.
Chapter content is reviewed at two
or three points within each chapter in
Interim
Summaries
that include key points correlated to
the learning objectives, review tables,
that present important information visually, and open-ended review
questions. Finally, a
Chapter Review
brings it all together for the student with open-ended
thought questions, that could form the basis of
term papers, class discussions, or projects, and an
alphabetized list of the key terms (with page references) of the chapter.
mmFinally, I hope
I have added another “f ” to Wright’s
form and function—fun!
Students work very hard to master the concepts in biological
psychology, and they need a payoff. Learning about
puffer fish (fugu) poisoning and brain worms (yes,
they really do exist) lightens an otherwise daunting
task.
Student Ancillaries
The Study Guide for the text provides
expanded chapter outlines correlated to learning
objectives from the text, as well as additional
self-quizzing materials
not found on the
student web site, and answers to the Interim Summary and
Chapter Review questions. New to the Second Edition of the Study Guide are
coloring and
labeling exercises
based on the art in the text.
A comprehensive
Student Web Site
incorporates
animation-based tutorials
along with
self-quizzing, vocabulary review, and other study tools. Selected
materials from the Study Guide, such as suggested answers to review questions from the Interim Summaries,
are provided on the web site.
_________________________________
By the way, always feel free to contact me with any
requests , comments, suggestions and I'll do what I can to help!
Laura
laura@laurafreberg.com
|
my email
my blog
________________
_______________
for the
instructor:
requesting a copy*
*Visiting
Cengage works best
with
 
 |
