This week we continued adding to our understanding of psychology by learning about the connection between the biology of the brain and our five senses (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) and its connection to the human experience of thinking and behavior. While the research in this area may go beyond our prior common conceptions of psychology, this area of psychology has fueled research in multiple areas of psychology, including but not limited to cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, developmental psychology, and clinical psychology. The chapter readings this week covered a great span of material and our integrated themes discussion, intended to help you critically assess and navigate the concepts/ideas to the larger themes. This assignment will help you process what you learned as you read the assigned readings.
Ideally, you have adopted and implemented the concept introduced in the first week of reflective reading, which will make this assignment a breeze. In this assignment, I want you to reflect on your reading of the assigned chapters (Chapter 2 and the first part of Chapter 4 on Sensation, pages 139-157) and share what crossed your mind as you read the various information presented to you. Address three or more of the following questions:
Are there any concepts that jumped out at you?
Did you have any ah-ha moments?
What connections did you make as you were reading?
Did you engage in the study break activities provided to you within the chapter and did you find that you had difficulty completing them and/or did you find them helpful?
Did you develop questions as you were reading that were answered? Were any of them left unanswered?
After reading the assigned reading this week, has it piqued your curiosity to learn more and if so, what questions do you have moving forward?
Use the questions I listed as a guide (use them to guide your reflection – your thinking about your thinking). If you are wondering, yes… this is metacognition (which you learned about last week) in practice. Please share your reflection in a minimum of one full page, not to exceed two pages.
***Please note, this is not intended to be an exhaustive paper, rather a reflective paper of what you learned (similar to an informal journal entry or an informal conversation) and so I expect at least one full page. The purpose of this exercise will help me learn what interests you, where you may need clarification, as well as give you an opportunity to write out your thoughts and deepen your level of learning. Let your thoughts flow and then just reread it to be sure that it is readable (your thoughts are clear and make sense to the reader – in this case me).