As part of my ongoing quest to have my students do work that is meaningful and useful to the world, rather than just to them (or their degree plan), two of my courses this semester have assignments related to “communication of information to the layperson” as part of their curriculum. The layperson, in this case, is you, dear readers!
In my graduate level Psychopathology course, each student is required to write three posts on a specific set of psychological problems. While one post has to be about changes from the DSM-IV to the DSM-5, the other two are completely at their discretion. You’ll be learning about everything from somatic disorders to dissociative identity disorder to specific learning disabilities over the next two months.
The other set of posts will be coming from my combined level Science vs. Pseudoscience / Psychological Science course, and will be focused more on “traditional” skepticism. Each student will be writing two posts about specific aspects of a pseudoscience of their choice. Topics here will range from astrology to zombies and all points in-between.
The first posts are rolling in this week, so early next week I should have a nice set of them cleaned up, prettied up, and posted. Look for them soon!
