Churchill High School Mr.

Vissers

HSP 3MU December 4, 2017

Lesson Title: Influential Psychologists: Research and Teach ‘Game’

Description:

The lesson will use a jigsaw format to learn about and have the student record about contributing
psychologists in the social sciences.

Steps:
 Divided class into groups of 5 (depending on class size, modify at will)
 Each group will be assigned a psychologist and some contextual information
 Timed, have them as a group unpack the context, annotating along the way
 Once time has elapsed, the second round will see them break out and teach other groups
 A review at the end will allow any group members to supplement their notes

Overall Expectation Specific Expectations:

C1. Theories, Perspectives, and
Methodologies: demonstrate an
understanding of major theories,
perspectives, and research methods
in psychology;
C1.1 explain the significance of contributions of influential
psychologists
C1.2 summarize the key ideas of major psychological theories
(e.g., psychodynamic theory, behaviourism, cognitive theory,
humanistic theory, feminist psychology theory), and explain
how they can be used to understand human behaviour

Learning Goals:
By the end of the lesson:
 I can summarize the biographies and theories of 5 influential psychologists
 I can explain each of their most famous experiments and its significance to psychology

Prior Learning
No prior learning is required, the psychologists and the subjects presented should be new information

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Resources/Materials
Preliminary information regarding their psychologist. The
textbook, or a copy of an article or biography, pre-made fact 1. Preliminary HO information
sheet, etc. (Instructor will have these ready) on their psychologist
2. Phone, Laptop, or device
This should not be their main source of information, so they 3. Pen and Paper
are encouraged to use their devices to search information.
Therefore, all students should have access to the adjacent…

Learning Environment/Setup:
Desks should be moved into groups of five spread out around the classroom. They can stay like this for
the review portion at the end of the activity, or they can be moved back to their original place.

Lesson Plan Sequencing:

Section Description Time

Intro Task: divide the class into 5 groups.

Instruct class that they need to organize themselves by height; tallest on

one side of the room, going clockwise around the room until the shortest.

They are not allowed to speak at all, and have 3 minutes to do it. 10min

Once they have done so, divide them into 5 groups and instruct them to
arrange their desks in 5 separate locations in the room.

Once they are all seated and quiet, begin explaining the instructions for the
activity they will be doing.

Instructions for ‘Game’

Each group will be tasked with one famous psychologist.

Choose from: Carl Jung, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, Carl Rogers, Abraham
Maslow, Karen Horney, , Albert Bandura, Viktor Frankl.

Lesson They will have 10 Minutes to investigate their psychologist and write down 35min
in bullet form, the most important facts and information. Information
required from each group will be:

 Brief biography (when they were born, where, etc.)

 Their area of research (what field of psychology)
 What is their most famous experiment?
 What is their legacy?
 Any interesting facts?

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Once they have this information, and the time is up, each group will be
instructed to put their pens down and stop what they are doing.

The next step will involve telling one of the groups to split up and have each
member go to a different group and teach them the interesting information
and facts they learnt about their psychologist.

The group member will have 5 minutes to teach and have their new group
write down all the information.

Once the first group has finished teaching, they will return to their tables
and the next group will have the same 5 minutes to split up and teach the
other groups

This process will continue until all 5 groups have each split up and taught the
other groups.

The result should be every group in the class having information on all 5
psychologists.

Conclusions As a review, and to ensure that every member has all the information they 7-10min
need, each group will elect one member, or take turns to read out their
most important bullet points. This gives every student to write down any
bullet points they may have missed.

Differentiation

The activity will be fast paced so there are likely to be students who get ‘left behind’ in their note taking
or in their teaching. This is the reason for the review at the end; if there is anyone that didn’t get the
chance to write down information, they can do so during this time.

If there are people in the class who struggle with writing in general, they are able to use their laptop or
device to record the information. By the end of the activity, every person in the room should have the
same, or very similar set of notes on each psychologist regardless of recording method chosen.

Assessment:
A complete summary (in point form is preferred) of each of the psychologists

Next Steps:

Retain the list in their notebook and access it later for subsequent lessons and the test.

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Reflection:

Something to do better would be to provide some kind of chart or tool for them to fill in, or to provide
them with an example of a psychologist and what I want out of them. This could also be done to take an
entire class, as then all needed much more than 10 minute to to the “fast research” of their
psychologist. Make a point as well of it being a QUICK research, and that you only require bullet points,
and main ideas, not entire sentences or explanations.

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