Your opinion

Read each paragraph and give me your opinion if you agree or disagree with the paragraph
1.
I believe that expectations can affect memory and learning. Research conducted by Lopez, Lent, Brown and Gore (1997) shows that high schoolers outcome expectations concerning math class had a direct impact on their performance (self-efficacy) which influenced their final grade. In fact, outcome expectations were formed by past experiences and one’s perceived capabilities and not a specific measure in that area.
I don’t have any professional behaviors that I would like to change as I have been on my current job for a while and the processes are pretty standard and the steps must be followed in the precise order. However, there were some changes that I needed to make academically, and I have already set those in order. I wanted to be more proactive in prioritizing my assignments. I did some self-evaluation and realized that some of this was the result of divided attention. I realized that I may be served best by going part-time instead of full time.
Hopefully, my expectations will help my performance instead of hindering it.
2.
My learning experience comes from this class and my inability to focus and concentrate. I needed to revert to chapter four and determine what I could change about my attention and focus for this course and hopefully change my grade before the end of unit ten.
I looked at the possibility that my Processing Capacity was maxed out, this is the amount of information people can handle, and sets a limit on their ability to process incoming information. Yes, there was a lot of reading involved in this course, but I like to read so that was not the issue.
I looked at the Perceptual Load – which is related to the difficulty of the task. Some tasks especially well practiced tasks use up only a small amount of a person’s processing capacity (Goldstein, 2019). Writing 8-10-page essays were not a problem as once the information is researched, summarizing and typing comes easy to me.
Lavie’s (2008), Load Theory of Attention proposed that the ability to ignore task irrelevant stimuli depends on the load of the task the person is carrying out. High load tasks result in less distraction. This section also brought forth the subject of Mind Wondering, also known as daydreaming and is extremely prevalent and distracting enough to disrupt an on-going task (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013). An example of a disruption of mind wondering is what happens when one is reading and suddenly realizes they have no idea what they just read because they were thinking of something else. This is an example of how the mind wondering decreases performance (Smallwood, 2011).
My distraction and mind wondering began in unit five as I struggled with my grade, I sought to overcome this but could not. Having been an A-B student for most of my academic journey, I must come to terms that a C is okay. It is still passing. I am harder on myself than any instructor could be.
3.
During this course I was introduced to several concepts that I found quite helpful and which I have begun to apply to my studies and leisurely pursuits. I found the Gestalt concept of fixation as it relates to problem solving quite enlightening; this allowed me to change my perspective in certain situations, the candle problem helped me understand how to think “outside the box”( ). The chapter elaborating on effective studying was very valuable; I was particularly impressed and surprised with the illusions of learning and how to avoid them. For example, I have directly experienced that the rereading of study material is often fruitless when the time could be better spent on more effective techniques. The manipulation of working memory, particularly in the area of chunking which, “enables the limited-capacity STM system to deal with the large amount of information involved in many of the tasks we perform every day”(p. 141). Actually was quite amazing to me because when I put it to use, it very quickly and gave me excellent results. Aside from the volume of information, I didn’t find many of the concepts overly challenging; I must admit that the: similarities and differences in music and language more or less fell on “deaf ears” for me. I have never had any musical aptitude, and while I could cognitively follow the point of the similarities in structure between the two systems, I heard the words and not the music. I found this course to be enlightening and very helpful not only in my understanding of psychology, but in my personal performance related to my studies. Thanks Professor Benjamin! I look forward to working with some of my fellow learners in future
4.
The concept that I applied during this course was the phonological loop that processes verbal and auditory information so that it doesn’t decay out of short-term memory (Goldstein, 2019). I have problems sometimes remembering information that I just read or listened to. And now I understand a little more about the mechanism behind how that process operates. Just that knowledge alone makes me more aware that I need to repeat important information a couple times in-order to help create a place for that information in my long-term memory.
The sections that I was most intrigue with were the short-term memory and the long-term memory and how they operate together. It was both the most interesting and most frustrating, becuase I also had trouble with semantic and episodic memories. I think I understood the two terms, but explaining them during the discussions didn’t seem as clear as my understanding.