Robert G Morrison Teaching
- Teaching
- Mentoring
- Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience (Undergraduate) - PSYC382
- Science & Society: Psychology of Creativity (Honors) - HONR204
- Laboratory in Experimental Psychology: Cognition (Undergraduate) - PSYC314
- Seminar in Neuroscience (Undergraduate) - NEUR300
- Seminar in Cognitive Neuroscience (Graduate) - PSYC435
Teaching
For me higher education has three principal goals:
Central to my pedagogy are active learning projects that encourage students to integrate their world experience with course material. Students use their reasoning and communication skills to learn themselves, but also to facilitate learning for others both in and outside of the Loyola community. This helps to build motivation for learning, teamwork, and also deep conceptual understanding (e.g., Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). For instance, in my Psychology of Creativity (Hon 204) course, students work in small groups to identify a person in the community that they argue has made a significant creative innovation. Together the students conduct interviews and use course material to analyze the person’s creative behavior from cognitive, developmental and humanistic perspectives. Each group uses the talents of its individual members to develop novel ways to share their learning with the class. We’ve learned about people from the arts, sciences, trades and business through engaging and collaborative presentations that extraordinarily engaging, thought provoking, and FUN!
Duke University English professor and Macarthur Digital Media Initiative director Cathy Davidson argues that “online blogs directed at peers exhibit fewer typographical and factual errors, less plagiarism, and generally better, more elegant and persuasive prose than classroom assignments by the same writers. Blog assignments in several of my courses hone students’ critical thinking and written communication skills as they use course material to interpret world events, scientific discoveries, and creative products, sharing their insights with the world at large (whatscreativeluc.blogspot.com; brainpoints.blogspot.com; morebrainpoints.blogspot.com). Through the blog community students evaluate and comment on each other’s ideas while sharing their learning with thousands of people outside of the classroom community.
Storytelling can catalyze students to ask important questions about psychological content, and help them to apply course content to problems in their own lives and the lives of others (see Morrison & Bergman, 2005; FOTL 2012 presentation). In class I use narrative and documentary film to initiate discussion, but also to have students tell their own stories to understand course learning in new ways. In one of my courses, students work collaboratively to develop short narrative films to understand neuroscience concepts at a personal level. Managing data is an essential skill for all scientists. In PSYC 314 I’ve developed a curriculum that joins a survey of methods in cognitive psychology with a scaffolded curriculum that builds skills in Microsoft Excel, a tool used in many professions. Students use what they learn in other courses, in the labs they work in, as well as after college in graduate school or their chosen profession.
To become scientists students need to learn to ask and answer questions and develop the analytical skills to work with data. In NEUR300 I’ve developed links to the Loyola Neuroscience Institute in Maywood to host a weekly Neuroscience Seminar where students hear professional scientists describe their research for other scientists. Students have opportunities to ask questions as well as hear graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and other professors, dialogue with presenters about a range of neuroscience topics. This experience serves as a natural gateway for students to experience science in research labs. Many students join my labs’ collaborative mentoring environment (canlab.org/undergraduates.html). Together, we do the business of science--seeking funding (e.g., Carbon, Johnson, Provost, Mulcahy), presenting our work at scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed articles, and furthering our careers together.
I can’t imagine anything more fulfilling than walking with my students as their passion builds and their paths emerge--as they become successful scholars and participants in society on their own. By incorporating both novel classroom pedagogy and lab-based experiential learning, students have transformative education experiences, a central focus of Loyola’s mission.
Dr. Morrison received the Edwin T. and Vivijeanne F. Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013.
- help students gain the necessary knowledge and skills for their future study and careers
- foster a spirit of inquiry that develops critical thinking skills and empowers life-long learning
- help students discover passion that propels them towards fulfilling vocations and avocations
Central to my pedagogy are active learning projects that encourage students to integrate their world experience with course material. Students use their reasoning and communication skills to learn themselves, but also to facilitate learning for others both in and outside of the Loyola community. This helps to build motivation for learning, teamwork, and also deep conceptual understanding (e.g., Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). For instance, in my Psychology of Creativity (Hon 204) course, students work in small groups to identify a person in the community that they argue has made a significant creative innovation. Together the students conduct interviews and use course material to analyze the person’s creative behavior from cognitive, developmental and humanistic perspectives. Each group uses the talents of its individual members to develop novel ways to share their learning with the class. We’ve learned about people from the arts, sciences, trades and business through engaging and collaborative presentations that extraordinarily engaging, thought provoking, and FUN!
Duke University English professor and Macarthur Digital Media Initiative director Cathy Davidson argues that “online blogs directed at peers exhibit fewer typographical and factual errors, less plagiarism, and generally better, more elegant and persuasive prose than classroom assignments by the same writers. Blog assignments in several of my courses hone students’ critical thinking and written communication skills as they use course material to interpret world events, scientific discoveries, and creative products, sharing their insights with the world at large (whatscreativeluc.blogspot.com; brainpoints.blogspot.com; morebrainpoints.blogspot.com). Through the blog community students evaluate and comment on each other’s ideas while sharing their learning with thousands of people outside of the classroom community.
Storytelling can catalyze students to ask important questions about psychological content, and help them to apply course content to problems in their own lives and the lives of others (see Morrison & Bergman, 2005; FOTL 2012 presentation). In class I use narrative and documentary film to initiate discussion, but also to have students tell their own stories to understand course learning in new ways. In one of my courses, students work collaboratively to develop short narrative films to understand neuroscience concepts at a personal level. Managing data is an essential skill for all scientists. In PSYC 314 I’ve developed a curriculum that joins a survey of methods in cognitive psychology with a scaffolded curriculum that builds skills in Microsoft Excel, a tool used in many professions. Students use what they learn in other courses, in the labs they work in, as well as after college in graduate school or their chosen profession.
To become scientists students need to learn to ask and answer questions and develop the analytical skills to work with data. In NEUR300 I’ve developed links to the Loyola Neuroscience Institute in Maywood to host a weekly Neuroscience Seminar where students hear professional scientists describe their research for other scientists. Students have opportunities to ask questions as well as hear graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and other professors, dialogue with presenters about a range of neuroscience topics. This experience serves as a natural gateway for students to experience science in research labs. Many students join my labs’ collaborative mentoring environment (canlab.org/undergraduates.html). Together, we do the business of science--seeking funding (e.g., Carbon, Johnson, Provost, Mulcahy), presenting our work at scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed articles, and furthering our careers together.
I can’t imagine anything more fulfilling than walking with my students as their passion builds and their paths emerge--as they become successful scholars and participants in society on their own. By incorporating both novel classroom pedagogy and lab-based experiential learning, students have transformative education experiences, a central focus of Loyola’s mission.
Dr. Morrison received the Edwin T. and Vivijeanne F. Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013.
Mentoring
Part of what we are doing as mentors is building life-long families. My own academic family has been there for me through the thick and thin. The year I had a long, exhausting, unsuccessful job search, my two graduate mentors flew in from Los Angeles for a surprise birthday party. Another graduate student from the lab drove to Chicago from Indiana to be there. We relived old memories and past successes and before long “the shop talk” started and we were dreaming up new experiments. A dark moment turned into the future hope for new knowledge through collaboration.
As a mentor I try to share passion for what I do, a love of good questions and the mystery of data, but most of all I let my students know that there is a whole group of people in the lab who are there for them. Mentoring is everyone’s responsibility, privilege, and joy. Together we figure out the right questions to ask, how to solve them and most of all we commit ourselves and each other to live passionate meaningful lives.
Dr. Morrison received the Langerbeck Award for Undergraduate Research Mentoring in 2012.
As a mentor I try to share passion for what I do, a love of good questions and the mystery of data, but most of all I let my students know that there is a whole group of people in the lab who are there for them. Mentoring is everyone’s responsibility, privilege, and joy. Together we figure out the right questions to ask, how to solve them and most of all we commit ourselves and each other to live passionate meaningful lives.
Dr. Morrison received the Langerbeck Award for Undergraduate Research Mentoring in 2012.
Psyc382: Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience
The field of cognitive neuroscience, officially just over 30 years old, has revolutionized the way psychologists study the mind and its disorders. Building on the older disciplines of behavioral neurology and physiological psychology, cognitive neuroscience adds a broad change of new methods that provide spatial and temporal views of neural processing as well as innovative techniques to alter brain structure or functioning. Together these methods add to the traditional experimental methods of psychological science to allow us to move beyond mere speculation and intuition to build theories of how people think based on the scientific method and importantly constrained by mechanisms and representations consistent with how the brain processes information.
In this course the methods of cognitive neuroscience including genetics, brain imaging (e.g., single unit recording, EEG/ERP/ERO, fMRI, PET, MEG) and dissociation-based techniques such as behavioral neurology and TMS. You will also become familiar with the structure of the human brain. Putting these together we will then consider a broad range of topics in higher human cognition including: object recognition, memory, emotions, social cognition, language, attention, consciousness, reasoning & problem solving and decision making. Thus, this course will survey a broad range of topics mainly through lecture presentations including video. However, you will be expected to learn much from the assigned readings. You will also have a unique opportunity to learn to apply the course material through making a video of your own (Examples below). Dr. Morrison has discussed this instructional method at the 2012 Loyola Focus on Teaching and Learning session.
In this course the methods of cognitive neuroscience including genetics, brain imaging (e.g., single unit recording, EEG/ERP/ERO, fMRI, PET, MEG) and dissociation-based techniques such as behavioral neurology and TMS. You will also become familiar with the structure of the human brain. Putting these together we will then consider a broad range of topics in higher human cognition including: object recognition, memory, emotions, social cognition, language, attention, consciousness, reasoning & problem solving and decision making. Thus, this course will survey a broad range of topics mainly through lecture presentations including video. However, you will be expected to learn much from the assigned readings. You will also have a unique opportunity to learn to apply the course material through making a video of your own (Examples below). Dr. Morrison has discussed this instructional method at the 2012 Loyola Focus on Teaching and Learning session.
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This is a required course for the proposed Neuroscience Major and counts towards the Neuroscience Minor and a Group A course for the Psychology Major.
Dr. Morrison typically teaches this course once each year in the fall.
Fall 2011 Syllabus
Dr. Morrison typically teaches this course once each year in the fall.
Fall 2011 Syllabus
Hon204: Science & Society: Psychology of Creativity
During the last sixty years scientists have explored the personality traits, mental processes, and brain functions that allow people to exhibit creative behavior. In this course we will survey a variety of different theories of creativity drawing on cognitive, developmental, personality and social psychology and neuroscience. We will consider artistic, scientific and cultural creativity, making extensive use of reading and film to encounter creators and their products directly and through the minds of their students and scholars. Together we will reflect on our own creative processes via discussion and writing and engage in a group study of a living eminent creative individual here in Chicago. Visit the course blog here.
Dr. Morrison typically teaches this course once each year in the spring.
Spring 2014 Syllabus
Psyc314: Laboratory in Experimental Psychology: Cognition
Experimental methods allow psychologists to move beyond mere speculation and intuition to build theories of how people think based on the scientific method. You have previously learned about many of these theories and perhaps a few During this course you will further your skills to design experiments to answer your own questions. To meet this goal, in this course you will participate in a variety of experiments used by cognitive psychologists to address questions about attention, memory and reasoning. You will also learn to analyze these experiments and practice presenting your results in the ways commonly used by experimental psychologists.
It is my intention to make this a laboratory course in the strictest sense. That is, during many of the class periods you will be required to take part in various data-gathering exercises. During these class periods you will take measurements on yourself and your classmates that tap underlying cognitive processes. The nature of these measurements and the processes that are tapped should become clear to you as the course progresses. It is my intention that you leave the course with at least some insight into the steps taken by cognitive psychologists when they perform experiments, and that you learn some of the basics of data management and analysis as well as presentation. This is intended to be a skills course rather than a content course, although I do hope that you learn something about cognitive processes along the way.
In order to prepare you for particular labs, it will be necessary for at least some class time to consist of lectures in which I will attempt to provide the necessary background material for the laboratories and completion of lab assignments. It should be understood that this is not intended to be a survey course in Cognitive Psychology. A few topics will be covered in depth, while many areas that could be covered here will be ignored.
Being able to effectively communicate is important in every vocation, but it is critical in science because the product of science is simply shared information. If you can’t clearly share information with others it’s almost like it doesn’t exist. Thus, it is critical for experimental psychologists, like other scientists, to learn how to effectively communicate their results via both written and oral means. We will practice both things in this course and we will also revisit how to find out what other psychologists are doing through both computer-based literature searches (psycINFO) and reading from the primary literature.
Lastly, I want this course to be VERY practical and empower you with basic critical thinking and computer skills that will serve you well regardless of your future academic and professional endeavors. Thus, we will spend time making sure everyone knows how to work with data sets in Microsoft Excel including basic statistical calculations. You will also learn how to present your results visually, by using plots and figures. Lastly, you will be (re)introduced to SPSS, an industry standard statistics tool and will practice using it to analyze the types of data cognitive psychologists routinely work with.
Dr. Morrison typically teaches this course once each year either in the fall or spring.
Spring 2010 Syllabus
It is my intention to make this a laboratory course in the strictest sense. That is, during many of the class periods you will be required to take part in various data-gathering exercises. During these class periods you will take measurements on yourself and your classmates that tap underlying cognitive processes. The nature of these measurements and the processes that are tapped should become clear to you as the course progresses. It is my intention that you leave the course with at least some insight into the steps taken by cognitive psychologists when they perform experiments, and that you learn some of the basics of data management and analysis as well as presentation. This is intended to be a skills course rather than a content course, although I do hope that you learn something about cognitive processes along the way.
In order to prepare you for particular labs, it will be necessary for at least some class time to consist of lectures in which I will attempt to provide the necessary background material for the laboratories and completion of lab assignments. It should be understood that this is not intended to be a survey course in Cognitive Psychology. A few topics will be covered in depth, while many areas that could be covered here will be ignored.
Being able to effectively communicate is important in every vocation, but it is critical in science because the product of science is simply shared information. If you can’t clearly share information with others it’s almost like it doesn’t exist. Thus, it is critical for experimental psychologists, like other scientists, to learn how to effectively communicate their results via both written and oral means. We will practice both things in this course and we will also revisit how to find out what other psychologists are doing through both computer-based literature searches (psycINFO) and reading from the primary literature.
Lastly, I want this course to be VERY practical and empower you with basic critical thinking and computer skills that will serve you well regardless of your future academic and professional endeavors. Thus, we will spend time making sure everyone knows how to work with data sets in Microsoft Excel including basic statistical calculations. You will also learn how to present your results visually, by using plots and figures. Lastly, you will be (re)introduced to SPSS, an industry standard statistics tool and will practice using it to analyze the types of data cognitive psychologists routinely work with.
Dr. Morrison typically teaches this course once each year either in the fall or spring.
Spring 2010 Syllabus
NEUR300: Seminar in Neuroscience (Undergraduate)
Every week students hear live research talks given by neuroscientists both from Loyola as well as other research universities. These talks cover the full range of neuroscience topics including molecular, systems, behavioral and cognitive approaches presented by PhDs, MDs and graduate students. The intent of the course is not to provide students with a comprehensive overview of neuroscience, but rather to give them a glimpse into how neuroscientists ask and answer questions. Students have the opportunity to ask questions of speakers whether they are speaking here at Lakeshore or at Maywood, much as if they were hearing a talk at a research conference. The opportunity to interact with researchers in this way is extremely rare for undergraduates and unprecedented amongst Chicago area colleges and universities.
A second goal of the course is to help students become consumers of neuroscience research as found in the scientific literature and the popular press. To hone their critical analysis skills students develop blog entries at morebrainpoints.blogspot.com based on cognitive neuroscience news items and articles from the primary literature. The intent is to have them right for their peers and members of the general public, an activity shown to improve their writing skills (Lunsford, 2006). The blog also serves as a great way for the Loyola Neuroscience community to be visible to the world beyond campus.
Fall 2012 NEUR300 Syllabus
A second goal of the course is to help students become consumers of neuroscience research as found in the scientific literature and the popular press. To hone their critical analysis skills students develop blog entries at morebrainpoints.blogspot.com based on cognitive neuroscience news items and articles from the primary literature. The intent is to have them right for their peers and members of the general public, an activity shown to improve their writing skills (Lunsford, 2006). The blog also serves as a great way for the Loyola Neuroscience community to be visible to the world beyond campus.
Fall 2012 NEUR300 Syllabus
Psyc435: Seminar in Cognitive Neuroscience (Graduate)
The way that information is represented and processed in the brain is central to a broad range of topics in psychological science. In this course we will consider how the methods of cognitive neuroscience including brain imaging (e.g., EEG/ERP/ERO, fMRI, fNIRS, MEG, VBM) and dissociation-based techniques such as neuropsychology, TMS, or neurogenetics have revolutionized the exploration of these topics. We will pay particular attention to how these techniques can be used to understand higher-level cognition during development and in questions related to social psychology and psychopathology. Class participants will be introduced to these techniques, read, present, and discuss results from the primary literature, and also have an opportunity to develop an idea relating to their own research incorporating one or more of these methods. The major course assignment involves developing an NRSA grant proposal which utilizes cognitive neuroscience methods to address a problem in the student's area of research.
Spring 2012 Syllabus
Spring 2012 Syllabus