Hi everyone,

Introduction

While I have taken a brief reprieve from publishing psychological and spiritual articles on sparrowsoftruth.com, I nonetheless share in supporting the psychological and spiritual learning of others on this website on occasion. I intend to create an activity where learners can create a graphic to demonstrate their understanding of narcissistic personality disorder. My graphic creation activity is designed to be completed within 2 hours.

Learning Outcome

Upon completion of this graphic creation activity, students will have learned how to conceptualize and create a graphic which best represents a minimum of 3 primary facets of narcissistic personality disorder.

Activity Description

Goal

Create an infographic explaining three characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder and their deleterious effects on psychological well-being within human relationships. Your infographic should be conceptually reinforced through one reading of the provided texts of MacKenzie (2019) or Durvasula (2015).

Scope

The size of your infographic should fit within a 960 x 720-pixel Google Draw document. Before beginning this task, ensure that you understand and focus on including Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle, Dunlap & Lowenthal’s (2016) principle of immediacy (p. 47), and Clark & Lyons (2010) focus on organizational graphics (p. 18). You are free to exclude relational and interpretive visuals as this creative project is qualitatively designed rather than focusing on quantitative or biological aspects of narcissistic personality disorder (Clark & Lyons, 2010, p. 19).

Boundaries

This graphic design activity is designed to be completed at the individual level of study. You are free to create an entirely new piece of graphic content or remix an online infographic insofar as the infographic is Creative Commons licensed.

While I recommend that you use Google Draw due to its ease of use, you are free to use Inkscape or Sumo Paint. Keep in mind that your graphic need not be graphically extravagant. Rather, my expectation is that you will be able to create a graphic which is logically coherent, concise, and capable of evoking attention for the purpose of illustrating the deleterious relational consequences of narcissism within relationships (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 47-48).

Timings & Submission Location

It is expected that this creative design activity will only take roughly 2 hours to complete. While there is no Drop Box for submission, you are free to send me your completed infographics through my websites contact form.

Technical Tutorials

Google Drawings Tutorial

Sumo Paint Tutorial

Inkscape Tutorial

 

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Multimedia instruction. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. Elen, & M. J. Bishop (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (4th ed., pp. 385-399). Springer Science & Business Media. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5

Hi everyone,

-Drama of the Amygdala-

Learning Outcome

Upon completion of a brief study of the amygdala infographic it will be each student’s responsibility to ensure that they are capable of describing at least three emotions with examples which the amygdala is responsible for producing.

Intended Audience

This infographic would be directed towards the learning of first-year psychology students who are taking an introduction to psychology course. Age-group would be 18 years of age and up with no educational pre-requisites aside from documentation of a GED or Grade 12 diploma.

Theoretical Underpinnings

By surrounding my sourced amygdala infographic with a title, a brief caption, and a learning outcome, I am better able to support student learning through greater adherence to Clark & Lyons (2010) notion of interpretive graphics whereby my infographic displays the general location of the amygdala within the human brain and how it explains invisible emotional processes within the human brain (p. 19).

This infographic also allows students to only focus on one learning outcome while simultaneously creating compellingness since the infographic effectively “propels the learner through the content via a succession of related ideas” surrounding emotions (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 48, 55).

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hi everyone,

Original Photograph

I chose to use the open-source Gimp application. I chose to crop a photo of a Buddha statue which I felt contained quite a bit of extraneous and inconsequential background.

Cropped Photograph

I chose to focus on Buddha rather than the open-sky or the brick wall below since Buddha was the focal point who contains a lot of meaning in Buddhist tradition. It was important for me to ensure that I followed Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle since Mayer argues that readers and viewers of multimedia projects learn more readily when the images and written content avoids “extraneous material”. Since it would be my intention to focus on Buddha’s life within a piece of curriculum, including the open-sky would do little to add to my focal point.

Workflow Concerns

In the end, I felt that navigating and understanding how to use Gimp to crop an image was a somewhat indirect process since the cropping tool was not linear but required the use of a ‘snipping’ tool which took some getting used to. I also had a small amount of difficulty understanding how to save my cropped image in JPEG format since every time I tried to save my image it saved as a .XCF file. If you choose to use Gimp to edit your photographs ensure that you navigate to:

Select File > Export As.
Use the Export As box to assign a name and location to the image.
Click Select File Type to open the list of available file types.
Scroll down the list and select JPEG Image.

Finally, you can see my re-sized imaged below. This one is roughly 25% the size of the original cropped image I made above.

Activity 5: Create a Graphic

An old learning objective I created for a course pertaining to Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is:

“By the end of this unit, students will be able to create a short-essay that demonstrates a clear understanding of Sternberg’s three principles of love”.

Once again, this graphic would serve as a supplement to a textbook such as Branscombe & Baron’s “Social Psychology” but this graphic nonetheless would aid students towards understanding the abstract interactions between Sternberg’s notions of passion, commitment, and intimacy.

The graphic I created to help students with understanding the triarchic dynamics of Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love is seen below:

I chose to use Google Drawing as my graphic design tool. The primary reading which supports my design is once again Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle. My design process involved the creation of a three-pronged lightning strike towards the center of the screen where ‘love’ emerges. I felt that by making each lightning bolt an independent color which I felt best represented the feelings of passion, intimacy, and commitment that the viewer would connect emotionally through the immediacy of the visuals (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 47).

Through adherence to Mayer’s (2014) coherence principle I created a graphic which avoided extraneous words and images. I also followed Clark & Lyons (2010) recommendation of making use of two-dimensional graphics rather than three-dimensional graphics since third-dimensional images have a negative propensity to create “extraneous mental load” (p. 15).

I hope this helps!

Carson  🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hello everyone,

Learning Objective

“By the end of this unit, students will be able to create a short-essay that demonstrates a clear understanding of how the amygdala directly influences their emotional well-being”.

Infographic Link

https://www.flickr.com/photos/190553986@N08/50420143571

Connecting Infographics to Learning Objectives

This psychological infographic is creative common licensed according to Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). This license signifies that I am free to share, copy, distribute, remix, or build upon this infographic as much as I desire so long as I give appropriate credit and indicate if I made any changes to the original infographic.

This infographic supports my learning outcome due to the fact that it concisely describes through the use of sub-headings how the amygdala is responsible for the emotions of human beings. For example, my chosen infographic clearly describes how the amygdala is responsible for fear response, anxiety response, aggression, and happiness.

Recommendations

While I enjoy how this infographic concerning the amygdala acts as the emotional center of the human brain, I would nonetheless use this image as a supplementary material alongside a required textbook such as Chance’s Learning and Behavior textbook. I believe that this infographic is sufficient as it is kept to only one page and connects visual content to written content effectively (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2016, p. 45, 55). I also believe that my chosen infographic does an effective job of “directing learner attention” to the basic role of the amygdala in terms of producing emotions such as fear and anxiety which therefore supports one of the primary psychological events of learning (Clark & Lyons, 2010, p. 20).

Thanks for reading,

Carson 🙂

References

Clark, R. C., & Lyons, C. (2010). Graphics for learning : Proven guidelines for planning, designing, and evaluating visuals in training materials. Center for Creative Leadership.

Dunlap, J. C. & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016, September 8). Getting graphic about infographics: Design lessons learned from popular infographics. Journal of Visual Literacy, 35(1), 42–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051144X.2016.1205832

Hi everyone, I chose to use the Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose resource.

My Vision Impairment Experience

This was the first time that I used the No-Coffee Firefox extension and it was incredible to ‘see’ through a different set of eyes. Navigating through the various degrees of eye blur, contrast loss, glare, ghosting, and cloudiness brought the reality of accessibility to my heart and mind.

Of particular interest to me was how very little blur and cloudiness created a great amount of challenge in perceiving and understanding the Hinterland webpage. Going through this experience reminded me of the importance of web-design and how Hinterland’s use of a grey background rather than a white background added to the perceived blurriness that I experienced.

This activity reminded me of the importance of including audio and visual resources within any websites/blogs that I create. If someone cannot read my webpage, then they should at least be able to navigate towards audio resources as an alternative.

One significant problem I identified was that the only reason that I was able to identify where the YouTube video was on the Hinterland page was because of the bright red button which emerged. If this bright red symbol did not appear, I would have no idea that there was a video on the webpage.

I intend to implement larger fonts with bright-white backgrounds in order to create clear reading contrast. I also want to ensure that where I am able to, I will begin including audio/visual resources where applicable on my own writing website.

Carson 🙂

Hi everyone,

The existing online resource which I used is Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose. 

Since the WCAG guidelines for accessibility directly refer to the POUR set of accessibility it was important for me to identify whether the Hinterland Who’s Who site was perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

POUR stands for:

Perceivable: Can materials be observed, heard or seen by learners?

Operable: Can learners interact with the site as intended?

Understandable: Is the site and associated media comprehendible by learners?

Robust: Does the site work across platforms (Windows and Mac, tablets or phones) and is it usable by assistive technologies like screen readers (Hyatt, 2012)?

Assessment of Hinterland Who’s Who Website

On first appearance, it is clear that the Hinterland Who’s Who site concerning the North American moose can be effectively read, heard, and seen since the site contains not only written materials but audio/visual materials which satisfies the perceivability component for accessibility.

Secondly, I was able to easily navigate the Hinterland webpage through the use of both my text-to-speech Chrome extension and through the use of my mouse and keyboard. In my eyes, the Hinterland webpage is very operable and satisfies the operability component for accessibility.

Thirdly, I was able to understand the Hinterland content concerning the North American moose as bullet points, headers, subheadings, photographs and audio/visual resources organized the basic description, habitat, feeding, breeding, and conservation of moose in a clear and concise way. I believe that the Hinterland webpage is thoroughly understandable and satisfies the accessibility requirement for understandability.

Finally, I was able to access the Hinterland Who’s Who webpage on both my PC and my cellphone which allows me to feel that the Hinterland webpage is robust across various platforms.

Conclusion

I believe that the Hinterland website would be an effective resource for my teaching practice since it effectively outlines an excellent model of not only a universal design for education but one which is accessible and interesting. While Hinterland is primarily a biology oriented website, I can nonetheless work at adapting the layout onto my own psychological interests if I were to create an online source for psychological or writing interests.

References

Hyatt, G. W. (2012, September 14). Surf a GB with Glenda’s thumb. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/surf-a-gb-with-glendas-thumb/

Moose. Hinterland Who’s Who – Moose. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2022, from https://www.hww.ca/en/wildlife/mammals/moose.html

National Center on Accessible Educational Materials. (2015, March 3). Simply said: Understanding accessibility in digital learning materials. YouTube. https://youtu.be/HzE5dj1WTSo

Hi everyone,

Curriculum

Last semester I created a piece of curriculum for an entry-level course within colleges or universities. My psychology course was primarily written for those aged between 18 and 60 years of age.

Presentation

The curriculum was primarily taught through the use of PowerPoint presentations where I used a voice-over to comment on the important sections of each slide. There were no significant educational pre-requisites to take the course beyond having a grade 12 diploma besides having basic artistic knowledge.

Subject

The specific subject area of this piece of curriculum focused on human psychology. My psychology course was designed to be taught in-person but on account of the current COVID-19 Pandemic, I allowed for the course to be taught in a blended or full online method since each unit was presented using PowerPoint slides.

Expectations

It was expected that between 15 and 30 students would attend my course in human psychology. The primary learning challenges presented to me revolved around whether some of my students lacked creative ability. It would be my interest to possibly re-shape the course to include poetic or written means of expression rather than singularly depending on drawing or art as an expression of learning.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

CAST. (2018). The UDL guidelines (version 2.2). http://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Hello everyone,

Since I lack administrator access to WordPress I am unable to add alternative text for each image I choose to use for my articles. If I so desired to add videos to my articles, I would ensure that each video contains an option for captions. In addition, I believe that I am able to manage the perceivability of my website since each of my articles clearly contrasts between the black text and the white background. It is also obvious that none of my articles require a CAPTCHA. As a consequence, I believe that TRU’s use of WordPress and my use of WordPress as a publishing platform offers significant advantages in terms of high perceivability (Hyatt, 2012).

WordPress also allows readers to navigate webpages through keyboard-only navigation. It is also possible to publish articles which contain custom links rather than depending on an out-of-context hyperlink. I can do a more proficient job of providing headings throughout my articles as a means of increasing site operability (Cullipher, 2017; Hyatt, 2012). For example…

Is my website understandable?

My site’s language identified in the code assists text-to-speech software with correct pronunciation and I do my best to ensure that all complex definitions and acronyms are well-explained. I do my best to include images which assist with reader comprehension. However, I have failed to include summaries for lengthy articles and posts thus far. As a consequence, I can certainly do a better job of ensuring that I include article summaries (Hyatt, 2012).

Is my website robust?

Across all platforms my website performs well. The only issue that I identified is that because my blog through TRU is hosted as only viewable through those enrolled in this course, people outside of the course cannot access my blog from their computers or their cellphones. This is not an issue of robustness but is instead an issue of security and privacy preference (Hyatt, 2012).

In the end, I believe that the most effective changes I can make to my future blog posts will involve including more photographs throughout my writing so as to spurn creative connections. It would also be in my interest to continue using headings, videos, and alternative text for photographs to as to ensure that viewers using text-to-speech software are able to better connect to the course content (Cullipher, 2017). Overall, I feel that TRU’s use of WordPress as a publishing platform is an effective one.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Cullipher, V. (2017, June 7). Accessibility checklist. Digital Accessibility Digest. https://www.microassist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Microassist-Accessibility-Checklist-ACC.pdf

Hyatt, G. W. (2012, January 3). The POUR principles: The starting point for creating accessible blogs. Blog Accessibility. http://blogaccessibility.com/the-pour-principles-the-starting-point-for-creating-accessible-blogs/

Hi everyone,

As I am not presently teaching a course, I am completing this portion of the activity in future preparation for teaching 🙂

Since I am primarily interested in teaching or writing psychological curriculum/course design my first piece of curriculum which I wrote last semester focused on the topic of the psychology of love. This piece of curriculum also focused on the implementation of active imagination within the completion of artistic pieces. My psychology curriculum was created for college students.

For my first piece of psychological curriculum, I would be interested in implementing student self-assessments focusing on their own reflections of love through the use of emotionally evoking video.

Psychology Learning Objective: Through the completion of your self-assessment, identify the elements of intimacy, passion, and commitment which you can acknowledge in your own life this week.

My first video which I would like to include is this short video emphasizing some of the various visual aspects of intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Psychology of Love from Miguel Garcia Studios on Vimeo.

This video matched the topic of the psychology of love as it displayed intimacy, passion, and commitment between two people. This short audio/visual resource would allow me to spurn emotions within my students and hopefully create moments of self-reflection for my students as they assess how they have encountered such an experience of love in their own lives. I would be able to use this resource as is as it is not intended to be my main teaching resource but is instead a short video intended to supplement learning activity.

—

The second piece of curriculum I worked on also focused on the teaching of spiritual topics involving eastern religions and Christianity. This piece was also written for students within colleges.

For my second piece of curriculum which focused on spirituality, I would be interested in ensuring that my students are able to understand and practice self-reflection through the inclusion of supplementary videos.

Religious Studies Learning Objective: At the end of Unit 1 you should be able to reflect and identify some aspects of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity which mean the most to you.

Since I am primarily interested in adding audio/visual materials, here is a video on Buddhist perceptions of love which would be good to implement:

HOB What is Buddhism? – Boundless Love from Longchen Foundation on Vimeo.

Here is a video on Hindu perceptions of “God” which would also be good to implement:

Concept of God in Hinduism from HinduStudents on Vimeo.

Here is a video on Christian perceptions of “God” which would be good to include:

The Gospel from BibleProject on Vimeo.

These three videos match college level difficulty and I view them all as high quality resources since they clearly display various amounts of verbal narration and important images of authority. I would like to use these resources as they are since they are short, to the point, and provide varying degrees of information which should effectively challenge the thinking and feeling of my students.

Best,

Carson 🙂

References

Garcia, M. [Miguel Garcia Studios]. (2017). Psychology of Love [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/213246380

Himalayan Academy. [Hindu Students]. (2011). Concept of God in Hinduism [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/18852858

Mackie, T., and Collins, J. [Bible Project]. (2020). The Gospel [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/372510201

Shikpo, R. [Longchen Foundation]. (2018). HOB What is Buddhism? – Boundless Love [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/254723006