Projects

Prompt Given:

Select a communicable disease and, after obtaining instructor approval of your selection, create a disease summary that can be given to individuals who are at risk of contracting or developing the disease.

Discuss:

Disease history and etiology

Signs and symptoms

Risk

Prevalence, incidence, and trends

Treatment and prevention

Ebola is a devastating illness that has devastated the communities that it has touched. Understanding the various prevention and treatment options and ensuring that those prevention and treatment options make it into the hands of those most at risk has the potential to save countless lives...and likely prevent the potential for another serious (and possibly world-wide) outbreak.
This project not only helped me understand Ebola at a deeper level, but it also helped me to understand the ethical and social justice responsibilities that we have as a human race to provide the vulnerable communities with the means and the ability to protect themselves. The prevention measures exist but not all areas have access to them. 

Prompt Given:

You work for a market research company that supplies information to non-profit organizations throughout the nation. Your supervisor has asked you to provide an objective description of the data that will provide information regarding how to target different audiences in ways that bring about empathy. This will help your business support non-profit organizations in obtaining donations. You will create a short memorandum that includes graphical representations of your data in order to communicate this information.

I found this project interesting because it required you to go beyond the numbers and place yourself in a 'real life' application. It challenged me to think of all the ways in which I could recommend a company improve their reach and ultimately overall impact.
It also helped me to evaluate how lack of data impacts recommendations. This can impact many facets of the process, including final recommendations. Incomplete data impacts across several of the five programmatic themes:
Career Connections - If we aren't operating off of complete data, we cannot make accurate connections and recommendations.
Social Justice & Ethics - If we are operating off of data that lacks critical information, we may make recommendations that negatively impact particular subsets of our population.

Prompt Given: 

You are a research assistant for a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at a university. You have been asked to develop a research plan focused on one of the topics the faculty member is interested in studying.

For this project, you will review the topics provided by your faculty member and select the topic that interests you most. Then you will use the library to find relevant empirical and scholarly research studies to inform the research. Finally, you will develop a research plan to submit to your faculty member.

The genesis of a research study requires planning, research to give direction to the creation of your study, and a lot of careful planning. Being able to adequately locate peer-reviewed topics, understand the data you've located, interpret the data, and summarize the data are critical skills for every researcher to possess. 

Once this data is obtained, understood, and summarized, the researcher can move forward to the planning phase in his/her own study. This phase requires a deep understanding of design, methods, measures, statistics, and analysis. 

Being able to successful research, plan, and execute your own research study is an important aspect in the programmatic theme of career connections as it provides a necessary skill set as a psychologist. This skill set will make you an effective researcher, which in turn can afford the ability to contribute meaningful information to the scientific community.

Prompt Given:

Critique the research study that you chose for the Project Two Milestone assignment.
Critiques involve a balanced discussion of the research study, which means you will want to focus on both the strengths of the study and the limitations or areas of possible improvement. 

Being able to properly critique the research you find requires data literacy.
Research studies can provide crucial information to our community, but they can also contain flaws, weaknesses, and limitations. It's also helpful to be able to appreciate the strengths withing studies as this can give ideas or signal confidence in the data you're reviewing. 

Having the ability to understand and evaluate the quality of the data within a study applies to the programmatic theme of ethics and social justice as it allows you to be able to  recognize the quality of work you're reviewing and the strengths and weaknesses within the data. This ability allows you to responsibly utilize data and also prevents you from negatively impacting individuals/groups within our society. 

Prompt Given:

For this project, you will be creating a data brief. Developing the data brief will challenge you to not only interpret data correctly, but then communicate your findings to a mixed audience made up of members of the scientific community and the general public. Telling a persuasive and accurate story from statistical findings is an important skill to add to your data literacy toolbox.

Data is only useful when it is properly collected, evaluated, summarized, and communicated. All of these skills are like pieces in the research puzzle. Each piece, in and of themselves, serves to provide valuable information that makes the puzzle complete. Understanding and presenting how each piece fits together can be a daunting task, but doing so with rigor and an ethical mind-frame allows for one to be objective, clear, and responsible with the research. 

This project ties to the programmatic theme of career connections as it is a necessary skill to possess as an administrator, an employee, and a researcher.

Prompt Given:

As a leader in the student government organization on campus, you have made a perplexing observation about group behavior: While some people refuse to conform to the group majority, others tend to defer to the general consensus, despite the fact that their beliefs may run counter to the majority opinion.

For this project, in order to address this observation, you will create a set of research notes that explain the socio-psychological factors that influence conformity to group norms. The purpose of these notes is to help your fellow group members better understand the factors that contribute to majority influence and, ultimately, enhance group collaboration within the student government organization.

Conformity can be a slippery slope. Understanding how conformity works, the dangers of conformity, and the ways that conformity impacts individuals and groups helps us to be more aware and more willing to take braves steps outside of our comfort zone. This understanding provides us the ability to use our emotional intelligence more effectively in our personal lives and in our relationships. 

Prompt Given:

As a future social change agent, you seek to acquire and apply the skills that will enable you to one day become a skilled negotiator, advocate, and leader. On your leadership pathway, you were recently elected to the role of president of your campus’s diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) program. As president, you will be responsible for transforming the university culture into a community that celebrates acceptance, equality, and unity—from executive administrators to current students and alumni.

Within this transformation, you must encourage people to acknowledge the unconscious biases that silently influence their interactions. Likewise, you must encourage people to respect the divergent viewpoints of others and acknowledge the inherent opportunities to learn from such differences. Lastly, you are tasked to help others to understand that fairness and equality are not simply optional, but are the keys to cultivating a culturally competent environment. However, you are aware of the barriers that inhibit members of the academic community from engaging in productive interactions—specifically, the stereotypes and biases that unconsciously confirm our social identities.

For this project, you will be creating an advocacy initiative designed to encourage members of your university system to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusivity as core values of community well-being.

There are many ways to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our educational, workplace, and personal lives. 

Being willing to have a growth-mindset is an important characteristic to possess when championing diversity, equity, and inclusion in our lives.

It is also a critical factor in improving our emotional intelligence. Being willing to grow gives us permission to evaluate our past and present behaviors in healthy ways and gives us the opportunity to make wise and brave decisions moving forward if they need to be altered. 

Prompt Given:

Read this scenario to complete your project:

As you recall, Jan and Judi are identical twins who, tragically, were separated at birth after an administrative mishap in the hospital where they were born. Jan was raised in a warm, loving environment where her identity was allowed to flourish in authentic ways. Sadly, Judi was not as fortunate as her twin sister; she was raised in a psychologically abusive and chaotic environment that included parental neglect, substance abuse, and toxic relationships. Compared to Jan, Judi’s life has been anything but easy.

As previously discussed, Judi had two children with past partners; tragically, one teenage child died from addiction, while the other, nine-year old Jamie, is prone to angry outbursts and struggles with childhood anxiety and depression. Also, Jamie presents as fearful and distrusting, as evidenced by her tendency to retreat and isolate when in social situations. Given Judi’s history of excessive drinking, inattention to good health practices, and severe psychosocial trauma, she is reflecting on how her choices may have impacted Jamie’s development.

After Jamie’s teachers expressed concern about her ability to attend to tasks, recent follow-up psychometric tests conducted by the school psychologist revealed evidence of attention-deficit issues. In addition, Jamie has difficulty regulating her emotions when faced with challenging situations across a variety of contexts. According to her teachers, Jamie has exhibited angry outbursts when waiting for her peers to answer questions or losing at games, and when mistakes cause her to feel embarrassment. These circumstances cause exasperation and anxiety for Jamie, which often result in uncontrollable emotional outbursts that require intervention from school faculty and administrators. Judi believes that she has unknowingly internalized and passed many of the psychosocially dysfunctional qualities that she learned from observing her parents on to Jamie.

In a session with her guidance counselor, Jamie acknowledged that her quick escalation into intense displays of anger often results in feelings of guilt and shame. During the session, Jamie also acknowledged that her inability to control her emotions makes it difficult to sustain peer relationships. To cope, Jamie often seeks reassurance from peers by inquiring as to whether they will give her another chance. However, when her peers deny Jamie the opportunity to prove herself, she feels rejected, lost, and abandoned.

In an effort to help her daughter get the support that she desperately needs, Judi has reached out for help—and hopes for a miracle.

After reviewing the scenario and the supporting materials, use the Project One Template to complete your case study analysis. Answer each question with a minimum of 3 to 5 sentences. Support your answers with credible sources when appropriate. 

In this project, we assessed how different theories related to Judi's son, Jaime and his development. Understanding that each theory has strengths and weaknesses, being able to look at Jamie through multiple theoretical lenses helps us to see Jamie in a more comprehensive way as there is no one psychological theory that can answer all the questions or explain why a person acts or thinks as he/she does.  We need to be able to take a holistic approach when evaluating individuals and trying to understand cognition, behavior, and biology. 

Prompt Given:
Scenario

For this project, you will be creating a life-span theory exploration paper. Your Module Five Milestone, along with your required reading, has prepared you to complete this project. This project links theory with lived experiences and highlights the various perspectives of human development.

There are many theories and perspectives in psychology that aim to explain our behavior, thoughts, and biological connections as we traverse through life.  This project allowed for the evaluation of different theories and the application of these theories in relation to different psychological perspectives as well as the opportunity to apply my own experiences to the theories and perspectives. I found it interesting to bring theories, perspectives and my own personal experiences all together under a magnifying glass. I was able to grow my emotional intelligence by diving deeper into these perspectives and theories and tie them into my life. 
Recognizing that no one theory or perspective explains behavior, our nature, and our nurture experiences completely, taking the approach of looking at my life through multiple lenses allowed me to thoughtfully draw conclusions and evaluate how biology, psychology, and sociology intersect and impact an individual's lived experience. This is essential as we move forward in our education and our professional careers as it helps us to be better providers, helpers, caretakers, friends, and family members to those around us. 

                      Prompt Given:
Based on the research in your Project One Milestone assignment, pick two strategies that you would use to help enhance cognition in your chosen population. 

In about 500 to 750 words, create an overview of your clinic’s program, describe the needs of your target population. Include details of the cognitive processes that might be interrupted and how interventions can help the population’s quality of life, and summarize the current research in the field that has informed your evidence-based cognitive interventions. 

Next, summarize both evidence based cognitive interventions chosen - describing the methods and techniques used and how the results of the research showed effectiveness. Explain how the results are relevant to your target population in your response

Finally, take one of the above interventions and describe how a cognitive theory supports the use of that intervention

ADHD is a common problem seen in children (and adults) in our society. Early diagnosis and treatment provides children an opportunity to create new and beneficial strategies while the brain is still forming those connections. Psychopharmacological and behavioral methodologies have long been the main focus of addressing the symptoms/issues that arise. Research has shown that children whose ADHD is not properly manage encounter educational, occupational, mental health, and relational barriers as they go throughout life. 

Brain games and interactive cognitive approaches have been shown to be effective alternative measures to help mitigate the effects of ADHD in children. By working with school aged children and their families and introducing and implementing these measures, we offer research proven opportunities that can be life changing for this patient population.
This project addresses the emotional intelligence programmatic theme as, by recognizing and learning unique and creative ways to embrace the challenges that you face in your cognitive processes (ADHD, for example), you are increasing your awareness and your understanding of your own needs and the needs of others.

Prompt Given:

For this project, you will create a technology and cognition blog post with the goal of educating a general audience, as well as healthcare providers, who are educated but not necessarily familiar with your topic of research. Do your best to summarize your sources in your own words with a scientific and formal but not overly technical tone. As such, do not use quotations in your blog, but be sure to use in-text citations and references appropriately. Building this type of communication skill will exercise your ability to consume information and will benefit you in any career path you choose.

Topic Summary and Theory Background

Describe why research is being done on your selected topic.
Summarize how technology affects cognition for your selected topic.
Describe how a classic theory or concept in cognitive psychology applies to your selected topic.
Compare and Contrast Primary Research Articles: To answer each of the questions below, compare and contrast two of the three primary sources you identified in your Project Two milestone. Incorporate all three primary sources in your responses.
Compare the use of participants in two primary sources of your choice. Consider how the choice of participants is relevant to the research or how comparing the participants could inform future research or different conclusions.
Compare the measures, tests, and research designs used in two primary sources and compare how these measures relate to the specific domains of cognition mentioned in the articles. Consider how the research methods used are relevant to the research and how they can inform future research or different conclusions.
Compare the limitations identified in two primary sources of your choice. Consider how the limitations are relevant to the research methodology implemented or conclusions drawn. For example, does the methodology in one article use procedures that can be used to infer causation more precisely and accurately? Does one source have a more representative sample than the other?
Conclusions: Describe your conclusions about your selected topic based on the research you have analyzed.

This project required choosing a topic I felt was important to research. I chose to research how technology and cognitive techniques could improve accuracy during eyewitness identification.
Addressing and correcting the ways that negatively impact our society relates to the programmatic themes of social justice and ethics as faulty identifications lead to wrongful incarceration. Innocent people should not be at the mercy of our faulty memories. We must find a way to help identify criminals accurately while also protecting innocent individuals from losing their freedom.

Prompt Given:

In this module, you will submit a final designed multi-page portfolio using Adobe Illustrator. The final portfolio to be delivered to your selected client should include the following: cover page, table of contents, overview of client, final logo design in black and white and color formats, logo symbol usage, logo usage do's and don'ts, color specifications, font specifications, stationery items (letterhead, business card, envelope) with brand identity elements, and your rationale for your choices.

Your final portfolio should illustrate how the logo and logo applications meet the client's needs using psychology of design principles with examples to support your response.

Design the portfolio using the basic elements and principles of design (shape, line, space, color, emphasis, contrast, balance, alignment, repetition, flow) using brand identity specifications and elements. Be sure to save your portfolio in a multi-page format as a PDF. It should be a complete, polished artifact containing all of the critical elements of the final project. It should reflect the incorporation of feedback gained throughout the course.

Include a written rationale on the final page that is at least three paragraphs in length to describe the design process, the psychology of design principles utilized, how the final designs communicate the brand message, and how your designs fit the client's needs.

This project required me to go through the entire design process of creating a logo from client acquisition to final product. Throughout the process, I was introduced to the various critical factors that must be considered when creating a logo for a business. Understanding brand identity and the psychology behind composition, colors, and even font has been incredibly interesting and will ultimately be invaluable for me personally as I move towards launching my own non-profit organization. It also opened my eyes to how advertisers, designers, and companies use psychology on so many levels to impact the choices others make.