Make up a short story

Students! Make revising for exams easier.  Make up your own short stories about psychology topics.

This is an example of active learning, where students construct their own understanding of a subject using the psychology topics to create short stories.  This method increases a student’s engagement and retention of the material. It is also creative thinking.

By creating a story you can use humour as it helps you think more broadly and associate ideas more freely.   You use both sides of your brain. Creativity requires a whole-brained approach because it requires lateral thinking, or thinking about things in new ways. When you, “think outside the box,” you devise fresh approaches to solving problems and meeting challenges:  understanding the topic, evaluation of the research studies.

Being creative assists you to understand the information you have been given.  It is one thing to read a book and study a topic.  It is another thing to be able to explain that topic to someone else (or yourself).  Being able to explain new knowledge shows that you have processed and internalised the information on a deeper level.

By creating a story you can also expand your knowledge as to be a good explainer requires you to solidify knowledge. You can reshape the information in your own unique vision and integrate your own ideas.

Learning to transfer what you have learned in one context into a new context can be a great exercise in cognitive flexibility, because it forces you to form new connections between previously unconnected networks of knowledge and think more creatively. 

In terms of evaluation of research studies, story making leads to an increase of memory, concentration and mental sharpness.  This experience helps to build up the brain in order to make sure your evaluations of studies are linked to how this impacts on the theories. This means that the evaluation MUST be linked to the theory/hypothesis. 

For ideas on how to write a short story go to:  http://storgy.com/2013/11/06/ryan-licatas-new-short-story-send-her-away/