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In-Class Exercises
The Way I Think - An exercise where students can respond to a sample of cognitive
interventions.
Reflection - There's more than meets to the eye to this basic therapy technique.
Life Facts - If you were asked to list four or five important "facts" about yourself
and your life, what would come to mind? What would that list say about you?
I wish you health and happiness - a quick experiment in cognitive restructuring and
Buddhist philosophy.
Listening for feelings - An exercise using music to help students sharpen their
awareness of emotional expression.
The Timeline Exercise - constructing a timeline of one's life enhances insight into
one's life.
Self-Insight
Many of these exercises also apply to psychotherapy and counseling in that they
involve processes of insight and self-exploration that are similar to those occuring in
psychotherapy.
The Shadow Exercise - Do the people you "hate" really represent something inside
you?
The Hammer or Nail Exercise - This fascinating exercise suggested by John Provo
is an excellent way to for students to explore various components of their identity and
sense of self.
Show and Tell - Don't laugh! This exercise from kindergarten works extremely well
as a self-disclosure exercise.
Costumes - turn Halloween costumes into an exercise on self and other perceptions.
The Dynamics of Sitting - Perhaps personality traits are revealed even by very
simple things - like where you tend to sit in a class.
Empty Your Pockets - what you carry with you every day may say something about
your personality
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Zen Stories - Eastern tales from Zen Buddhism and Taoism are great teaching tools
and stimuli for class discussion. They highlight many basic human issues about life,
death, and everything of importance inbetween. This collection of stories also
includes students' reactions to the stories.
What's in a Name - This exercise suggested by Jody Deutsch Moore helps students
understand the psychological significance of the birth name given to them. An
excellent way for students to introduce themselves to each other.
Personality Disorders - Imagine a party where all of the people have a personality
disorder. Students are presented with this scenario, and must properly diagnose the
characters at the party.
Altered States: Fact and Fiction - Fact and fiction about altered states of
consciousness in the movie "Altered States."
Mental health treatments - students try to pick out the most appropriate treatments
for people experiencing different types of problems.
Diagnosing Mr. Smith - making a differential diagnosis is not always easy, even
when the diagnostic criteria seem clear.
Group Dynamics
These activities involve group interactions and/or role plays, and therefore shed light
on group dynamics. But there's also a considerable amount of "self-insight" involved
in these activities as well.
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Group Drawings - Group drawings can reveal a great deal about individual people
as well as group dynamics.
The Special Place Exercise - A dyad exercise suggested by Jerry Noloboff that
encourages self-disclosure and the building of a group field.
Group Tell-A-Story - Every group has a distinct, complex personality. This exercise
helps students explore the various dimensions of the "group self." It's also a lot of fun.
Group Checkers - Suggested by Alan Clingan and Gordon McInnis, this exercise
shows that a game can be much more than simply a game.
Family Sociograms - students draw the patterns of relationships in their family, and
hopefully learn something about themselves.
Body language - an exercise and role plays for sensitizing students to the subtleties
of body language.
General Techniques
These activites are either "general purpose," or are flexible tools that can be applied in
a variety of ways.
Dyad Introductions - A useful technique for introducing students to each other and
the class.
The Circulating Papers Technique - Here's a way that everyone in the class gets to
express him or herself, including giving and receiving written feedback from other
students in the course.
Taking the class's pulse - a quick method for assessing the state of mind of the class
Tape Recorded Feedback - A creative method for giving students feedback on their
written assignments, suggested by Linton Hutchinson.
http://users.rider.edu/~suler/inclassex.html
Psychological Exercises, Insight & Self-Awareness Activities
(on this website)
Get To Know You A sequence of questions which help students to find out
Sociometric Questions about one another, move around, and have fun.
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being lost. Then try find your way back. Drive and keep
driving until you are lost. Take only roads you've never
been on before. Spend time being lost. Then try to find
your way back.
Hand write a letter to someone who you want to improve
Write a Letter to Improve your relationship with. Take your time to create a
a Relationship comfortable, private space in which to write the letter.
And then post it!
Draw a picture for someone who you want to improve
your relationship with. Take your time to find some
Draw a Picture to
good paper and pencils, paint, or markers, etc. Let
Improve a Relationship
yourself go with the picture. Add a little note if you
want. Then post it!
This task can be done on its own or as part of a cultural
Free Lunch for a Life adventure hunt. Find someone you've never met before
Story who is over 60 or 70? years old with a free lunch and ask
them to share their life story with you.
Group Therapy Ideas & Links to experiential activity ideas for engaging group
Themes therapy themes.
Last updated:
18 May 2006
http://wilderdom.com/games/PsychologicalExercises.html
Psychology is a subject where students learn about the science of mind and behavior
and disorders and symptoms. Sometimes the symptoms of disorders may overlap or
look alike, leading to confusion. Psychology study games are used to clear these
confusions, and they help the students not only to learn psychology, but also to enjoy
learning it. Below are some study games that would make learning psychology more
interesting.
Role Playing
o This is an interesting game where the students form groups and
perform skits. In this game, the instructor gives the students some
disorders to learn and gives them a specific time frame to learn
everything they can about these disorders. On a scheduled date, the
instructor asks a group of students to act out a real-life situation where
people are suffering with some of the psychological disorders. For
example, the instructor may ask the students to portray a family
meeting with each member of the family displaying the symptoms of
one of the disorders. Then, the other students are asked to name the
disorder, then the class discusses the disorder. This game helps to
understand the disorder from day-to-day symptoms displayed by
people, which leads to a better understanding of it.
Life Facts
o This is a game that is played in kindergarten, but you can also use it to
learn psychology. This game is useful to explore the sense of self. The
instructor asks the students to bring items they feel are important to
them. The students are then asked to show and tell about that item.
After everyone's turn is finished, all students discuss about how an
item reveals a particular student's personality.
The Shadow
o This game is useful to learn Jung's concept. The students are asked to
write about a person they hate very much and what they hate about that
person. Then, tell the students that this personality is their shadow,
according to Jung. Tell the students that this is either a personality they
want to suppress or the one they want to develop. Though the students
may have mixed reactions to this game, it helps to learn Jung's
concept.
http://www.ehow.com/info_8093794_psychology-study-games.html
Math
o Have students practice subtraction, addition or multiplication playing
the card game War. Rather than turning over one card at a time as you
do in the classic children's card game, students turn over two cards and
add, subtract, or multiply the two numbers to determine the winner.
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To practice multiplication use the Buzz game. In this game, the teacher
says a number from 1 to 12. Students sit in a circle and start counting
off. When a student's turn comes, if the number they are to say is a
multiple of the number chosen by the teacher, they must say, "buzz." If
they say the number instead of "buzz" then they are out and play
continues.
Language
o Classic board and child games such as Hangman, Boggle and Scrabble
provide an excellent classroom resource. For specific skill practice,
restrict the word making in any of these games to a category such as
adjectives or words with three syllables.
Social Studies
o In Who Am I, one child leaves the room while you show the rest of the
children the name of a famous historical figure they have studied. The
one child returns to ask the class yes or no questions to try to guess
who the famous figure is. Designate a certain number of questions the
child may ask based on grade level or difficulty.
Play other versions of this game by changing the question from "Who
am I?" to "Where am I?" for geography or "What Happened?" for
major historical events. For variety, reverse the way the game is played
by having only one child know the answer and having everyone else
ask questions of him to figure out the right answer.
Critical Thinking
o Effective critical thinking assists students in every subject. Several
popular games provide can successfully provide critical thinking
practice to students. These include checkers, chess, Scattegories, Clue,
Twenty Questions, Mancala and Othello.
Many of these use easily recreated game boards. Create game pieces
from any suitable item or have students create them. Some websites
offer free printable blank game boards. Games such as Scattegories
and Twenty Questions require no materials to play.
Multipurpose Games
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1.
Simon Says
o Almost everyone has played Simon Says at some point during their
childhood; the game in which one person stands in front of a group and
instructs everyone to complete actions, beginning their sentences with
"Simon Says... ." If the student doesn't start with "Simon Says," the
others are not supposed to do the action that follows, and anyone that
does is out of the game.
You can modify this game to teach students about their own
psychology by instructing them to do long lists of actions. Begin with
one action and then keep adding actions until some of your students
begin to falter. Most students will not be able to repeat patterns beyond
five or six actions. Ask your students to write down all of the actions
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they remember in order. Discuss how the brain works to store things in
your short-term memory.
Awareness Test
o The Awareness Test works well for teaching students how selective
and long-term memory works. To do it, ask several students to leave
the room and then instruct several others to rearrange objects in the
room. They can reverse posters, move globes to different areas, open
previously closed books, and even add or erase writing on the board.
Ask the students to come back into the room and tell them how many
differences there are and instruct them to write all the differences they
see on the board. Then, go over how many they got right and talk about
how focus plays a part in memory. Then, do the test again asking your
students to look around the room for two minutes before sending
several students out. Rearrange things, and have them come back in
and write the differences on the board. See which group of students
noticed more. You can spice this up by exiting the room for a minute
and seeing if the students can trick you by testing you on their
rearrangements.
Observation
Then, switch partners and repeat the same exercise. Afterward, discuss
why the bright colors help people remember things. Tell them that
fruits, vegetables, and flowers usually feature bright colors, and discuss
how that plays into human and animal instincts.