INTRODUCTION
Spring semester 2020 started like most do in late January. I was gearing up to teach three courses that term: Psy 206, Cognitive Psychology, Psy 353: Cognitive Development, and Psy 416: Cognitive Science. Prepping my course syllabi, as usual my thoughts were on what topics to cover, how much time to allocate to each, what active-learning techniques I would use with which class, and importantly, what the final exams and/or projects would look like. While I’d been following the news of the outbreak in Wuhan, China, I was not yet concerned about an imminent pandemic that would change so much, so rapidly.
Classes began, and each class took on it’s own rhythm. My plans were whirring and buzzing along, just as I’d hoped. I was enjoying my students and all was well. Of course, we now know that this sense of complacency didn’t last long. By mid-February word of the Corona Virus spreading was all over the news, and we (my family and I) were starting to take heed. By mid-March, the pandemic was in full swing and life as we knew it had irrevocably changed.
With the national call to stay home to flatten the curve, Pacific University reasonably gave us faculty two weeks to prepare for the change from face-to-face teaching to distance teaching and learning. In those two weeks, after managing some of my own anxiety about what was to come, I dug in and started to adjust. On our last face-to-face days together, I surveyed students on what they most wanted to preserve as we changed to a distance format and I used that as a jumping off point.
Spring 2020 marked the first time I’d taught Psy 206: Cognitive Psychology and I was trying out quite a few new ideas in the course. In the change-over I decided to downplay one theme (the cognitive power of sketchnoting) and up-play another, the creation and implementation of “psychologically wise interventions.” Students were already working on semester long group projects with the objective of helping them see connections between cognitive psychology and other aspects of psychological functioning. The original plan was to wrap sketchnoting into their
projects to make visually appealing and memorable poster presentations. Illustrating posters and presenting them didn’t seem feasible in distance-format, so I dropped that idea. Instead, I decided to spend more time working with the wise intervention concept, spend more time fine-tuning writing, and to then wrap the group project papers up into an e-book. The fruits of my and my students’ labors are here, in this issue if what I have dubbed “The Covid_19 Keepsake Series.”
The collected works here represent the efforts of a diverse group of undergraduate students. Their enrollment status ranged from Freshman to Senior with declared interests in 7 different majors and a wide array of career aspirations. Students were grouped by self-reported interests and each group then choose their own application topics. It is noteworthy that the students continued their collaborations virtually, despite the fact that once we’d changed to distance engagement we were connecting across 3 time zones. The chapters in this issue were built up over 4 phases, and the final full phase was reviewed once by me and then revised one last time. The key learning objective of this assignment was for students to understand the basics of cognition well enough to use that knowledge to some advantage. I am delighted to note that all students met that learning objective. In the pages that follow here, students share with readers empirically sound advice tailored to a variety of situations. Please read and enjoy, and give these student-authors a round of applause. Their work is commendable, especially considering the conditions of this unprecedented time of learning during the first wave of Covid_19.
~ Professor Erica Kleinknecht, PhD
Department of Psychology
Pacific University Oregon
May, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I: Cognition and Learning
Chapter 1
Language: A Multifaceted Method of Learning
By Kamilah Blake, Alexander Foroughi, & Hannah Rasmussen
Chapter 2
A New Look at Learning Styles: How to Wisely Apply Encoding Variability to Education
By Bradely Altomare, Christopher (Bubba) Chuckas, & Robert Gordon
Part II: Cognition and Sport
Chapter 3
The influences of athletics on cognitive functioning: A coaches training program
By Brynne Middaugh, Richard (Goo) Ramirez, & Jill Uyeda
Chapter 4
Conquering Cognition While Concussed
By Sadie Mak, Stacey Storaker & Rayden Murata
Part III: Cognition and Coping
Chapter 5
Coping with the Stressors of Middle School
By Charlie Huston, Aja Perks, & Brooklyn Walker
Chapter 6
Examining Cognition in Mindfulness Practice: A Cognitive Roadmap for Anxiety Self-Help
By Nicole Alensonorin, Evangelyn Durante, & Madisyn Owens
Chapter 7
Cognition Behind Emotional Intelligence: A Learning Enhancement Program
By Kira Dolan, Haley Mullen, & Mariana Paredes-Luna
Part IV: Cognition and Personal Development
Chapter 8
Memory, Self, and Gender: How Parents Shape their Children
By Danielle Cordima, Bryanne Lemieux, & Madison MacKay
Chapter 9
Impacts of Fear of Authoritative Figures and its Effects
By Saray Salazar, Jasmin Shellengarger, & Emily Ung
Part V: Cognition and Digital Media
Chapter 10
Social Media Cognition: Mindful Usage
By Christopher Kubota, Markell Moser, & Nāmaka Park
Chapter 11
Studying: The Video Game
By Asher Fairbanks, Elizabeth Schueler, & Allie Treadway
