Intellectual Sprawl

Since school let-out at the beginning of June, I’ve been debating as a summer project: moving this blog from Tumblr to Wordpress. Years ago, when I started this blog, I chose Tumblr because it allowed me to use my domain name with the blog for free. Other solutions cost extra money to use a personal domain, and since I was already paying for the domain, I didn’t want to pay more… you know, being lowly school teacher

A student found this blog this past semester, and rather than remark on the contents of the blog at all, they just made a big deal about me having “a Tumblr.”

Using Wordpress wouldn’t change much from the current setup; I’d still be using the blog for the exact same things — it just wouldn’t be branded by/ identifiable as “a Tumblr.”

BUT, for what I use this for, I still just can’t justify paying more money to have a blog elsewhere, using my existing domain name, and so for the time being I’ll just stay here.

When summer hits and I’m no longer teaching, my brain rebels at its idleness, and so I often make up little tasks for myself. For example, one year, I decided to walk from our condo to every branch of the San Francisco Public Library. This year, I created a photo scavenger hunt of sorts for some online-friends. This is a Flickr-thing, really, but I share it here as an archive of my “work”.

Flickr post:

Just living our lives, we end up in most parts of the City at some point. When you’re there, grab a nice photo of the baker’s dozen described below. There’s no need to add them to the GWSF pool, as these are not obscure City locations, and a bunch of people will be taking pictures of the same places. More details at the bottom

Thanks to SqueakyCleanDave for telling me about the Alley Cat races by the City’s bike messengers — that got me thinking of this.

It’s art

It might be the middle of June gloom as I write this, but you may only need a sweater at the first destination; it can be quite balmy. This outdoor gallery transforms a simple alley into political canvas.

I like raisin snails

Bring a coffee and a pastry to where the land ends, and think about Eduardo.

Not the destroyer of worlds

It doesn’t have a keyboard but this musical instrument does have one or more pipe divisions.

Crux immissa

The stars-and-stripes were raised at the City’s highest point to signal that the Civil War had ended with a Confederate surrender.

The Gruff Brothers’ Former Pasture

This tiny summit — named for its former inhabitants — is home to California saxifrage, but we’ll miss its February to April-bloom

Heptad of saltwater sanctuaries

The ocean always reclaims its own, once the playground of a mining millionaire.

“What am I? A duck?”

Near Anthony R Grove High School, these elegant risers offer stunning bay views earned through cardio commitment.

1966 Sit-in to 1973 slide

A sign reads “No adults unless accompanied by children,” but if you’re just taking pictures, you won’t need cardboard, and you don’t need kids.

A simple park now but once quite Nobel

You might be looking for our forktail damselflies, our garter snakes, or a Mission Blue, but you’ll probably just see a lot of chert and greenstone

Our own Braceros program

Find the whimsical wooden sculptures carved by a former city gardener in this neighborhood park.

70-foot Gnomon

Thanks to Tony Hawk, this park is a real dish again

Any ceramic climb

These community art projects bloom with ceramics and volunteer hours throughout the City. Spend time at any of of them

Franklin’s idea, but Burnham’s gift to the neighborhoods

Some are Beaux-Arts, mine was just a leased storefront at 45 Leland Ave. Go to yours, or your favorite, or one of the 31 you haven’t been to yet (like the new kiosk?)

Quest Guidelines:

2025: Most of us have pictures of these locations in our archives, but for the purposes of this, please get a new picture :)

Documentation: Take a nice picture of/ at the general destination hinted at above

Reveal Strategy: Make your photos Public on/ around January 9, 2026, and tag them GWSFsidequests2025. On Saturday, January 10th, I’ll tally the entries and see who’s completed all the side quests

Not a race: This is scored simply on completion; and I have prizes for 25 participants. There’s no rush; do these at your own pace over the next six months

Since the Fall of 2019, I have been having students use PeerWise for their reading quizzes. They had a two-part assignment to complete at PeerWise for each chapter they read. First, they created original multiple-choice questions based on the chapter’s content, and then they answered questions that had been developed by classmates.

The second part was just good old-fashioned low-stakes retrieval practice; they were graded on completion not on accuracy. It was the first part that I found the greatest educational benefit in. Actually writing multiple-choice questions that their classmates would respond to and rate, and authoring the explanations for the correct responses, was where the real learning reinforcement occurred. There was an added element of a leaderboard which ranked students by the number of questions authored, answered, accuracy when answering, and peer-rated quality of original questions, which motivated some students to do more than required.

Unfortunately, with generative AI, the best part of the assignment – students struggling to translate material they read in the textbook into a quiz question – is gone now. Students can simply have generative AI crank-out questions, and submit them as their own.

So, for next semester, I will no longer be using PeerWise, and instead will have a two-part assignment/ assessment for each chapter.

After students read the assigned chapter, first, they will complete a “Chapter X self-check.” That will consist of five multiple-choice questions pulled from a bank, relating strictly to the content in the chapter. This will look like a quiz but it will not be in a secure testing environment (eg, Lockdown Browser for Canvas, which is what we use). Students will be able to retake the quiz as many times as they like until they get a score they’re satisfied with. These are done outside of the classroom and class time.

The second part of the new assignment will be an in-class quick-write, in “Lockdown browser” so that students cannot access generative AI. This quick-write will have three short questions (which I’d written years ago as an at-home writing assignment based on the book Make It Stick). These are timed to 15-minutes, which I really hate to give-up from my 200-minutes a week with students — but with generative AI, I can’t think of a more efficient way of keeping them on their reading schedule

The Genesis of an Idea

When we – Yosup Joo and I – designed the Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience course, we wanted it to be more than just memorizing vocabulary… which is what the AP Psychology course had been, largely. We wanted students to live the concepts they were studying. That’s how I ended up assigning James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” as a semester-long project — not just to read, but to implement.

The premise was simple: over 18 weeks, students would select, develop, and maintain a single habit while connecting their experience to neuroscience principles. What unfolded was far more complex and revealing than I anticipated.

The Assignment Structure

I divided the project into six parts, mirroring Clear’s book:

1. Introduction & Part One: Students reflected on who they are versus who they want to become
2. Part Two - Make it Obvious: Implementation intentions and environmental design
3. Part Three - Make it Attractive: Temptation bundling and community support
4. Part Four - Make it Easy: The two-minute rule and friction reduction
5. Part Five - Make it Satisfying: Tracking and accountability
6. Part Six - Advanced Strategies: Personality alignment and long-term sustainability

Each submission required 3-4 paragraph responses, encouraging moderate reflection rather than surface-level reporting.

Linked here are the six assignments.

What the Students Taught Me

The Universal Struggle with Technology

Nearly 70% of my students identified procrastination as their primary challenge, with phone addiction as the universal villain. One student wrote with striking honesty: “Apps like Opal to reduce screen time are too easy to override, just like Apple’s built-in time limit.” This wasn’t just a side issue—it was the issue that undermined nearly every other habit attempt.

The Power of Identity-Based Change

Students who grasped Clear’s concept of identity-based habits showed remarkable insight. One wrote: “I want to become a person who is confident, kind, and resilient…someone who stays calm under pressure, trusts themselves.” They weren’t just trying to do things differently; they were trying to become someone different.

The Emotional Undercurrent

What surprised me most was the vulnerability in their responses. Behind the academic language were stories of:

• Burnout: “I have been working hard for most of my entire life…but now I just feel so tired of it all”
• Social anxiety: “I rarely raise my hand, even when I know the answer”
• Self-doubt: “I frequently doubt my instincts and question whether I am making the right choices”

This wasn’t just a habit-formation exercise; it was a window into their struggles with life, identity, and growing up.

For the complete analysis of student responses across all six assignments, see this summary by Claude.

What Worked Well

The Two-Minute Rule

This concept resonated universally. Students discovered that “the hardest part is honestly just starting,” and the two-minute rule made that starting achievable. One student noted: “Usually, once I begin, I naturally keep writing more.”

Environmental Design

Students who reorganized their physical spaces saw immediate results. Simple changes—moving phone chargers away from beds, placing yoga mats beside their beds, reorganizing kitchens for meal prep—created powerful behavioral shifts.

The “Never Miss Twice” Rule

This principle was transformative for many. As one student reflected: “This rule honestly changed how I deal with failure. Before, if I slipped up, even once, I’d feel like I ruined everything and just stop trying.”

What Worked Less-Well

Overly Ambitious Initial Goals

Many students chose habits that were too complex or time-consuming. They needed more guidance on starting small and scaling up gradually.

Weak Neuroscience Integration

While students engaged deeply with behavior change, most didn’t naturally connect their experiences to course concepts about neuroplasticity, dopamine pathways, or basal ganglia function. This was a missed opportunity for deeper learning.

The Weekend Problem

Consistency crumbled on weekends for many students. Different schedules, social pressures, and the absence of weekday structure created a recurring failure point.

Limited Peer Support

Despite Clear’s emphasis on community, most students worked in isolation. Those who found accountability partners succeeded more consistently, suggesting we need better peer support structures.

Lessons for Next Year

Based on this year’s experience, here’s how I’ll improve the assignment:

1. Mandatory Phone Management Module

Since technology addiction affected everyone, I’ll add a dedicated class lesson on digital wellness before Part Two, with required phone management strategies regardless of chosen habits.

2. Structured Habit Selection

I’ll provide:

• A “Habit Feasibility Checklist” (Can it be done in under 10 minutes? Do you already have the resources?)
• Categories with difficulty ratings
• Required 2-minute versions for the first two weeks

3. Neuroscience Integration Checkpoints

Each submission will include explicit prompts connecting experiences to:

• Habit loops and basal ganglia (Part 2)
• Dopamine and reward systems (Part 3)
• Neuroplasticity and repetition (Part 4)

4. Built-in Accountability Systems

I’ll implement:

• Mandatory habit buddy partnerships
• Weekly micro-check-ins (2-3 questions)
• A class discussion board for sharing wins and strategies

5. Weekend-Specific Planning

Students will create separate implementation intentions for weekdays versus weekends, acknowledging these as different contexts requiring different strategies.

6. Formal “Habit Pivot” Protocol

After Week 4, students can officially change their habit with structured reflection on why the change is necessary—normalizing adaptation rather than viewing it as failure.

Running the assignment and every student submission through Claude, a more complete (and thorough recommendation) was generated; that’s available here.

The Bigger Picture

This assignment revealed something profound: behavior change isn’t just about willpower or technique—it’s about identity, community, and self-compassion. Students learned that small changes compound, that environment shapes behavior, and that failure is data, not defeat.

One student’s reflection captures the transformation: “By simply doing that, I’ve started off unconventionally, but at least I started.” That’s the real lesson—not perfection, but progress. I should know this! As a distance runner, I regularly tell myself – and any beginning runner who talks to me about it – that “running never gets easier; you just get better at it.”

As educators, we often focus on content delivery and assessment. This project reminded me that sometimes the most powerful learning happens when students apply concepts to their own lives. The neuroscience they’ll remember won’t just be the textbook definitions but the lived experience of rewiring their own brains, one small habit at a time.

Looking Forward

Next year’s students will benefit from this year’s pioneers. I’ll share anonymized success stories, create templates based on what worked, and address common pitfalls upfront. But I’ll also preserve the space for vulnerability and self-discovery that made this assignment so powerful.

Because ultimately, this isn’t just about building better habits—it’s about helping students become the people they want to be, with neuroscience as both the map and the territory.

“Research Participation Requirements” are common in undergrad psychology courses – because the graduate students need participants for their studies. The requirement to participate in research is far less common in secondary education because most studies are designed for, or IRBs require, adults for consent. I submit that using the format below, 12th graders can be expected to participate in research studies to (a) help them better understand research methods in the social sciences, and (b) contribute data to Higher ED students and projects.

After reviewing submissions from students in both psychology courses that I teach (Social-Cognitive Psychology, and Behavioral-Neuroscience), it’s clear that having students participate in real research surveys is an effective teaching approach. Instead of just reading about research methods in textbooks, these students actively took part in academic surveys they found online. They then analyzed these surveys, looking at elements like question design, response options, and ethical considerations (assignment details here). As one student noted when evaluating a survey on short TikTok videos: “The format was easy to follow, however, there were no open-ended questions, and a limited range of agreement. I dislike the check boxes that range from ‘strongly disagree’ - 'strongly agree’, I find it doesn’t always align with how I feel because I’m usually in the middle of two options, so I prefer a sliding scale of some sort.”

The quality of student work varied considerably. Some submissions showed thoughtful analysis of survey methodology, with students identifying specific problems like unclear questions or limited response options. Others provided more basic observations about the surveys they completed. This range suggests that while all students gained exposure to research methods, some were better able to apply critical thinking skills than others. One student demonstrated sophisticated analysis in writing: “The survey on music piracy follows a clear and logical progression by beginning with introductory and demographic questions, then moving into thematically grouped sections focused on experiences, beliefs, and perceptions, which helps maintain respondent engagement and coherence. It uses branching logic to ensure relevance, guiding participants through only applicable questions.”

What makes this assignment particularly valuable is how it connects classroom learning to real-world research. By experiencing surveys as participants and then evaluating them as critics, students develop a more complete understanding of research methodology. They can see both the participant and researcher perspectives. Students often identified issues that professional researchers sometimes overlook, such as cultural sensitivity in demographic questions. As one student observed: “At some point the survey asked what demographic I am a part of and it didn’t have a section for others. I am mixed and I identify with all three of my ethnicities… It’s always so hard to just identify as one ethnicity when I fit into multiple categories.”

For educators, this approach offers a simple but effective way to teach research methods. It requires minimal resources while giving students authentic research experience. The variation in submission quality suggests that some students might benefit from additional guidance or examples before completing the assignment, but overall, this hands-on approach appears to successfully develop students’ critical research skills while engaging them with diverse psychological topics.

At the end of the first year, I ran a simple survey of students on their experience with the assignment. Here are two interesting points from that:

With my one section of Introduction to Ethnic Studies this semester, I recently reimagined my approach to student writing assignments in response to the growing presence of AI tools like ChatGPT. Frankly, there is no writing prompt that we can imagine which generative AI cannot undetectably answer with skilled prompting. Following the screening of “Race: The Power of Illusion, Part 1” in my 9th-grade class, I shifted from traditional take-home essays to in-class quick writes. While this adjustment presented some logistical challenges, including the allocation of precious class time and accommodations considerations, it addressed a critical concern in modern education: ensuring authentic student work in an era of accessible AI writing tools.

My pilot of this new approach proved surprisingly effective, despite a minor technical hiccup with our Canvas setup. While I had configured the assignment to display word counts within the required 100-200 word range, this feature only functioned on laptops, not iPads. As a result, several students had to manually count their words or submit and revise their work, with one student needing to trim her response and others adding sentences to meet the requirements. Even with this technical wrinkle, my class of 12 students achieved a mean score of 98%, with an average writing time of just under 14 minutes. This actually surpassed the historical average of 93% for take-home assignments, though I have no data on how long students spent writing their paragraphs at home in previous years.

Perhaps the most significant insight from my experiment came from adjusting the assessment criteria. By placing greater emphasis on students’ ability to construct arguments and support them with evidence from the documentary, rather than focusing heavily on grammar and syntax, I’ve created what I believe is a more authentic evaluation of their understanding. This shift in grading philosophy raises important questions that I’m eager to discuss with my fellow Ethnic Studies teachers and perhaps the broader Social Science Department. While this approach may seem like a Sisyphean response to technological change, my initial results suggest it could be an effective way to maintain academic integrity while adapting to our evolving educational landscape.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

It’s always nice to see students write about their psychology classes in the school newspaper.

An article published by the APA about a lesson in my psychology courses.

Me, being interviewed.

At the end of the Disorders and Therapies unit during the Spring semester of 2023, I wanted to students to gain more experience with generative AIs, which have filled the news recently and been a topic of conversation in schools — largely framed as a threat to academic integrity. My goal was two-fold: have students practice creating prompts for an AI that will elicit desired responses, and further their understanding of some psychotherapeutic models.

Based on those goals, I leveraged the ‘Sage’ model, based on ChatGPT 3.5, at Poe.com to create the linked lesson plan here.

OpenAI.com is currently blocked on campus, and so I directed students to Poe. Some downloaded the app on their iPad, others simply went directly to the web address.

Projecting my screen to the front of the room, I demonstrated how to set the context for the AI, asking it to pretend to be a clinical psychologist and asking it to talk to me about my arachnophobia. Then for 15-minutes students interacted with the AI, asking about their chosen disorder and their assigned psychotherapeutic model. Then they wrote their thoughts on a discussion board in Canvas. A few of those anonymized responses are reproduced below:

The psychotherapy technique I explored was interpersonal therapy(IPT), and this therapy is used to treat dissociative identity disorder(DID) by identifying “interpersonal problems or conflicts” that enhance the symptoms. What I found most interesting about using this therapy technique was that it seems it would actually be very effective in treating DID because it is supposed to dig deeper into a persons social life, sense of community, and past trauma. IPT’s goal is to un-weave the tensions in the brain caused by social situations, which is a huge part in what DID patients struggle with.

The psychotherapy technique I investigated was Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help support someone with antisocial personality disorder. DBT is focusing on skills training, so we would work on developing skills in the four areas of mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. DBT would help create a stronger sense of self awareness and self confidence and learn how to navigate having anti social personality disorder. The main goal would be to help you develop the skills and tools you need to manage your symptoms, improve your relationships, and lead a more fulfilling life.

I investigated the treatment of avoidant restrictive food intake disorder using cognitive behavioral therapy. It told me that first it would identify and challenge negative thoughts that trigger ARFID behavior by examining evidence against them. It would also have you work on developing balanced and realistic thoughts. Then it would do exposure and response prevention by gradually introducing problematic foods and work with coping strategies to manage the anxiety that arises with that. Then it has you practice mindfulness techniques to reduce anxiety and symptoms. After that it has you engage in behavioral experiments to test beliefs about certain foods. After that it has you practice goal setting to be realistic in managing ARFID to build confidence and reduce reliance on avoidance behavior.

After this writing period, we circled the desks and had a general class discussion about their experience. With one class of 30 students, I started the conversation by asking “to what degree was this different from talking to your dog?” This conversation went… Okay. It wasn’t great but it was still a good conversation. With my second class, I asked: “What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a generative AI for psychotherapy?” And students in this class period did an excellent job of identifying a short list of advantages (such as accessibility, affordability, and anonymity) and disadvantages (such as lack of human interaction, limited understanding of complex human emotions, and lack of flexibility in responding to specific issues “the client” brought up.)

All in all, this new lesson worked well for accomplishing my two goals — only one of which was specifically associated with the explicit curriculum of the course.