B.F. Skinner

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Born in 1904, American Psychologist B. F. Skinner made important contributions to the field of Psychology, in particular to the way we view behavior. Attending Hamiton College, and then Harvard College for a Ph.D., Skinner’s contributions changed the field of psychology with his theory of operant conditioning. The theory holds that when a behavior is followed by a consequence, the likelyhood of that behavior occuring again is influenced by whether the consequence is a reward or a punishment.

One of Skinner’s most famous inventions was called the Skinner box, in which a rat learns that pressing a lever in the cage (operant behavior) releases a food pellet (reward, also called reinforcer). On the other side of this learning process, if a particular behavior is punished, animals and humans alike, learn to not do it because the consequences are unpleasant.

What do you think? Do people behave in certain ways because they will be rewarded for doing good, and punished for the bad or is there more to it?

Media interest in Crush That Test

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Today, we had the first write-up about our little site at eCampusNews.com. Please read if interested:

http://www.ecampusnews.com/technologies/can-online-flashcards-help-students-crush-that-test/

Best places to study

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If you want a quiet place where you can focus to achieve your study goals:

Library
The library can be an oasis of calm and respite from the hustle and bustle of classes. Find a corner in the “Quiet” area and settle down for a study session.

Classroom
Find an empty classroom and voila! Your friends and you have an environment tailor-made for discussion, study groups, and quiet studying. Blackboards, seats, projectors are all available in a classroom.

Both at the library and the classroom, you get away from friends, the TV, phone, the fridge and other distractions.

Coffee Shop
The local Starbucks or Peet’s may be just the location to get some studying done. Not too noisy, not too quiet. Have noise-cancelling headphones available in case the espresso machine bothers you. And, of course, you have hot java available on demand.

Bookstores
Barnes and Noble or Borders can be the perfect place to study, with books to browse during breaks and being able to discuss with friends in study groups.

The Biology of Fear

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The emotion known as fear, evolutionary biology claims, is an integral part of a person’s survival instinct. Observing animals can easily confirm this statement. Terror at the prospect of being killed and eaten is the driving force behind the gazelle’s rapid dash across the African savanna. Terror of being pushed out of her fertile hunting grounds pushes the lioness to bite and tear into the flesh of the aforementioned gazelle. Fear is just as omnipresent among humans as it is among animals, and in the past, it was just as crucial to survival. Interestingly enough, recent research is starting to show that there is a lot more science to the sensation of fear than most people would believe.
Science has shown that being afraid triggers the “fight or flight” response in people, but research conducted by the neuroscience department of New York University claim that it does not end there. The body obviously feels the most drastic effects of being terrified or afraid. A host of hormones and biochemicals, like adrenaline, are pumped into every area of the body. These prepare a person, in case the need to physically perform beyond their standard levels are needed. The amygdala, a small section of the brain, is known to be the area that initiates this first response. However, this part of the brain has been shown to react only if the trigger has previously been recognized as a potential threat to status or survival. That implies that another part of the brain is responsible for someone learning fear responses.

According to research, the prefrontal cortex of the brain is responsible for the interpretation of sensory information. There have been some signs that point to this area being responsible for a person learning fear responses. Presumably, all fear is based on sensory information gathered through experience. This would imply that, once a certain stimuli has been interpreted as an unwanted sensation, it causes the person to both subconsciously and actively avoid those sensations. While this does explain why people will avoid being caught in certain situations after having experienced them once before, this does not always equate to a person being afraid of said situation.

The theory also does not explain certain instinctive reactions. Most people grow up afraid of certain things that they have not actually experienced. If the above theory is to be accepted, it must find a way to account for fear responses that appear entirely instinctive and are not explainable simply by previously acquired sensory data. Some experts believe that a combination of several areas of the brain, including the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, act in conjunction whenever someone is afraid, as well as determining what unknown factors should make a person afraid.

Research done by the University of Wisconsin have revealed that levels of a drenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) are tied directly to levels of fear. The test used rhesus monkeys as a basis for a human model of the study, which had a notably similar result. The study also shows that there might be a hereditary link between ACTH and fear. The research team found that mothers that were regularly scared, giving them higher levels of ACTH in their bloodstream, had offspring that exhibited the same tendencies. The offspring of the scared rhesus monkeys had higher stress and ACTH levels than others, suggesting a possible genetic link in ACTH production.

Source: http://www.articlealley.com/article_244638_23.html

How we started Crush That Test

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Struggled with Bio courses at UT…made flashcards…concept maps…drew all diagrams in textbook…read aloud to ourselves…100 hours per course to create study materials BEFORE we could even START studying…
Lots of us got weeded out. We were fed-up and wanted to create a website to help students study for any subject online with flash cards and study guides.
Started with Bio 101 and AP Bio. Took a bunch of us 2.5 months on our spare time…Crush That Test was off and running…we created a website from scratch and then…launched it several months later. Its been an amazing journey and we are all so happy to give students a cost-effective solution to study all subjects.

Learning a language with flashcards

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Research shows that “repetition is the mother of skill”, then it comes to learning a new language. How many of us can afford 100s and 1000s of dollars for Rosetta Stone or a college course to learn a language.

Yet, we can learn a new word or two every day , and then use it in a sentence with a native speaker. The native speaker might correct us, and that is great. The reason it is good is that we feel a little ashamed when this happens. That sense of shame might push us to learn more and do better in the future.

Learning a few sentences in a language like Spanish can greatly help in the United States. Our culture has absorbed many aspects of the spanish language and latino culture. The ability to at least speak a few sentences in Spanish, the language natively spoken by 15% of the US population, is useful. It allows us to communicate and share ideas with people on a daily basis. Even if the sentences we might use are simple, the native speaker appreciate the effort and might reward us with a cheerful smile, better service or even a job opportunity.

Crush That Test flash cards for Hindi have been well-received by native Hindi speakers who want to learn English and students of South Asia study programs in the US, who wish to learn Hindi.

We will be releasing our Spanish flashcards with 1000 of the most commonly used words and phrases in mid-may 2010.

Happy studying!

Crush That Test Announces the release of eStudyguides and eFlashCards for AP subjects

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Redwood City, Calif., May 2, 2010 – Building on the foundation of deep research into learning styles and adaptive learning, Crush That Test is launching online eFlashcards and eStudyguides at http://www.crushthattest.com designed for high school students to ace their preferred Advanced Placement tests.

The revolutionary eFlashcards are designed to be more appealing, interactive and engaging to capture and keep the attention of media savvy high-schoolers who are often exposed to a wide array of online learning solutions. Relevant content, a study mode and test mode, and illustrations that appeal to the 16-18 age group are incorporated into the new online learning solution. Crush That Test eFlashcards for Biology, for instance, assist students study faster and retain more biology concepts, particularly among those who struggle with memorization.
“The AP tests have become a requirement, not an option, for admission into the top colleges. We are very excited about our eFlashcards and their potential to help students succeed in their quest for AP success,” said Crush That Test’s Chief Knowledge Officer Jay Jackson. “We have received rave reviews of our eFlashcards from students at a top University in Texas, who have said that they saw a direct improvement in their academic achievement. Early adoptions by school districts all over the country will allow us to work with experienced AP teachers who will help us demonstrate online learning’s clear strengths.”
Using research-based methodologies, eFlashcards and eStudyguides at http://www.crushthattest.com engage all learners with media-rich content and comprehensive knowledge in Biology, Chemistry, Psychology and US History. Organic Chemistry, Physics, and US Government will follow in the coming weeks. The new web-based courseware also provides anytime, anywhere access and empowers students to choose their preferred learning approach, thereby making lessons more personalized and has the greatest educational impact for each student.
“Numerous national studies show that the U.S. is experiencing near crisis proportions of students who are not proficient in the sciences as they enter college” said Crush That Test’s President and CEO Sundar Nathan. “We built the new AP Chemistry and AP Biology solutions specifically to help students, schools and districts meet the challenges of college admissions and the instructional demands of No Child Left Behind. Based on our initial feedback from pre-launch demonstrations, educators and students are finding that it does that very well.”
More than 500 teachers and 3000 students recently participated in customer advisory panels to review the new Crush That Test eFlashcards and eStudyguides. Among those were a group of students whose feedback can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vedx0uwo__s

About Crush That Test®
Crush That Test, LLC. has offices in Redwood City, California, Austin, Texas and Chennai, India. The company is a cutting-edge publisher of online learning solutions to make learning easier and more efficient with our patented and scientifically proven tools. Our eFlashcards and eStudyGuides cover every essential concept for a growing list of courses. At a fraction of the cost of a textbook, you can have access to over 1000 flashcards per subject. With online flashcards, you can quickly learn all of the important material while skipping the fluff. You can then test yourself – all the while tracking your progress with dynamic charts and graphs. CrushThatTest can identify the specific areas where you need more work, and will design tests and quizzes targeted to those specific concepts.
As a part of the Destination AP Success® solution, Crush That Test® combines content correlated to College Board standards with powerful tools that allow students to target their individual areas of challenge. For more information, visit http://www.crushthattest.com.

Interactive Learning at UT-Austin

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I recently read an article in the Daily Texan regarding UT-Austin’s interest in providing rooms on campus for “interactive learning”. Apparently, there has recently been a legislative push toward using e-books as opposed to text-books, in part due to the outrageous cost of textbooks. It was also stated that developers of the interactive learning initiative at UT were interested in moving away from the currently used e-book as a primary learning tool. They want to make the learning experience more interactive. As pulled from the article, “Features can range from pictures to video tutorials to hyperlinks while allowing students to highlight and take notes directly on their screens.” This is all very interesting and exciting because CTT coupled with Menteon seems to be a version of what UT would like to implement. Interactive learning models seem to be the wave of the future; that is, e-books used as a source of information coupled to a software like Menteon, that allows the user to extract and import diagrams and/or text in a ready to use format that expedites the process of information retention. I thought that this article was in-line with our current endeavors at CTT to bring our e-learning interactive model to college students.

Here is the link to access the Daily Texan Article: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/content/university-takes-look-textbook-alternative

- Joel McMillian

Why Psychology?

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Because it is unavoidable. It is everywhere and in everything. Every thought we have, every curiosity, every emotion, every consequent action. The reason behind everything is psychological. Some people assume psychology is a relatively small field associated with words such as “Freud”, “therapy”, “mental illness”, and “Ritalin”, but the field of psychology is much expansive. As humans, we are capable of thought and reason, analysis, and understanding. The desire to understand why we act and feel as we do is unique to humans, and psychology can be seen as either a specific field of study of emotion and thought, or it can be seen as the broadest of subjects, encompassing everything in our world. We do not act solely on instinct; our actions are based on things we have learned through our experiences, watching others, social interaction, and the consequences of our actions. Psychology within itself has numerous approaches to understanding human thought and behavior and everyone can find at least one, which makes the most sense to her or him. Our way of understanding the world changes as we go through life and so does psychology as a whole. As researchers and scholars learn more about the human brain, psychology continues to flourish as a field and enrich, even at times, save, the lives of many. Personally, while I am interested in most aspects of psychology, and there are countless, I am perhaps most intrigued by a newer type, referred to as Positive Psychology. The reason it is so different and interesting, is because it deviates from traditional psychology’s tendency to focus on mental illness, medication, and fixing people. While those things are important and progress continues to be made, positive psychology emphasizes the idea of mental health, individual strengths, and attempts to understand not what is broken, but what psychological traits make people persevere, succeed and grow. In today’s world, filled with depression, deficits of attention, and various medications to ease our mental pain, this field is a crucial contributor to psychology being a well rounded, universally applicable, and rich subject.

-Jenya Mendelenko

On Learning

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I recently recalled a story my mother once told me from her childhood. Patty grew up in a tiny town in the mountains of Arizona. It’s one of those places that has a distinct, pleasant-smell that you get used to in a day, but remember forever. Near her house was small pond full of different kinds and colors of fish. She still remembers vividly how she would sit near the edge and stare at their seemingly endless swimming motions. When she was about 6 or 7, she had a realization much more mature and logical than her age.

“Winter is coming soon! I can remember from past winters that it snows and I have to wear a big jacket to stay warm! It’s okay though because we make big fires in the fireplace and I have a nice warm blanket to wrap up in. But what about the fish? They can’t come out of the water or they can’t breath! Doesn’t water freeze when it gets cold?”

Worry for the fish engulfed Patty, and she turned to her father for help. He did the best he could to explain how fish were part of natures cycle. She was convinced to not interfere, and let nature run its course.

Sure enough, the pond froze over that winter. Patty would sit at the edge and inspect the surface for any sign of movement beneath, but all she could see was ice. She concluded that the fish had all died and became very upset. She was torn apart with blame for the tragedy. Finally, spring came and the ice melted. Patty felt the urge to check and confirm her fears. When she peered into the pond, she had a pleasant surprise waiting for her. The fish had somehow survived! Her father had said that nature is mysterious…

Even as a young girl my mom was able get a basic grasp of the complicated concepts of energy transfer and phase change. These are things we can observe and know deep down, but can spend the rest of our lives learning about. With time we all gain greater understanding.

While formal education isn’t (and shouldn’t be) our sole source of learning, it is an essential part of it. At CrushThatTest, we are excited to to help students accomplish their academic goals more easily and effectively. We enjoy being part of a worldwide academic community that hold sacred the urge to gain knowledge. We aim to continue helping others improve the world by learning about it.

-Jay Jackson