Favorite student stories

After each of my psychology courses at Granite State College end, I love to continue relationships with students who express extra interest in continuing a correspondence.   This is one of the best parts of adult education courses because these students seem to "get" the concept of what we used to call "the college of lifelong learning."  They often send me interesting tidbits, or just keep me up-to-date on their lives.

One of the students in one of my recent adult online classes, Sue Farris, sent this story, knowing that I'd love it.  She was so right!  It's about how one group of subjects was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second was given a seven-digit number to remember.  Anyone who has taken an Introduction to Psychology course - whether in adult online classes or a regular college classroom - will probably remember that seven digits is the max for remembering a number.  (HINT:  Telephone numbers have seven numbers - the maximum amount of numbers most people can remember!)  But, what if you're asked to remember the number but are then interrupted by an offer of something healthy or something "bad" like chocolate cake?  Will you choose a "bad" thing like chocolate cake when you had to remember only two numbers or if you had to remember seven numbers?  Check out this story.  It's a great example of the critical thinking you can learn to do in college classes: 

 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122781981&sc=emaf

 See what you think!