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Over the past month, history teacher Mr. Greg Decina has pushed his AP psychology students to use more creative techniques than the typical learning tactics in order to further understand their material. Whether it be designing posters, writing short stories, or playing music, Decina always finds a way for his students to use both sides of their brains in his class.

Amelia Winger, a senior in AP Psychology this semester, is one of the students that brought in her instrument when the class was discussing sound and its connection to our brain functions.

“I really love how interactive and hands-on AP Psychology is because we’re able to combine what we’re learning in class with our creativity to develop a better understanding of all of the material,” said Winger. “It definitely makes class more interesting because, instead of just learning from the straight-forward facts, we’re learning from everybody’s individual interpretation.”

In addition to Amelia and her trumpet, Junior Owen Hartline also got to share his musical talent with the class through playing his electric guitar. Students listened to Owen’s talents as they tried to pinpoint what type of sound waves were being created by the instrument.

“Music has always been a big part of my life and being able to share that with other students in school is great,” said Hartline. “I hope I can inspire them in some way to pursue what they love as well.” 

When studying parts of the brain, students in AP Psychology had to write a collection of short stories that contained characters that represented each brain function. Each story was filled with original, creative, and comedic storylines that made the process of studying such complex biological terms much more fun.

Senior Alyssa Eder loved this activity because it put together her strengths of writing and biology into one project.

“The short story activity allowed me to use my past knowledge from my AP Biology course and my love for writing in one assignment. It was great to be able to combine my interest in such a interesting way.”

Decina’s students also were given the opportunity to dissect popular magazines seen in their everyday lives for a new purpose. Senior Corey Hill reflected on this activity.

“We used the magazines to demonstrate monocular cues in our everyday life. We see the things we study in AP Psych in the media, advertisements, and pop culture that surrounds us,” said Hill. “It was cool to use these things that we usually only enjoy outside of school to help us understand our content within school.” 

Students taking AP Psychology hope that these creative lessons will carry on throughout the rest of the semester.