After taking many years off, I am glad to have returned to the Intensive Freshman Seminar program here at IU. This is one of the several ways I’m aware of that IU tries to make a very large student body (we have over 48,000 students on campus during the average year) a bit smaller for undergraduates.
The student show up a couple weeks before move in week and actually take a 3 credit course! There are 23 courses taught this year and they all look incredibly interesting. Mine wins the ‘longest course title’ award 🥉 and is called This is Your Brain on the Media: How Video, Music, & Games Capture Your Attention and Play with Your Emotions
Our first week is in the books. We have talked about experimental design and psychophysiological measurement. We have visited the Wells Library and had an informative lecture from Meggan Press the Undergraduate Assistant Librarian about how to do successful database searches for scientific literature.
And then the students—working in groups—designed and collected their own ECG data to test hypotheses about what affects attention to media.
Collaborative Learning 
Setting up ECG sensors 
Experimenter observes data 
Subject listening to stimuli 
All Smiles in the ICR
More about what their data suggested will be coming up later.
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