This month’s blog highlights the presentations our members will be contributing to at this year’s Annual Conference on Teaching in St. Louis. From innovative teaching practices to emerging ideas in education, we’re proud to showcase the knowledge, experiences, and perspectives our members will be sharing with the broader teaching and learning community.

GSTA Participant Idea Exchange Session:

Supporting Graduate Student Instructors: Insights from the GSTA Member Survey

Presenter(s): Ashmita Mazumder, Lindsey Rutter, Josh Lovett, Melissa Ceren, Elizabeth Taylor, Mackenzie Devaney, Romeo Penheiro

Graduate students in psychology take on teaching assistants or course instructorship roles, often as part of their funding packages. However, their experiences vary in terms of training, workload, and departmental/advisor support. These differences raise important questions about the challenges graduate student instructors face and how institutions and organizations can better support them. This Participant Idea Exchange will share insights from the Graduate Student Teaching Association survey examining graduate student instructors’ teaching experiences, workloads, perceived departmental support, and interest in professional development. Findings highlight variability in teaching responsibilities, preparedness, and mentorship, as well as common challenges related to balancing teaching and research demands and navigating teaching-focused career pathways. Notably, respondents reported strongest interest in workshops focused on enhancing student learning (M = 3.8), followed by preparing for the teaching job market (M = 3.7), inclusive and equitable teaching practices (M = 3.6), syllabus design (M = 3.6), and the use of teaching technologies (M = 3.4). 78% of trainees also reported that holding a teaching position was not a requirement of their program. Qualitative responses further reveal a trade-off: while many students value the financial and professional benefits of teaching roles (e.g., exposure, income) and express interest in additional teaching opportunities, they also report lacking the experience to do so and experiencing difficulty balancing teaching responsibilities with research demands, underscoring the need for more structured institutional support. This challenge is compounded by the fact that the majority of respondents were unfamiliar with the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (81%) and the Annual Conference on Teaching (59%) highlighting a significant gap in both visibility and access to professional teaching networks.  We invite participants to share their experiences and ideas on how to enhance training and mentorship opportunities, raise awareness of teaching-focused career paths, and advocate for structural changes in how graduate teaching can be supported.

Chair: Ashmita Mazumder (she/her), University of Toronto - Scarborough:

Collaborative Course Design in Psychology: A Students-as-Partners Model with Cross-Cohort Learning.

Presenter(s): Ashmita Mazumder

We explore the impact of a ‘students-as-partners’ approach in the design of a novel course titled “Psychology in Context”. By highlighting the field’s key assumptions and norms, describing current challenges facing the field, and exploring various approaches to improving psychological science, this course is meant to provide students with a critical foundation in psychology. In doing so, it encourages students to not only understand existing psychological theories, but also to question how that knowledge is constructed and applied. Central to this work is a collaborative model of course design in which students are positioned as partners and co-creators. Rather than functioning solely as recipients of knowledge, students contribute to shaping course content, readings, learning activities, and assessment strategies. We present practical, transferable strategies for incorporating student voices into course design, offering recommendations for creating learning environments that are both rigorous and responsive to student needs. We are continuing to refine this model to ensure its long-term sustainability and potential adoption across other courses. In addition, we highlight the role of cross-cohort collaboration as a key pedagogical innovation within the course. Specifically, partnerships between first- and second-year students from different courses create opportunities for reciprocal learning, mentorship, and peer feedback. Finally, we present a range of concrete outcomes to evaluate the impact of this course. Qualitative insights are drawn from focus groups, providing rich accounts of student experiences, perceptions of the cross-cohort feedback model, and levels of interest and engagement with the course material. These findings are complemented by quantitative analyses examining the development of critical thinking skills, as well as the extent to which individual differences, such as learning styles and individualistic–collectivistic identity orientations, predict patterns of course engagement.

Building Confidence with SPRINT (Summer Psychology Research Initiative): The Impact of Early Research Experiences on Student Confidence and Belonging

Presenter(s): Ashmita Mazumder

Despite growing efforts to diversify academia, students from underrepresented backgrounds continue to report lower levels of confidence and sense of belonging within academia. The Summer Psychology Research Initiative (SPRINT) is a trainee-led outreach program designed to provide racialized high school students with early exposure to research and mentorship experiences. Over the course of two weeks, SPRINT participants attend full days of lectures, workshops, and tutorials covering a broad range of psychology topics and skills, and apply their learning by developing a novel research proposal. In parallel, undergraduate and graduate/postdoctoral volunteers engage in structured professional development opportunities, including workshop series focused on teaching, mentorship, EDI, science communication, and career development. The present study examines whether participation in SPRINT is associated with changes in high school students’ self-reported confidence and sense of belonging in academic spaces. In addition, we assess the potential impact of program involvement on academic confidence and teaching-related skills among undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral volunteers. A longitudinal survey design was employed, with measures collected at three time points for high school students: application (Phase 0), program entry (Phase 1), and program completion (Phase 2). Undergraduate and graduate/postdoctoral volunteers completed measures at program entry and completion, allowing us to analyze impacts on trainee development. Within-subject comparisons were conducted to evaluate changes in confidence and sense of belonging over time. By examining changes across multiple time points and participant/volunteer roles, this study aims to provide insight into how short-term research and mentorship programs can simultaneously support the development of confidence, engagement, and belonging among racialized high school students, while fostering inclusive mentorship practices and professional growth among undergraduate and graduate/postdoctoral trainees.

Associate Chair: Lindsey Rutter (she/her), Oregon State University:

Get CET to Teach: A Case For Building An STP Pedagogical Training Program

Higher education needs more teaching development especially as pedagogical training is often considered a fundamental area of teaching competency. This symposium presents an STP Presidential Task Force’s case for the development of an STP teaching certification outline what exists, why this is needed, mechanisms to do it, and a curriculum. The recognition that there is a great need for teaching development and training resources is not new. One of the major recommendations of the APA Strengthening the Intro Psych Course Working Group (APA, 2014) advocated for additional training resources for instructors. Many instructors of teaching do not have significant levels of training in how to teach and yet, being trained in how to teach is often considered a fundamental area of teaching competency, and even a “model teaching characteristic” (Richmond et al., 2022) and an essential part of “teaching like a champ” (Gurung & Hammer, 2027). A national census of instructors of the introductory psychology course showed than fewer than half of respondents completed a course in teaching before they taught their first classes (Richmond et al., 2021). President Drew Christopher charged the CET Task Force to explore the need for, and factors associated with the creation of, a Certificate for Effective Teaching. This symposium will present the group’s report highlighting key findings. The CET Task Force subcommittees found that while certification programs do exist both for psychology in particular and general college teaching, programs vary in accessibility, duration, and cost. A substantial portion of offerings are directed toward individuals already affiliated with the host institution, particularly enrolled graduate students and current faculty. A variety of mechanisms are possible to deliver such a program which could make pedagogical training accessible to the many college instructors who may not have received such training. In addition, a CET would provide STP with a new income stream. Task Force members outline key benefits and preview a possible CET curriculum.

Elizabeth Taylor (she/ her), Virginia Commonwealth University:

Interactive activities for teaching research skills in the lab setting

Presenter(s): Elizabeth G. Taylor, BS, & Marcia A. Winter, PhD

Research is a key aspect of many undergraduate students’ university experiences. While students spend many hours learning in research settings, there is little research on effectively teaching research-related skills. The Interactive, Constructive, Active, Passive (ICAP) framework (Chi & Wylie, 2014) may be useful for designing activities that engage active learning strategies and increase student engagement. According to the ICAP framework, student engagement in activities ranges from “passive” to “interactive,” with learning increasing across levels. Interactive activities lead to the greatest understanding and the possibility of generating novel ideas. Thus, through our poster we will provide a brief review of the literature on evidence-based strategies for teaching research skills, and offer ideas for engaging students at the interactive level in research lab settings. For example, the ICAP framework provides creating and responding to questions in pairs as an interactive activity for engaging students. This can translate to the research environment by breaking students into pairs, and having students practice conducting informed consent, coming up with several questions to ask their partner about the consent form as though they were a participant. Alternatively, Reddy and colleagues (2025) introduced a curriculum consisting of student-led scaffolded journal club discussions designed to increase scientific literacy. As a part of this curriculum, the journal articles increased in complexity over time, and participants reported increased self-efficacy levels after participating in this curriculum. This could be tailored to psychology and student interests specifically, for instance by providing students a range of articles with increasing complexity to choose from over the course of the semester. Additional interactive activity ideas will be discussed in the full poster. Through the use of evidence-based pedagogy surrounding research-related skills, we can begin to create a “toolbox” of research experiences that are readily accessible and prepare students for graduate school and the job market.

Mackenzie Devaney, University of Minnesota- Twin Cities:

Becoming a Bumble Bee to Teach Schemas

Presenter(s): Mackenzie Devaney

To teach students about schemas, I wear a bumble bee costume to an Introduction to Social Psychology lecture. Students are often curious about the costume and may ask questions, but I do not address my outfit until we get to the concept of schemas within the lecture. I explain how an instructor wearing a bumble bee costume to teach violates the standard schema for what instructors wear and thus students pay more attention to it than a normal outfit and remember it more. I am then able to use this event as an example in future classes such as explaining accessibility, salience and attributions for behavior. While slightly embarrassing for the instructor, the students find it funny and it peaks their interest about the content of the lecture. It also can serve as a way to humanize the instructor and create a more relaxing atmosphere. Students reported this lecture as being memorable and fun. While this was specifically used for a social psychology class, this practice could be used for other courses and concepts. Additionally, this idea could be adapted to an online learning environment and works for all class sizes.