School name: North Carolina State University

Type of school: Public 4-year

School locale (including state and country): Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  in-person

How many years have you taught psychology? 17 years (answering this question made me feel old!)

Classes you teach:  At the undergraduate level, I mostly teach Developmental Psychology. I also oversee our department’s undergraduate learning assistant (ULA) program and teach a one-credit asynchronous online class on the “fundamentals of college teaching” for our ULAs.  At the graduate level, I teach Psychosocial development in adulthood and old age, and I co-teach our department’s Teaching practicum for Ph.D. students.

Specialization: Developmental psychology

What size classes do you teach? I am lucky to mostly teach a smaller section of developmental psychology (40 students). My graduate-level classes are small (around 10-14 students).

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received?  

I don’t think there is one piece of advice that stood out to me, but overall, I would say it’s internalizing what many people have told me: Teaching is a science and an art. With commitment and work, it gets easier and better.

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? 
Brett Jones’ book Motivating students by design

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?

I had no teaching mentor or teacher training when I started teaching. My graduate program in Germany focused exclusively on research. Teaching was considered a distraction. I am almost embarrassed to say that when I started teaching, I had no idea there were tons of books, journals, and conferences dedicated to teaching in higher education. Looking back, I wish I had been more aware of these resources. With good teacher training, I could have avoided a lot of trial and error (and reinventing the wheel). That said, I also learned a lot from trial and error.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  

I love the session in developmental psychology when I introduce the age period of old age. Students often have negative preconceptions about old age and limited interest in this age period. I talk about demographic changes and how understanding the aging experience is relevant across fields of study (e.g., psychology, medicine, politics, design…). By highlighting the interdisciplinary nature and connectedness of studying aging, I find that many students have become more interested in this age period. They also often recognize their own aging biases, which, contrary to other biases, they haven’t necessarily explored before.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity.  

About 10 years ago, I started using an assignment I call “Social innovation and entrepreneurship project.” I have used this assignment in classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels, typically with success. The goal of the assignment is for students to identify a societal or person/group-specific challenge related to the course topic and propose a solution for this challenge. Students work in groups and propose a product or an intervention. I am impressed by some students’ creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. Examples of projects include an intervention to reduce loneliness in older adults from a specific immigrant community or a body image intervention for breast cancer patients.

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it?

This answer is not very original but is true to who I am: an aging researcher. I taught an undergraduate-level psychology of aging class for a few semesters years ago. I would love to return to it. If I teach it again, I would like to include either a service learning and/or CURE (course-based undergraduate research) component.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style? 

I didn’t come up with this and sadly do not know who to credit, but it fits my approach to teaching and grading well:  “Flexibility with guardrails”

What’s your workspace like? 

One word: organized. I find that I can’t work in a cluttered space. I have a desk with a desk riser (I stand most of the day), a bookshelf, a small round table for meetings, and a comfortable chair. The office is pretty sparse because my department was forced out of our offices almost a year ago over concerns about toxins in the building. Within a few days, we had to leave the building and only took what was absolutely necessary to finish the semester. We didn’t know then that we wouldn’t be allowed back into the building. We were put into whatever space was available across campus. I am slowly accumulating new things in my office to make it feel more “homey,” but many personal belongings (books, award plaques, pictures, diploma) are still in the old office, which we can’t access.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.

This is not necessarily embarrassing or a disaster but funny because it highlights the importance of adjusting one's teaching to the audience. The first time I talked about introducing solid foods in infancy/toddlerhood in my developmental psychology class, I wanted to emphasize that sometimes food has to be introduced many times before a baby will accept it. To make this more relatable to my students, I asked them if they liked wine the first time they tried it. Many people don’t like wine when they first try it, but they learn to like it over time, similar to how babies don’t like a food when they first try it. Well, students were hesitant to answer my question until one student reminded me of the legal drinking age in the U.S. The drinking age in Germany, where I am originally from, is lower than in the U.S., and most university students will have experience with drinking alcohol by the time they attend college. This example would have worked in Germany but not in the U.S. My students and I had a good laugh about the not-so-appropriate example, and we decided that coffee was a better example. Nevertheless, they left that session with a better understanding of “acquired taste.”

Tell us about a teaching “win” you’ve had and the context in which it happened.

I teach an asynchronous “fundamentals of college teaching” class for the undergraduate learning assistants in our department. Students read about college teaching and answer guided questions about the readings, connecting what they have read with their experiences as a student and teaching assistant. Almost every week, at least one student will acknowledge how much more they appreciate their professors after learning about teaching and assisting in the classroom. They see the nuances and challenges that can come with teaching, yet several still want to pursue it as a profession. That’s a win in my opinion.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching?

A few years ago, I moved away from exams and replaced them with various low- and medium-stakes writing assignments. The students engage with the course material in many ways and learn a lot through these assignments (yeah!), but it’s a bit too writing-intense. I spend many hours each week reviewing them, providing feedback, and allowing revisions and resubmissions. I want to keep the meaningful engagement with the course material but offer more formats/outlets for students to demonstrate their knowledge.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you?

When I teach developmental psychology, we spend some time with case studies, using theories and empirical evidence trying to explain why kids behave the way they do and explore ideas (based on science) on how caregivers or peers could react. At the end of the activity, I often summarize the very good advice we have come up with as a class. My students would be surprised to learn that I am not very good at using this excellent advice in my personal life (with my own kids).

What are you currently reading for pleasure?

I just finished ADHD is awesome by Penn and Kim Holderness. I found it extremely helpful in dispelling some misconceptions I might have had about ADHD.

What tech tool could you not live without?

Google assignments.

School name:  University of Illinois Springfield

Type of school:  Small (<5000 total enrollment), public, teaching-focused, rural-serving university

School locale (including state and country):  Springfield, IL, USA

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  I teach both in-person and online asynchronous courses.

How many years have you taught psychology?  I have been teaching full-time since 2020.

Classes you teach:  Research Methods in Psychology, Psychology of Addiction, Applied Behavior Analysis, Psychology of Pseudoscience, Psychology of Motivation, Principles of Psychology

Specialization (if applicable): Behavior analysis, Teaching

What size classes do you teach?  25 to 30 people maximum

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? 

Teach Students How to Learn by Saundra Yancy McGuire, Specifications Grading by Linda Nilson, and Fuentes et al. (2021) in Teaching of Psychology. All are fantastic resources that encourage us to think carefully about course design (what we are teaching, how we are teaching, why we make the choices we make, and what the impacts may be on ourselves and our students). Teach Students How to Learn and Specifications Grading both encouraged me to critically reflect on giving students learning tools, supports, and autonomy in addition to whatever content I am helping them learn. Fuentes et al. has been foundational in my own journey to teach from a social justice, equity-minded, and strengths-based approach.

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?

It will take semesters, if not years, to feel that a class you teach is solid. You will be tweaking constantly – that’s okay but remember to tweak and avoid an overhaul. And make sure you are comparing all of your classes, their schedules, and your other responsibilities simultaneously rather than in isolation! It can be easy in your early career to forget that you are teaching each class in the context of other tasks and your life outside of work.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity.  

My favorite kinds of in-class activities are small-group activities where the students are given a practical problem to solve using class material and their own perspectives. For example, in my Psychology of Motivation course, we cover Expectancy Value Theory, which is a broad theory about motivation in achievement-related scenarios. First, we discuss research studies that have developed EVT-based interventions and review questionnaires that show how they measured key constructs in those studies. In a separate meeting, I divide them into groups, give them markers and paper with a sticky back (think a big Post-it), and ask them to draft an idea for an EVT-based intervention for an introduction to psychology class. They discuss what they want to focus on and how they would use EVT to inform their ideas. At the conclusion, they do a short “poster session” where they review each other’s ideas and ask each other questions. Ultimately, I think it helps them to practice using abstract ideas and concepts at a level that makes sense and fits into their day-to-day lives. Plus, it’s fun for me to hear them bounce ideas off of each other, share how their individual perspectives shape their ideas, and tackle some of that loneliness that college students sometimes feel.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style? 

Engaging, Compassionate, Organized

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer?

Learning is reciprocal: We learn with each other.

What’s your workspace like? 

I like to have color in my office! There is art by Anna Alvarado and short inspirational quotes on the walls. There’s also a small Costa Rican flag on the wall to represent half of my heritage. A reed diffuser provides a gentle scent. Every workspace should have chocolate, so I keep some tucked away in my desk. J

Tell us about a teaching “win” you’ve had and the context in which it happened.

One of my favorite classes to teach is focused on addiction. A teaching “win” that I am thrilled to have almost every semester that I teach the course are final reflective papers that show students have taken a more empathetic and informed view on addiction. A portion of the students begin the semester with views that bend towards a tougher, more moralistic stance, and most of them will exit the course stating they are glad to be more knowledgeable about the variables that underlie problematic substance use and behavioral addictions, how we can effectively help people seeking assistance for those conditions, and where larger systems contribute to these social issues as opposed to simply individual behavior.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching?

I am currently working on improving both my attitude towards and classroom integration of artificial intelligence (AI) like ChatGPT. There are many challenging issues that instructors need to be aware of, but I also believe there is a space for this technology and it’s important that we engage with it with our students so we can learn together. A specific example: I am considering how to engage with AI to help students understand research methods and study design. I think AI could provide useful food-for-thought when students are developing a research question (e.g., probing for potential confounds and methodological considerations).

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you?

In undergrad, I got a minor in Soil and Water Science. I took an elective class called, “World of Water,” fell in love with the topic, and took enough classes to earn the minor. It has nothing to do with my research or teaching interests at the moment!

What are you currently reading for pleasure?

I am currently reading Sam Quinones’s The Least of Us, which is a deep dive into the combined fentanyl-opioid-stimulant crisis that we face in the USA. He weaves together personal stories with politics and industry scandals to paint a troubling picture of the state of things, but one in which redemption and recovery are possible. He calls on us to do better to help those who are struggling. It’s not something I would say is “pleasurable” in that it makes me happy, but it is something I am reading only for myself!

School name:  Creighton University

Type of school: Private, Jesuit, research university.

School locale (including state and country): Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A.

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  Mostly in-person

How many years have you taught psychology?  20 (yikes…how did that happen?!?)

Classes you teach:  I routinely teach courses in cognition, development, cognitive neuroscience, introduction to psychological science, research methods and statistics.

Specialization (if applicable): Cognition, development, and applying cognitive science to pedagogical practice.

What size classes do you teach?  I teach classes ranging in enrollment from 10 to 65 students.

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received?  

I have received many wonderful pieces of advice about teaching. One thing that has really stuck with me is to remember that students and teachers are all people. We are unique but, at the same time, have many things in common no matter our ages and backgrounds. So, don’t be scared of them, and they won’t be scared of you.

Another, more pragmatic piece of advice is that it takes 3 times to teach a subject/topic/class before you really feel like you have it down. So, do your best, but know that you will get better with practice and experience.

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? 

As a teacher engaged in research aimed to improve pedagogical practice, I keep up with new developments by engaging with the retrieval practice community. Pooja Agarwal, PhD (Berklee College of Music) coordinates a lot of the activity within this community. She curated an array of resources to help educators use what we know from cognitive science to improve their teaching – check it out at http://www.retrieval practice.org

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?

I wish I knew earlier that I should try to get to know each of my students better and to feel comfortable letting them get to know me. I was told in my teacher training program (I was as a high school science teacher with Teach for America) to try to separate myself from my students to maintain my authority. Perhaps that was good advice for a 22-year-old woman learning to teach 16–18-year-olds, but it is not the best approach for teaching university students. Now I find that the more that I get to know my students, the more I can shape my instruction to meet their needs. The more my students get to know me, the more they understand how to communicate with me about their needs. In addition, the more we get to know each other, the more we see that we all have multifaceted and dynamic lives, and this allows us to have more grace with one another.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  

Occasionally, I am able to teach courses that cover cognitive development and language development, in-depth. My favorite topics are language acquisition and reading acquisition. I also like to examine how brain development relates to the acquisition of cognitive skills and the things that babies, toddlers, and children can do throughout development.

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it?

I wish I had a course every semester on cognitive development and/or language and reading development. That is a little more specialized than what is typically offered in an undergraduate psychological science major. I have offered a course like this as our Honors Seminar course, and it was a blast.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style? 

Supportive, rigorous, dynamic (i.e., ever-changing)

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer?

A teacher’s excitement for a topic is contagious.

What’s your workspace like? 

Traditional – I have a department of 12 colleagues, we each have office space as well as lab space and traditional classrooms.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.

I commute to work by bike. Once I forgot to bring a change of clothes and shoes. I was in a hurry and rushed out of my house without packing the outfit that I had set aside to bring. When I got to work, I was panicked, but realized there wasn’t much I could do about it. So, I just went with it. I wore my biking gear to class, and we all thought it was funny.

Tell us about a teaching “win” you’ve had and the context in which it happened.

About 8 years ago, I had a student in cognitive neuroscience who was really struggling with the material. I knew this student well because she had taken classes with me before. We met several times to discuss study strategies (e.g., retrieval practice and distributed practice, etc.) and to discuss any questions she had about course material. She changed the way she was studying based on these strategies, and she improved her grade in the course from a D to an A! She went on to collaborate with me on research projects. She is now in a graduate program in cognitive aging, and we still text one another.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching?

I am currently trying to be more collaborative with students in my classes. I would like them to help create content to support their study habits (e.g., create practice quizzes, study guides, etc.). This is not just to reduce my workload but to help them see that they can create opportunities for practice testing, retrieval practice, and distributed learning for themselves. I want them to be active learners.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you?

People who don’t know me are initially surprised to learn that I have triplet daughters. However, most students know that about me even before we have class together – word of the triplet-mom spreads fast. On the other hand, most students do not know that I used to have a very pronounced southern accent. I grew up in Southern Oklahoma. I will share my former accent with them when we discuss variations in accents and dialects in units on psycholinguistics.

What are you currently reading for pleasure?

I am in a book club. We are currently reading, When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro.

What tech tool could you not live without?

For teaching, I rely heavily on Canvas, OneDrive, and GoogleDocs. For my research, I could not live without my experiment-design programs - Eprime and Chronos.

School name: Wayne State University

Type of school: Public Research University

School locale: Detroit, Michigan, USA

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)? I do all three!

How many years have you taught psychology? I taught middle school for two years, and have been teaching psychology as the instructor of record for 6 years.

Classes you teach: I teach introduction to psychology, statistics for behavioral sciences, learning and memory, and positive psychology

Specialization (if applicable): I am an Assistant Professor of Teaching and my PhD is in Personality and Social Psychology with a focus on Positive Psychology

What size classes do you teach? 50-150

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? I highly recommend the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast hosted by Bonni Stachowiak. She invites wonderful guests, has incredible recommendations, and I am always left inspired!

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting? I wish I knew that every semester the course will evolve and get better and it doesn’t have to happen all at once! I often get very excited and inspired by other educators and want to implement everything all at the same time, but I’ve learned that changing small thing over the course of time is most sustainable.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. My favorite in-class activity is called The Brain Bracket. I time this to be around March Madness and ask students to ruthlessly pit structure of the brain against each other until we come up with a winner (surprise, surprise always the medulla). I love this activity because I get to hear students talking about importance of various structures. For the most part, they aren’t correct answers so sometimes there are productive debates. Add in some extra fun by playing ESPN-style music in the background.

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it? I would LOVE to teach an application of positive psychology class or a development course that looks at children’s literature.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style?  Cringey humor (that’s a quote), flexible, collaborative

What’s your workspace like? I took the entire summer before my faculty position to organize and decorate my office. I felt like I landed my dream job and wanted to make it a comfortable home away from home space. Some highlights include an electric blanket, a photoshopped picture of me with the “founding fathers” of psychology, and a painting of Fiona (Cincinnati Zoo’s famous hippo—check her out).

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation. When I was at a *former unnamed* university, I taught a small seminar in the basement of the psychology building, and during class we found an escaped (unalive) lab rat in the room. We named him Frank and referenced him several times throughout the semester.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching? I am currently working on some projects that involve looking at how both psychology educators and students utilize AI. These folks have encouraged me to use some of these tools and strategies in my own teaching.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I think my students would be surprised to know that my nuclear family holds 5 citizenships (USA, Switzerland, Brazil, Lichtenstein, and Portugal)! We have a lot of passports at our house

What are you currently reading for pleasure? The Women by Kristin Hannah

School name: The Chicago School

Type of school: Professional

School locale: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  Online, primarily asynchronous

How many years have you taught psychology?  9 years

Classes you teach: Abnormal Psychology, Alcohol and Other Drugs in Our Society: Introduction to Chemical Dependency, Behavioral Psychology, Fundamentals of Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Learning and Cognition in Children and Adolescents, Neuropsychology, Philosophical Grounding in Ethics, Theories of Personality, Social Psychology and Culture & Study Abroad Courses to Germany & South Africa

Specialization (if applicable): Teaching undergraduate psychology students, intercultural-competency skill development through study abroad courses

What size classes do you teach? Up to 25 students

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out?  There are so many resources in the community of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology (STP) APA – Division 2 Facebook Page.

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?  I have found how I engage with students through online presence, intentional communication, and cultural humility has the greatest impact on student learning and outcomes.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  The most rewarding courses I have taught included study abroad courses to Germany and South Africa. Being able to see the student growth in intercultural competency skill development, increased awareness of the relationship between power and oppression with marginalized groups, and the positive impact of collective resilience was life-changing for the students, as well as myself.

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it?  A hybrid undergraduate 5-day residency-based course in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, following a 6-week online non-synchronous course, while incorporating a combination of service-learning, experiential learning, and exposure to a variety of professions in the field of psychology and mental health. Sites of interest would include learning about play therapy from the University of North Texas in Denton, observing Child Life Specialists at Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth, participating in Equine Therapy at Freedom Reigns Counseling in Burleson, visiting the TCU Counseling Center to learn more about the benefits of their Gaming Support Community, and experiencing therapeutic art at the Art Station. Finally, included would be an opportunity to practice cultural sensitivity and cultural empathy through a service-learning project.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style?  Empathetic, Engaging, & Encouraging. Prior to earning my PhD, I worked in the mental health field as a Licensed Professional Counselor, so my teaching style mirrors the skills I learned in building a therapeutic alliance.

What’s your workspace like? The institution I work for, The Chicago School, has a true commitment to social justice, encouraging learners to examine personal biases and allows instructors to apply real-world examples of psychological constructs through a socio-cultural lens. I would also love to note that one of the greatest benefits to the remote environment is spending time next to my Goldendoodle, Joey, as I attend Team and Zoom meetings.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.  During my first year of teaching, I realized that power struggles will often times present themselves because of the complex nature of working with humans. However, I have also learned that when this happens practicing empathy and humility with learners goes much further than engaging in a power struggle.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching?  I once had a mentor tell me that, at times, we need to clear the way in order to assist individuals in getting to where they need to be and allow them shine, meaning they already have all the qualities needed to succeed but having opportunities can significantly impact their professional growth and development. For me, what this looks like is inviting students into scholarship opportunities for research, publication, and presentation as this is one of the best ways to allow them to experience real-world learning.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I made a C+ in my first psychology course during my Freshman year in college and earned a whopping 1.8 GPA my first semester. Giving grace is important when students are learning how to learn because you never know what that second chance might bring to the field.

School name: University of the Pacific

Type of school: Private, not-for-profit, medium-sized, liberal arts, HSI and AANHPI-serving university

School locale: California, USA

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  In-person

How many years have you taught psychology?  Seven years full-time as tenure-track faculty plus five years in graduate school

Classes you teach: Currently I teach courses in research methods and statistics and introductory and advanced classes in developmental psychology. I have also taught classes in general psychology and first year seminars focused on writing.

Specialization (if applicable): Developmental, with a focus on social cognition in adulthood

What size classes do you teach? Enrollment caps for my classes range from 20 to 100 students.

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received?  “It’s not you, it’s the shark.” Alas, I do not remember who authored this essay. A faculty was concerned about attendance and participation in his class at a university in Hawai’i. One day, a student approached him and asked if they could leave class to go watch a shark that was caught in a tidepool, where he learned the missing students were. It wasn’t about him, it was about the shark. The moment shifted his perspective from teacher-centered to student-centered, a powerful reminder for me – ultimately my teaching is about student learning.

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? Goodness, there are so many! Here’s two classics: I recommend Even the Rat Was White and Teach Your Students How to Learn (paired with Teach Yourself to Learn).

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?  Student learning is the goal, and I cannot do the learning for students. Being too hands-on or providing too much guidance can take away opportunities for students to innovate and problem-solve. Sometimes, less really is more. I need to provide the right amount of background and guidance, show how to use various tools, then get out of the way. Students rise to high expectations that are supported. Also… not everything that students do has to be graded (and, boy, do I hate grading)! Formative feedback can support learning when given before grading deadlines, with subsequent opportunities for revision.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity.  My favorite assignments are ones that promote student autonomy, use authentic assessment, and foster 21^st century skill development, preparing students for meaningful, dynamic careers. For example, when students collaborate in project teams, they draft group contracts and individual scopes of work specifying how they want to work together, planning how they will each contribute based on their current skills and goals. After the project, they submit reflections reviewing how each group member, including themselves, supported the project’s success. For authentic assessment in Psychology of Aging, students present projects to members of a lifelong learning community. The projects require students to review empirical research to generate “successful aging” recommendations related to a topic of their choosing, fostering psychological literacy.

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it?  I would love to use my expertise in assessment and evidence-based inclusive teaching techniques to innovate a new way of teaching foundational principles for psychology science to a diverse student body. How can we use new technology, peer mentorship, and project-based learning, and other techniques to ensure all students achieve learning outcomes equitably in a sustainable, scalable manner? That’s a puzzle I want to solve! And, a boutique class on the Psychology of Star Trek would be tremendous fun.

What are three words that best describe your teaching style?  Inclusive, evidence-based, active

What’s your workspace like?  When I work from my home office – with one bookshelf of books but more bookshelves of designer euro games – my 10 year old tabby cat is my teaching assistant. Unfortunately, she sleeps on the job. During the winter, she snuggles a heated pad on my desk, and in the summer she lounges on a straw basket lid under a west-facing window. In my campus office, I have standing desk riser and two monitors, one rotated to portrait orientation for reading documents. I store my writing utensils in a chunky ceramic vase with pink and white glaze and an ill-fitted lid. The vase was a gift from the first student whom I mentored for an undergraduate honors thesis. She took a wheel throwing course in her final semester. Ceramics, she said, requires patience and planning; you cannot procrastinate or do everything “last minute.” She appreciated developing those skills in her independent research with me, and the vase is a token reminder of that lesson.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching? I want to design my classes like developmental psychology to focus more on skill development than content delivery.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I was not a psychology major in undergrad. I studied art and design, mathematics, and finance. I worked full-time and went to college part-time after taking time off following my first year.

School name:  University of California, Riverside

Type of school:  Public, large-enrollment, research-focused (R1), Hispanic- and Asian American & Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (HSI & AANAPISI)

School locale (including state and country):  Riverside, California, USA

Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)?  In-person (though most of my classes are offered hybrid as well, and I occasionally teach an asynchronous course in the summer)

How many years have you taught psychology?  10 total, 8 as instructor of record

Classes you teach:  Introduction to Psychology, Psychological Methods: Statistical Procedures, Perception, Psychology of Creativity, Introduction to Quantitative Methods in Psychology (graduate level), Professional Development for Graduate Students (aka “how to get a job”)

Specialization (if applicable): e.g. clinical, cognitive, teaching, etc.
Cognitive, Teaching

What size classes do you teach?  Smallest: 10-15 PhD students; Largest: 585 undergraduates; & everything in between!

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received?  It takes about 3 times teaching the class before you’re remotely “satisfied” with it. So just let it ride and see how things go the first couple of times—you can (and will!) always revise your class to be better in the future!

What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out?  Desirable difficulties in theory and in practice (Bjork & Bjork, 2020). There is reference to earlier work on desirable difficulties that I recommend reading as well!  

Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2020). Desirable difficulties in theory and practice. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 9(4), 475-479. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2020.09.003

What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting?  That it’s okay to not implement everything you know about effective teaching right away! It’s great to aspire to all of these great ideas we read about and see our colleagues implementing, but they take a HUGE amount of work to create and implement effectively. It’s okay to take things slow—you’ll get your class there.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  I think my favorite course to teach is statistics, since students often approach it with a sense of apprehension and dread. I like to convince them that it’s not so bad after all, and is a desirable skill to have regardless of where they go after their time in undergraduate.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity.  I’ve done an activity I found online a few times related to sampling distributions of the mean. I have students bring in a handful of coins and we create a distribution of the years on each coin (usually a lot of more recent coins, but with a long tail toward much older coins). We then calculate the averages of each student’s set of coins and graph those averages to start building a sampling distribution of the mean. This shows students what this theoretical distribution is in a more tangible way and helps them understand the difference between a sample distribution and a sampling distribution (though it’s still quite a confusing concept!).

What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it?  I am planning this course right now--a Teaching of Psychology course for PhD students looking to be instructor of record for their own class.

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer?  I use the acronym CREATE to describe my teaching philosophy—I could explain much more about each one, but in the spirit of the prompt, I’ll leave them as they are:

Collaborative, Relatable, Engaging, Assess (appropriately), Test (often), Encouraging

What’s your workspace like?  Organized chaos. Everything is in its place (which makes things easy to find), but the places that things are in are perhaps not the most organized or optimized. I have dreams of fixing up my office (and home office) to be neater and more aesthetically pleasing, but I can’t motivate myself to do it until things are disastrously messy.

What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching?  I am currently trying to find ways to effectively implement alternative grading (e.g., specifications grading, ungrading) in large lecture classes. I am motivated to understand whether it can be done effectively, and whether the effort is worth it in terms of improving students’ achievement of learning outcomes and their overall experience in the course.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.  When I tried specifications grading in statistics, I set the specifications for the final exam a bit too high, and ended up with many students who would have earned grades far lower than is typical. There were a bunch of (justifiably) angry emails when I released the scores! But I took in the feedback, admitted that I had made a mistake (professors are humans too, after all!) and adjusted the cutoff and final grades accordingly. As a sidenote: happy to chat and share my experiences (good and bad) with anyone who is interested in trying out specs grading—it’s not for the faint of heart!

Tell us about a teaching “win” you’ve had and the context in which it happened.  When I implemented an ungrading approach in Perception, I had students submit final portfolios of their work where they could demonstrate their achievement of the course learning objectives. They also answered reflective questions about their experience in the course, what new things they learned, whether they shared those things with friends/family, etc. Seeing them demonstrate their learning in this way allowed me a much more intimate peek than I typically get with typical exams. It was so inspiring to see them relate the content to their lives and be excited about sharing their newfound knowledge with others.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you?  I hold a second-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

What are you currently reading for pleasure?  I am re-reading the first four books of The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson in anticipation of book 5 (Wind and Truth) coming out at the end of the year.

What tech tool could you not live without?  Email on my phone. I know, I know, it facilitates poor work-life balance… but I have to know if someone has tried to reach me!

School name: School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast

Type of school: Higher Education institute

School locale (including state and country): Belfast, Northern Ireland

How many years have you taught psychology? I taught psychology and research methods/statistics at Belfast Metropolitan College from 2016 until last year. I was appointed as a Lecturer (Education) at Queen’s University Belfast in 2020.

Classes you teach: I teach Developmental psychology to first year students. I also teach mathematical cognition and thesis writing classes to final year students.

Specialization (if applicable): My PhD was in developmental psychology, specifically within the area of mathematical development.

Average class size: 120

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received? The best advice about teaching that I have ever received is simply ‘take your time’. This is a piece of advice I received when attending a teaching course as a PhD student. This really has been pivotal in helping to shape my approach to teaching ever since, and students now comment in their evaluations of my teaching that the classes don’t feel as if they are rushed.

What book or article has shaped your work as a psychology teacher? Hidalgo, G. I., Sánchez-Carracedo, F., & Romero-Portillo, D. (2021). Covid-19 emergency remote teaching opinions and academic performance of undergraduate students: Analysis of 4 students’ profiles. A case study. Mathematics, 9(17), 2147. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9172147

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  I enjoy teaching my final year module on numerical development. In particular, I enjoy teaching about different theories which seek to explain how children acquire numeracy skills during the early years of schooling. In developmental psychology, I also enjoy teaching about emotional development and the development of children’s delay of gratification abilities as I did work in this area during my time as a Research Assistant.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. I ask students in the first class of the mathematical cognition module to contribute to a word cloud on what words come to mind when they think about numeracy. I ask them to do the same thing during the fifth class, and I post both word clouds on Canvas so that they can see their own learning development on the topic within a short space of time.

What teaching and learning techniques work best for you? I like to incorporate technology into my teaching in order to enhance student engagement during lectures. For example, asking for responses to questions via Padlet, demonstrating research to students using Qualtrics, and asking quiz questions on topics covered during the lecture using Mentimeter.

What’s your workspace like? I try to keep my office at the school as tidy as possible. It’s quite minimalist, with no ornaments or pictures! I do have a magnetic dartboard which a colleague/friend of mine bought me when I was appointed as a Lecturer. My home office is quite the opposite! I have a lot of stuff in there, including an electric drumkit for stress relief.

Three words that best describe your teaching style. These three words have been used by students in their evaluations of my teaching over the years: engaging, approachable, and organized.

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer? Explaining difficult concepts in understandable and relatable terms.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation. I taught in an unfamiliar room early last year, and midway through the lecture, the microphone started to sound very robotic and made it seem like I was talking like C3P0! I changed the microphone, and then five minutes later, the same thing happened again. The students were in fits of laughter!

What about teaching do you find most enjoyable? As someone who went to university late, I particularly love to see mature students, who are going to university to try to better themselves, do well on the course. I especially love to see their development over the course of the degree programme: from being nervous about returning to education, to flourishing in their final year.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I think students would be surprised to know that am a huge fan of darts, and I play in a darts team in my spare time.

What are you currently reading for pleasure? USA 94: The World Cup that changed the game by Matthew Evans

What tech tool could you not live without? My handheld PowerPoint slide clicker – without it, I’d not be able to move when teaching!

What is your hallway chatter like? What do you talk to colleagues about most (whether or not it is related to teaching/school)? Our school is very friendly, and when I run into colleagues, we usually spend a few minutes talking about work-related issues. Different colleagues will engage in conversations about different non-work-related things such as football, food, and TV shows.

School name: Drew University

Type of school: Private, liberal arts university

School locale (including state and country): Madison, NJ

How many years have you taught psychology? 4.5 years as a professor

Classes you teach: Introduction to Psychology; Abnormal Psychology; Attachment & Relationships; Seminar: Evidence-Based Psychotherapies; Seminar: Culture & Psychopathology

Specialization: Clinical Psychology

Average class size: 24-35 per section

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received?  What has shaped my teaching has not been any specific advice but more so what I have personally experienced. I have been very lucky to have amazing mentorship throughout my university and graduate experiences. I was blessed with amazing female advisors/mentors/heroes for my time at Drew as an undergrad and my time at the University of Kansas for my PhD. Those incredible people showed me in action the difference one person can make in someone else’s life when they take time to guide, shape, and support their academic growth. I would not be the person I am today without those amazing mentors. My goal as a professor is to offer even half of that to students I advise.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach.  I have been lucky to create some courses based on my specialized areas of clinical interests. One of my favorites, which seems to be popular with students as well, is my special topics course Attachment and Relationships. The course is centered around attachment theory. We explore research data on how the quality of early attachment bonds influence the people we become and how our interactions with early caregivers create the blueprint of how we tend to approach intimate relationships going forward. It is a fun course to teach because attachment influences so much of our life experiences, and it is very relatable content. I love seeing my students making connections both across other courses and in their personal lives. My favorite moments have been with some students who decided to pursue postgraduate studies in Family and Marriage Counseling who cite the course as part of their inspiration.

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity.  One of my favorite assignments is a paper I assign in Abnormal Psychology that requires students to use the information they have learned throughout the semester to complete an informal case conceptualization of a fictional character from a work of literature or film with an identifiable mental illness. It is a great practice for exploring the nuances of diagnoses, comorbidity, precipitating factors, perpetuating factors, etc.

What teaching and learning techniques work best for you?  I incorporate a lot of humor, mnemonics (“If I ever saw a hippo on campus, I would remember that for a long-time…”) visual media, and real-life examples in my teaching. Students have expressed appreciation for how taking my time to show them how to apply the concepts to their real lives helped solidify their learning.

What’s your workspace like?  My campus office decoration theme is Hogwarts. The book series has been a favorite since childhood, so I have a lot of items in my office inspired by that. It is especially cool because I remember, when I first stepped on Drew’s campus as a prospective student many years ago, I was struck by the absolute beauty of the campus, and it reminded me a lot of Hogwarts. My office also has several cherished thank you cards and other tokens from students who have now graduated.

Three words that best describe your teaching style.  Challenging, Attainable, and Relevant.

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer?  High expectations and high support

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation.  I once had one of those moments that happen in nightmares the night before the semester starts. I accidentally wore two very different shoes to teach one day (don’t ask how…)! I did not realize it at all until after my first section was wrapping up. I asked my students if they had noticed and they responded yes, but that they thought it was intentional. We had a great laugh about it, and I quickly let them know I am nowhere cool enough to think I could pull off deliberately wearing two different shoes.

What about teaching do you find most enjoyable? Easily the student connections. It is amazing to just be doing something that comes naturally to me (e.g., helping students understand a concept better in office hours or post baccalaureate career exploration) and to receive a special thank you note from a student that shows me how much that simple thing actually meant to them.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? Students seem pleasantly surprised when they learn that I am creative and that I have a business for those creative ventures.

What are you currently reading for pleasure?  Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum.

What tech tool could you not live without? Honestly, my phone. I always say that if it’s not in my phone calendar, it does not exist because I will forget about it. I survive with the reminders and alerts I have set up.

What is your hallway chatter like? What do you talk to colleagues about most (whether or not it is related to teaching/school)?  My conversations with my colleagues are a mixture of processing our teaching lives, problem-solving any ongoing issues, and us discussing our personal lives and interests.

Has your teaching changed because of the Covid19 pandemic? If so, how?  I think academia is still recovering from the pandemic in many ways. Students often struggle with what going back to “normal” means in terms of deadlines and standards when extreme flexibility was more common in their high school or early college years due to the crisis. Professors are trying to come to terms with social challenges to the value of higher education (and the debt associated for many students) and teaching in a much different technological world with the ongoing advances in ChatGPT and other related AI software.

School name: Delaware State University (DSU or DelState)

Type of school: HBCU

School locale (including state and country): Dover, Delaware, USA

How many years have you taught psychology? Since graduating from East Carolina University’s PhD program, I have been teaching full-time for nine years!

Classes you teach: Most of the classes I teach are traditional, in-person courses. Introduction to General Psychology, Honors Introduction to General Psychology, Health Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Principles of Psychopathology, Psychology of Learning, Senior Research Seminar.

Specialization: My doctoral degree is in Health Psychology with a specialization in Pediatric School Psychology.

Average class size: 30 to 35 students

What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received? At ECU, I had the honor to take courses about teaching as a graduate student and one piece of advice that I have implemented ever since is to structure class time in 10 to 20-minute chunks to hold students’ attention and foster engagement (e.g., in a 50-minute class: lecture, group work, lecture, video clip, lecture, review).

What book or article has shaped your work as a psychology teacher? 

• Keeley, J., Afful., S. E., Stiegler-Balfour, J. J., Good, J. J., & Leder. S. (2013). So you landed a job – What’s next? Advice for early career psychologists from early career psychologists. Retrieved from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology web site.
• Hogan, K.A. & Sathy, V. (2022). Inclusive Teaching: Strategies for Promoting Equity in the College Classroom. West Virginia University Press.

Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach. It is so hard to choose! I will narrow it down to two. I really like teaching students about parts of the brain. Students like it because we do a lot of drawings and hands-on activities like making neurons out of pipe cleaners and drawing the lobes on each other while wearing shower caps. Another favorite of mine is on operant conditioning principles of +R, -R, +P, and -P. With a background in Applied Behavior Analysis, I enjoy teaching students about the differences and similarities among punishment and reinforcement techniques. In groups, students are asked to give examples of how to utilize these principles in their professional careers (e.g., teach a class of noisy ballet dancers) and personal lives (e.g., deal with a messy roommate).

Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. I introduce an activity called Speed Meeting on the first day of class to get to know each other. Students write down certain facts on an index card. Then, we go out in the hallway and make two lines. Students have a partner and talk to that partner about what they wrote down on the card for about 1 minute. Then, after the timer sounds, one line moves down so each student has a different partner. We rotate two or three more times. I bring it back as a review activity throughout the semester.

What teaching and learning techniques work best for you? There are so many to talk about! From my most recent course evaluations and written feedback, I believe that the teaching and learning techniques that are working for my students include learning each of my student’s names, holding students accountable for coming to class by taking daily attendance, providing skeletal notes, using Power Points for lecture, doing sample test questions, reviewing content learned at each class session, and providing time in class to engage in group work.

What’s your workspace like? Since the pandemic, my daughter, husband and I have developed into plant parents. My office is home to a variety of plants: jade (crassula ovata), spider (chlorophytum comosum), snake (dracaena trifadciata), fantasy venice (tradescantia nanouk), and mother of millions (kalanchoe delagoensis). Our home office has a lot more! I also have a standing desk with two screens, a couch, and filing cabinets decorated with magnets from places traveled or activities that make me smile.

Three words that best describe your teaching style.  I want to share the most frequently-used words from last semester’s course evaluations and student feedback because they validate what I want to accomplish in the classroom! Welcoming, Interactive, and Engaging.

What is your teaching philosophy in 8 words or fewer? Encouraging mutual learning through support, relevance, and kindness.

Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation. There are countless times when I planned activities and they have fallen flat! One of them early in my career was when I was a graduate assistant for an Introduction to Psychology class with 100+ students and prepared a game to do as a review which utilized Glee (yes, I was a Gleek!) cards. I assigned different Glee character cards as certain letters which coordinated with different questions. I did not write down what cards matched with what letter, so everyone got confused! I learned that I needed to try out different activities with friends or loved ones before implementing them in the classroom.

What about teaching do you find most enjoyable? In terms of the quality of life as an instructor, I love the schedule of being a professor. Having breaks throughout the year as well as summers off helps with spending time with my daughter, husband, and family. I also love how each semester is a fresh start for students and faculty and staff. I like that I can make changes to a course and modify techniques based on feedback and outcomes. I also love how each academic year is filled with excitement about coming to college and then graduating from college! I truly enjoy helping students with their own career trajectories, discussing the many opportunities available to them, and the people/departments/resources in college that can support them towards their goals. I hold first-generation college students and students with children especially dear to my heart.

What is something your students would be surprised to learn about you? I am an ovarian cancer survivor. I was diagnosed in summer 2019 and continued teaching after a radical hysterectomy and throughout chemotherapy. I received tenure in 2020 as an associate professor at Wesley College. When it was acquired by DSU, I lost status and tenure. I was Visiting Assistant Professor during a probationary period and just recently transitioned to tenure-track Assistant Professor. I discuss teaching through cancer and other aspects of my career in a recent article in the Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine.

What are you currently reading for pleasure? For me, Murder and Mamon by Mia P. Manansala (Book 4 of the A Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery). With my daughter, Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey by Erin Entrada Kelly. Filipina authors write these books, and I heard about them from being a member of the Filipinx Author Book Club. I am so inspired by the authors who talk about their journeys that I am taking classes to write my own middle grade novel!

What tech tool could you not live without? As a professor, there are several tools that I need to make my days less stressful including Outlook, Google Calendar, Color Note, Power Point, etc. Before 2022, I would have probably said my flash drive(s), then I bought an expensive one which stopped working and I switched to One Drive and Google Drive.

What is your hallway chatter like? What do you talk to colleagues about most (whether or not it is related to teaching/school)? Very often it is about technology issues that we are experiencing in our classrooms! Other topics include when meetings and parties are as well as student issues (the good, the bad, and the ugly).

Has your teaching changed because of the Covid19 pandemic? If so, how? I make sure to emphasize social support and add in readings to help students feel that they are not alone in their academic journeys. To this end, I also find myself disclosing more about myself. Notably, when discussing social support through community service, I tell my students about volunteering for a nonprofit, Pursuit for Peace, which is an organization with volunteers who dress up as princesses and visit medically vulnerable populations. In terms of assignments, I remember a talk from ACT 2022 about bending not breaking the rules/standards. I implement more grace periods for late work as well as drops for assignments and quizzes. I also make sure to emphasize the importance of in-person interactions and oral presentations.