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.