School name: Minnesota State University Moorhead
Type of school: Midsize (4,410 students including undergraduate and graduate) Public University
School locale: Moorhead, Minnesota (US)
Is your role mostly in-person, hybrid, online (synchronous or asynchronous)? Mainly in-person, but I also teach some flexible and asynchronous online courses
How many years have you taught psychology? I am currently in my 5th year, 2nd year full time post-grad
Classes you teach: General Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Behavior, Experimental Methods, Psychology of Women, Child/Adolescent Psychology, Adulthood & Aging, History & Systems of Psychology
Specialization: Experimental Psychology
What size classes do you teach? 40-70 students, smaller for our research & capstone courses (about 15)
What’s the best advice about teaching you’ve ever received? In grad school, my advisor told us that you’re not going to have the perfect class the first time. And I have found this to be true, especially because students in each class are so different. No matter how many times I’ve taught a course, there are always things I’m changing. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that that’s okay, because that’s how we learn and develop!
What is a book, article, research, or author/researcher that you would recommend that new teachers check out? I took a Teaching & Learning course in graduate school and we read Small Teaching by James Lang. I really enjoyed the evidence-based approach and the detail the author provided in describing why certain teaching methods were important or beneficial for students.
What do you know now about teaching that you wish you knew when you were starting? That you don’t have to know everything! I used to worry about students asking me questions I didn’t know the answer to – now I love when it happens because it means they are curious about the course material and they are thinking about it on a deeper level. I’ll tell them if I don’t know the answer, but I also make sure to research their question and follow up with them during the next class period. I love that we all get to learn something together when this happens.
Briefly tell us about your favorite lecture topic or course to teach. I really enjoy teaching about social psychology – whether it be the class itself, the subdiscipline in General Psychology, or social development in the developmental courses. Partly, I think it’s so fun because it’s so relatable. I can give real life examples and I can see the look on students’ faces when they “get it.” They’re also pretty quick to come up with examples themselves. It is a great topic when learning can truly be fun because they have had those experiences, and now they can use science to explain them!
Briefly describe a favorite assignment or in-class activity. When I teach Social Behavior, I include a final paper rather than a final exam. The students and I watch the first few episodes of When They See Us (a docuseries about the Exonerated 5). They then have to write about three concepts we learned about in class that they observed in the series. I always assume that most students will write about obedience and discrimination, but without fail every semester I get a student who writes about a new concept I never made the connection to. It is one of my favorite assignments to grade because they are all so insightful!
What’s your dream course if you had the time and resources to teach it? I would love to teach a course on psychology in the media. I’m a reality TV fiend, and I’m always thinking about ways course content can relate to shows, like social psychology and Survivor or Big Brother. Stand-Up Comedy sets like Hasan Minhaj’s Homecoming King relates to the psychology of prejudice and discrimination. America’s Next Top Model and psychology of women… the connections are limitless!
What are three words that best describe your teaching style? Approachable and relatable. I always want students to know that I’m cheering for their success, and I genuinely want them to do well - so please let me know if you have questions! I also try to be relatable. I think students remember information better if they can relate it to things they are interested in. You’ll often catch me making references to celebrities or movies to try to connect the material to real-world examples.
What’s your workspace like? It’s colorful and sort of maximalist! I have a lot of pictures and little signs in my office. I recently added a wall with embroidered quotes from Taylor Swift songs. I want my space to feel inviting to students so they feel comfortable talking with me rather than a sterile office where they feel like they have to be very serious all the time. I think showing students that I’m human just like them (I have pictures of my friends on the walls, I display my family pets in little picture frames, I like Taylor Swift too!) helps them feel more comfortable approaching me and can open the door for more productive conversations.
Tell us about a teaching disaster (or embarrassment) you’ve had and how you dealt with the situation. The first time I taught social psychology, I tried to do a demonstration on priming, and it didn’t work! I showed students a list of words all relating to a topic (court, ball, racket, shoes, etc.) and asked them to try to remember as many as possible. A couple minutes later when I asked them to recall the words, nobody wrote down tennis. I was embarrassed that my attempt to prime them didn’t work, and I worried that they wouldn’t understand the concept. I explained the concept and noted that sometimes people will falsely recall “tennis” because all of the other words related to it. They all seemed to do fine on the next exam, so I don’t think I failed too badly!
Tell us about a teaching “win” you’ve had and the context in which it happened. When I was in graduate school, I taught social psychology one semester and advanced social psychology the next. I had a couple of students who took both classes with me, one of whom was a fantastic student and researcher. I saw her the next year presenting at our University’s psychology conference and told her how much I hoped she would go on to grad school because of how successful she is. She told me that she was applying to social psychology programs because of my courses. That is a feeling I will never forget!
What is something you are currently focused on improving or changing in your teaching? I am currently working on making all of my assignments more transparent. I want to add learning outcomes/objectives to all of my assignments in each of my courses to help students understand the reasoning for their work and how it applies to both the material and the real world. Not only does it help with this, but it also helps students know what they should be focusing on as they are completing their assignments, making guidelines less ambiguous and hopefully reducing students’ struggles in getting assignments done.
What are you currently reading for pleasure? I just finished Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz. She wrote it about her time in a cult while starring in One Tree Hill. I typically find it hard to read for pleasure because I read so much for my research, but I couldn’t put this book down!
